Wilhelm Hauff - "Maerchen Almanach auf das Jahr 1828"

Angelina Emily Grimke - "An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South"

John Fiske - "The War of Independence"

Victor Hugo - "Actes et Paroles, vol. 3"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Volume 14

E >> Elbert Hubbard >> Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Volume 14




* * * * *

East Aurora: Aloysia married the man of her choice--an actor by the name
of Lange. They quarreled right shortly, and soon he used to beat her.
This was endured for a year or more, then she left him. For a while she
lived with Wolfgang and Constance, and Mozart, true to his nature, gave
her from his own scanty store and deprived himself for her benefit. He
stood godfather to one of her children and was a true friend to her to
the last.

After Aloysia lived to be an old woman, and long after Mozart had passed
out, and the world had begun to utter his praises, she said: "I never
for a moment thought he was a genius--I always considered him just a
nice little man."

Mozart's soul was filled with melody, and all of his music is faultless
and complete. He possessed the artistic conscience to a degree that is
unique. Careless and heedless in all else, if his mood was not right and
the product was halting, he straightway destroyed the score. He was
always at work, always hearing sweet sounds, always weighing and
balancing them in the delicate scales of his judgment.

So absorbed was he in his art that he fell an easy victim to the
designing, and never stopped his work long enough to strike off the
shackles that bound him to a vain, selfish and unappreciative court.

Worn by constant work, worried by his wife's continued illness, dogged
by creditors, and unable to get justice from those who owed it to him,
his nerves at the early age of thirty-five gave way.

His vitality rapidly declined and at last went out as a candle does when
blown upon by a sudden gust from an open door.

It was a blustering winter day in December, Seventeen Hundred
Ninety-one, when his burial occurred. A little company of friends
assembled, but no funeral-dirge was played for him, save the blast blown
through the naked branches of the trees, as they hurried the plain pine
coffin to its final resting-place. At the gate of the cemetery the few
friends turned back and left the lifeless clay to the old gravedigger,
who never guessed the honor thus done him.

It was a pauper's grave that closed over the body of Mozart--coffin
piled on coffin, and no one marked the spot. All we know is, that
somewhere in Saint Mark's Cemetery, Vienna, was buried in a trench the
most accomplished composer and performer the world has ever known. It
was a hundred years afterward before the city made tardy amends by
erecting a fitting monument to his memory.

His best monument is his work. The melody that once filled his soul is
yours and mine; for by his art he made us heirs to all that wealth of
love that was never requited, and the dreams, that for him never came
true, are our precious and priceless legacy.




[Illustration: JOHANNES BRAHMS]

JOHANNES BRAHMS


What is music? This question occupied my mind for hours last night
before I fell asleep. The very existence of music is wonderful, I
might even say miraculous. Its domain is between thought and
phenomena. Like a twilight mediator, it hovers between spirit and
matter, related to both, yet differing from each. It is spirit, but
spirit subject to the measurement of time; it is matter, but matter
that can dispense with space.

--_Heine_


JOHANNES BRAHMS

Emerson has said that, next to the man who first voices a great truth,
is the one who quotes it.

Truth is in the air; it belongs to all who can appreciate it; and the
difference between the man who gives a truth expression and the listener
who at once comprehends and repeats it, is very slight. If you
understand what I say, it is because you have thought the same thoughts
yourself--I merely express for you that which you already know. And so
you approve and applaud, not stopping to think that you are applauding
your own thought; and your heart beats fast and you say, "Yes, yes, why
didn't I say that myself!"

All conversation is a sort of communion--an echoing back and forth of
thoughts, feelings and emotions. We clarify our thoughts by expressing
them--no idea is quite your own until you tell it to another.

Music is simply one form of expression. Its province is to impart a
sublime emotion. To give himself is the controlling impulse in the heart
of every artist--to impart to others the joy he feels--this is the
dominant motive in his life.

Hence the poet writes, the artist paints, the sculptor models, the
singer sings, the musician plays--all is expression--a giving voice to
the Silence. But it is all done for others. In ministering to others the
artist ministers to himself. In helping others we help ourselves. We
grow strong through exercise, and only the faculties that are
exercised--that is to say, expressed--become strong. Those not in use
atrophy and fall victims to arrested development.

Man is the instrument of Deity--through man does Deity create. And the
artist is one who expresses for others their best thoughts and feelings.
He may arouse in men emotions that were dormant, and so were unguessed;
but under the spell of the artist-spirit, these dormant faculties are
awakened from lethargy--they are exercised, and once the thrill of life
is felt through them, they will probably be exercised again and again.

All art is collaboration between the performer and the partaker--music
is especially a collaboration. It is a oneness of feeling: action and
reaction, an intermittent current of emotion that plays backward and
forward between the player and his audience. The player is the positive
pole, or masculine principle; and the audience the negative pole, or
feminine principle.

In great oratory the same transposition takes place. Almost every one
can recall occasions when there was an absolute fusion of thought,
feeling and emotion between the speaker and the audience--when one mind
dominated all, and every heart beat in unison with his. The great
musician is the one who feels intensely, and is able to express
vividly, and thus impart his emotion to others.

Robert Schumann was such a man. In his youth, when he played at parlor
gatherings he could fuse the listeners into an absolute oneness of
spirit. You can not make others feel unless you yourself feel; you can
not make others see unless you yourself see. Robert Schumann saw. He
beheld the moving pictures, and as they passed before him he expressed
what he saw in harmonious sounds. His many admirers say he gave
"portraits" on the piano, and by sounds would describe certain persons,
so others who knew these persons would recognize them and call their
names.

Sterndale Bennett has told of Schumann's playing Weber's "Invitation to
the Dance," and accompanying it with little verbal explanations of what
he saw, thus: "There," said the player as he struck the opening chords,
"there, he bows, and so does she--he speaks--she speaks, and oh! what a
voice--how liquid! listen--hear the rustle of her gown--he speaks, a
little deeper, you notice--you can not hear the words, only their voices
blending in with the music--now they speak together--they are lovers,
surely--see, they understand--oh! the waltz--see them take those first
steps--they are swaying into time--away!--there they go--look!--you can
not hear their voices now--only see them!"

Schumann studied law, and had he followed that profession he would have
made a master before a jury. He saw so clearly and felt so deeply, and
was so full of generosity and bubbling good-cheer, that he was
irresistible. As we know, he proved so to Clara Wieck, who left father
and mother and home to cleave to this unknown composer.

This splendid young woman was nine years younger than Robert, but she
had already made a name and fortune for herself before they were
married.

In passing it is well enough to call attention to the fact that this is
one of the great loves of history. It ranks with the mating of Robert
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. How strange that such things are so
exceptional that the world takes note of them!

Yet for quite a number of years after their marriage, Madame Schumann
was at times asked this question: "Is your husband musical?"

But Robert Schumann, like Robert Browning, was too big a man to be
jealous of his wife. Jealousy is an acknowledgment of weakness and
insecurity. "Robert and Clara," their many dear friends always called
them. They worked together--composed, sang, played, and grew great
together. And as if to refute the carping critics who cry that
domesticity and genius are incompatible, Clara Schumann became the happy
mother of eight children, and not a year passed but she appeared upon
the concert stage, while a nurse held the baby in the wings. Schumann
was very proud of his wife. He was grateful to her for interpreting his
songs in a way he could not. His lavish heart went out to every one who
expressed the happiness and harmony which he felt singing in his soul.

And so he welcomed all players and all singers, and all who felt the
influence of an upward gravitation. Especially was he a friend of the
young and the unknown. His home at Dusseldorf was a Mecca for the
aspiring--worthy and unworthy--and to these he gave his time, money and
influence. "Genius must have recognition--we will discover and bring
forth these beautiful souls; we will liberate and give them to the
world," he used to say. Not only did he himself express great things,
but he quoted others.

Among those who had reverenced the Schumanns from afar, came a young man
of twenty, small and fair-haired, from Hamburg. He was received at the
regular "Thursday Night" with various other strangers. These meetings
were quite informal, and everybody was asked to play or sing. On being
invited to play, our young man declined. But on a second visit he sat
down at the piano and played. It was several minutes before the company
ceased the little buzz of conversation and listened--the fledglings were
never taken seriously except by the host and hostess. The youth leaned
over the keyboard, and seemed to gather confidence from the sympathetic
attitude of the listeners, and especially Clara Schumann, who had come
forward and stood at his elbow.

He played from Schumann's "Carnival," and as he played, freedom came to
him. He surprised himself. When he ceased playing, Robert kissed his
cheek, and the company were vehement in their applause. Next day
Schumann met Albert Dietrich, another disciple who had come from a
distance to bask in the Schumann sunshine, and said with an air of
mystery: "One has come of whom we shall yet hear great things. His name
is Johannes Brahms."

* * * * *

We have at least four separate accounts of Brahms' first appearance and
behavior when he arrived at the city of Dusseldorf. These descriptions
are by Robert and Clara Schumann, Doctor Dieters and Albert Dietrich.
All agree that Johannes Brahms was a most fascinating personality.
Dieters and Dietrich were about the age of Brahms, and were lesser
satellites swinging just outside the Schumann orbit. Very naturally when
a new devotee appeared, they gazed at him askance. Many visitors were
coming and going, and from most of them there was nothing to fear, but
when this short, deep-chested boy with flaxen hair appeared, Dietrich
felt there was danger of losing his place at the right hand of the
Master.

Brahms carried his chin in, and the crown of his head high. He was
infinitely good-natured, met everybody on an equality, without abasement
or condescension. He was modest, never pushed himself to the front, and
was always ready to listen. A talented performer who can listen well, is
sure to be loved. And yet when Brahms went forward to play, there was
just a suggestion of indifference to his hearers in his manner, and a
half-haughty self-confidence that won before he had sounded a note. We
always believe in people who believe in themselves.

Young Brahms brought a letter of introduction from Joachim. But that was
nothing--Joachim was always giving letters to everybody. He was like
the men who sign every petition that is presented; or those other good
men who give certificates of character to people they do not know, and
recommendation letters to those for whom they have no use.

So the letter went for little with Robert Schumann--it was the way
Brahms approached the piano, and settled his hands and great shock-head
over the keyboard, that won.

"He is no beginner," whispered Clara to Robert before Johannes had
touched a key.

It didn't take Brahms long to get acquainted--he mixed well. In a few
days he dropped into that half-affectionate way of calling his host and
hostess by their first names, and they in turn called him "Johannes."
And to me this is very beautiful, for, at the last, souls are all of one
age. More and more we are realizing that getting old is only a bad
habit. The only man who is old is the one who thinks he is. Of course
these remarks about age do not exactly apply just here, for no member of
the trinity we are discussing was advanced in years. Robert was
forty-three, Clara was thirty-four, and Johannes was twenty.

Johannes Brahms was thrice well blest in being well born. His parents
were middle-class people, fairly well-to-do. They proved themselves
certainly more than middle-class in intellect, when they adopted the
plan of being the companions and comrades of their children. Johannes
grew up with no slavish fear of "old folks." He had worked with his
father, studied with him; learned lessons from books with his mother,
and played "four hands" with her at the piano, by the hour, just for
fun.

Then when Remenyi came that way with his violin, and wanted a pianist,
he took young Brahms. When their lines crossed the line of Liszt, they
played for him at his inn; and then Liszt played for them.

This Remenyi was our own "Ol' Man Remenyi," who passed over only a year
or so ago. I wonder if he was Ol' Man Remenyi then! He never really was
an old man, and that appellation was more a mark of esteem than anything
else--a sort of diminutive of good-will. I met Remenyi at Chautauqua,
where he spent a month or more in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three. He gave
me my first introduction to the music of Brahms, of whom he never tired
of talking. He considered Brahms without a rival--the culminating flower
of modern music; and if the Ol' Man slightly exaggerated his own
influence in bringing Brahms out and presenting him to the world, I am
not the one to charge it up against his memory.

In explaining Brahms and his music, Remenyi used to grow animated, and
when words failed he would say, "Here, it was just like this"--and then
he would seize his violin, the bow would wave through the air, and the
notes would tell you how Brahms transposed Beethoven's "Kreutzer
Sonata" from A to B flat--a feat he never could have performed if
Remenyi had not told him how. It was Remenyi who introduced Brahms to
Joachim, and it was Joachim who introduced Brahms to Schumann, and it
was Schumann's article, "New Paths," in the "Neue Zeitschrift fur
Musik," that placed Brahms on a pedestal before the world. Brahms was
not the great man that Schumann painted, Remenyi thought, but the
idealization caused him to put forth a heroic effort to be what Clara
and Robert considered him. So it was really these two who compelled him
to push on: otherwise he might have relaxed into a mere concert
performer or a leader of some subsidized band.

Remenyi always seemed to me like a choice antique mosaic, a trifle
weather-worn, set into the present. He used to quote Liszt as if he
lived around the corner, and would criticize Wagner, and tell of
Moescheles, Haertel, the Mendelssohns and the Schumanns, as if they
might all gather tomorrow and play for us at the Hall in the Grove.

Recently I met dear old Herr Kappes, eighty years young, who knew the
Mendelssohns, and admired Brahms, loved Clara Schumann, and liked
Remenyi--sometimes. They were too much alike, I fear, to like each other
all the time. But the harmony is still in the heart of Herr Kappes. He
gives music-lessons, and lectures, and will explain to you just how and
where Brahms differs from Schumann, and where Schubert separates from
both.

Herr Kappes can speak five languages, but even with them all he finds
difficulty in making his meaning clear, and at times adopts the Remenyi
plan, and will just turn to the piano and cry, "It's like this, see!
Schumann wrote it in this way"--and then the strong hands will chase the
keys down and back and over and up. "But Brahms took the motif and set
it like this"--and Herr Kappes will strike the bass a thunderous
stroke--pause, look at you, glide back and down, up and over, and you
are carried away in a swirl of sweet sounds, and see a pink face framed
in its beautiful aureole of white hair. You listen but you do not "see"
the fine distinctions, because you do not care--Herr Kappes is all there
is of it, so animated, so gentle, so true, so lovable--because he used
to pay court to Fanny Mendelssohn and then transferred his affections to
Clara Schumann, and now just loves his art, and everybody.

* * * * *

Schumann's article, "New Paths," at once determined Brahms' career. He
must either live up to the mark that had been set for him--or else run
away.

I give below an extract from Robert's estimate of Brahms and his work:

Ten years have passed away, as many as I formerly devoted to the
publication of this paper--since I have allowed myself to commit my
opinions to this soil so rich in memories. Often in spite of an
overstrained productive activity, I have felt moved to do so; many
new and remarkable talents have made their appearance, and a fresh
musical power seemed about to reveal itself among the many aspiring
artists of the day, even if their compositions were only known to
the few.

I thought to follow with interest the pathways of these elect;
there would--there must--after such a promise, suddenly appear one
who should utter the highest ideal expression of the times, who
should claim the mastership by no gradual development, but burst
upon us fully equipped, as Minerva sprang from the brain of
Jupiter. And he has come, this chosen youth, over whose cradle the
Graces and Heroes seem to have kept watch.

His name is Johannes Brahms; he comes from Hamburg, where he has
been working in quiet obscurity, instructed by an excellent,
enthusiastic teacher in the most difficult principles of his art,
and lately introduced to me by an honored and well-known master.
His mere outward appearance assures us that he is one of the
elect.

Seated at the piano, he disclosed wondrous regions. We were drawn
into an enchanted circle. Then came a moment of inspiration which
transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant
voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies, songs
whose poetry revealed itself without the aid of words, while
throughout them all ran a vein of deep song-melody, several pieces
of a half-demoniacal character, but of charming form; then sonatas
for piano and violin, string quartets, and each of these creations
so different from the last that they appeared to flow from so many
different sources. Then, like an impetuous torrent, he seemed to
unite these streams into a foaming waterfall; over the tossing
waves the rainbow presently stretches its peaceful arch, while on
the banks butterflies flit to and fro, and the nightingale warbles
her song.

Whenever he bends his magic wand towards great works, and the
powers of orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, still more
wonderful glimpses of the ideal world will be revealed to us.

May the Highest Genius help him onward! Meanwhile another
genius--that of modesty--seems to dwell within him. His comrades
greet him at his first step in the world, where wounds may,
perhaps, await him, but the bay and the laurel also; we welcome
this valiant warrior!

Robert Schumann had been before the public as essayist, poet, pianist
and composer for twenty years. He had given himself without stint to
almost every musical enterprise of Germany, and his sympathy was ever on
tap for every needy and aspiring genius. You may give your purse--he
who takes it takes trash--but to give your life's blood and then hope
for a renewal of life's lease, is vain.

The public man owes to himself and to his Maker the duty of reserve.

The desert and mountain are very necessary to the individual who gives
himself to the public. That any man should so bestride the narrow world
like a colossus that the multitude must stop to gaze, and thousands feed
upon his words, is an abnormal condition. The only thing that can hold
the balance true is solitude. Relaxation is the first requirement of
strength. Watch the cat, the tiger or the lion asleep. See what complete
absence of intensity--what perfect relaxation! It is all a preparation
for the spring.

Schumann had not sought the mountain, nor abandoned himself to the woods
in old shoes, corduroys and a flannel shirt. Now he was paying the
penalty of publicity. Virtue had gone out of him; and in the article
just quoted, there are signs that he is clutching for something. He
hails this new star and proclaims him, because in some way he feels that
the ruddy, valiant and youthful Brahms is to consummate his work. Brahms
is an extension of himself. It is a part of that longing for
immortality--we perpetuate ourselves in our children and look for them
to accomplish what we have been unable to do.

Johannes Brahms was the spiritual son of Robert Schumann.

In less than a year after Brahms and Schumann first met, there were
ominous signs and evil portents in the air. "Why do you play so fast,
dear Johannes? I beg of you, be moderate!" cried Robert on one occasion.
Brahms turned, and his quick glance caught the ashy face and bloodshot
eyes of a sick man. His reply was a tear and a hand-grasp.

Soon, to Schumann, all music was going at a gallop, and in his ears
forever rang the sound of A. He could hear naught else. Tenderness,
patience, and even love were of no avail. Indeed, love is not exempt
from penalty--the law of compensation never rests. Nature forever
strives for a right adjustment.

The richness and intensity of Schumann's life were bought with a price.
The first year after his marriage he composed one hundred thirty-eight
songs. Sonatas, scherzos, symphonies and ballads followed fast, and in
it all his gifted wife had gloried.

But when, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Robert had, after sleepless
nights, in a fit of frenzy thrown himself into the Rhine, and had been
rescued, shattered, unable to recognize even his nearest friends--the
loyal and devoted wife saw where she herself had erred.

Writing to Brahms she says: "I encouraged him in his work, and this
fired his ambition to do and to become. Oh! why did I not restrain that
intensity and send him away into the solitude to be a boy; to do nothing
but frolic and play and bathe in the sunshine, and eat and sleep? The
life of an artist is death. Kill ambition, my Brother!"

Activity and rest--both are needed. The idea of the "retreat" in the
Catholic Church is founded on stern, hygienic science. Wagner's forced
exile was not without its advantages, and the "retreats" of Paganini and
the "retirements" of Liszt were very useful factors in the devolution of
their art.

* * * * *

For the malady that beset Robert Schumann, there was no cure save death;
his only rest, the grave. When his spirit passed away in Eighteen
Hundred Fifty-six, his devoted wife and the loyal Brahms attended him.
Owing to the insidious creeping of the disease, Schumann's affairs had
got into bad shape; and it was now left to Brahms, more than all others,
to smooth the way of life for the stricken wife and her fatherless
brood.

The versatility and sturdy commonsense of Brahms were now in evidence.
In business affairs he was ready, decisive and systematic. And the
delicacy, tact and charming good-nature he ever showed, reveal the man
as a most extraordinary figure. Great talent is often bought at a
price--how well we know this, especially with musicians! But Brahms was
sane on all subjects. He could take care of his own affairs, lend a
needed hand with others, but never meddle--smile with that half-sardonic
grimace at all foolish little things, weep with the stricken when
calamity came; yet above it all the little man towered, carrying himself
like the giant that he was. And yet he never made the mistake of taking
himself too seriously. "I am trying to run opposition to Michelangelo's
'Moses,'" he once called to Dietrich, as he leaned out of the window in
the sunshine, and stroked his flowing beard. In his later years many
have testified to this Jovelike quality that Brahms diffused by his
presence. No one could come into his aura and fail to feel his sense of
power. Around such souls is a sacred circle--if you are allowed to come
within this boundary, it is only by sufferance; within this space only
the pure in heart can dwell.

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