Richard F. Burton - "First footsteps in East Africa"

Various - "Georgian Poetry 1911 12"

Albert Manucy - "Artillery Through the Ages"

Richard Kaufmann - "Fra det moderne Frankrig"

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




I once heard Henry Irving make a speech at Harvard University, and shall
never forget the tremor in his voice and the half-embarrassment of his
manner. What could have been more complimentary to college striplings?
And then, as usual, he looked helplessly about for Ellen Terry, and
having located her, held out his hand toward her and led her to the
front to receive the homage.

Tears filled my eyes. Was Irving's action art? Ods-bodkins! I never
thought of it: I was hypnotized and all swallowed up in loving
admiration for Sir Henry and the beautiful Lady Ellen.

Felix Mendelssohn was beloved by his players. First, because he never
wrote parts that only seraphs of light could play. In this he was unlike
Wagner, who could think such music as no brass, no wood nor strings
could perform, and so was ever in torments of doubt and disappointment.
Second, he was always grateful when his players did the best they could.
Third, he was graciously polite, even at rehearsals. The extent of his
inclination to rebuke was shown once when he abruptly rapped for
silence, and when quiet came said to his orchestra: "I am sure that any
one of the gentlemen present could write a symphony. I think, too, that
you can all improve on the music of the past--even that of Beethoven.
But this afternoon we are playing Beethoven's music--will you oblige
me?" And every man awoke to the necessity of putting the sweet, subtile,
strong quality of the master into the work, instead of absent-mindedly
sounding the note, fighting bluebottles, and taking care merely not to
get off the key too much.

At the great Birmingham Festival several hundred ladies in the audience
contrived at a given signal to shower the great conductor with bouquets.
And Mendelssohn, entering into the spirit of the fun, dexterously caught
the blossoms and tossed them to his players, not even forgetting the
triangles and the boys who played the kettledrums.

Bayard Taylor has described the lustrous brown eyes of Mendelssohn, that
seemed to send rays of light into your own: "Such eyes are the
possession of men who have seen heavenly visions. Genius shows itself in
the eye. Those who looked into the eyes of Sir Walter Scott, Robert
Burns or Lord Byron, always came away and told of it as an epoch in
their lives. This was what I thought when I sat vis-a-vis with Felix
Mendelssohn and looked into his eyes. I did not hear his voice, for I
was too intent on gazing into the fathomless depths of those splendid
eyes--eyes that mirrored infinity, eyes that had beheld celestial glory.
Little did I think then that in two years those eyes would close
forever."

* * * * *

In a letter to Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn's sex-quality is finely
revealed, when he says that his friends are advising him to marry, and
he is on the lookout for a wife.

Ye gods! there is something strangely creepy about the thought of a man
going out in cold blood to seek a wife. Only two kinds of men search for
a wife; one is the Turk, and the other is his antithesis, who is advised
to marry for hygienic, prudential or sociologic reasons. John Ruskin was
"advised" to marry and the matter was duly arranged for him. In a week
he awoke to the hideousness of the condition. Six years elapsed before
John Millais and Chief Justice Coleridge collaborated to set him free,
but the cicatrix remained.

The great books are those the authors had to write to get rid of; the
only immortal songs are those sung because the singers could not help
it. The best-loved wife is the woman who married because her lover had
to marry her to get rid of her; the children that are born because they
had to be are the ones that stock the race; and the love that can not
help itself is the only love that uplifts and inspires.

Felix Mendelssohn, the slight, joyous, girlish youth, should have
preserved his Cecilia-like virginity. He should have left marriage to
those who were capable of nothing else; this would not have meant that
he turn ascetic, for the ascetic is a voluptuary in disguise. He should
simply have been married to his work. The wonder is, though, that once
the thought of marriage was forced upon him, he did not marry a Hittite
who delighted in pork-chops and tomato-sauce, ordered Guinness Stout in
public places, and disciplined him as a genius should be disciplined.

Fate was kind, however, and the lady of his choice was nearly as
esthetic in face and form, as gentle and spirituelle as himself. She
never humiliated him by cackle, nor led him a merry chase after
society's baubles. Her only wish was to please him and to do her wifely
duty. They pooled their weaknesses, and it need not be stated that this,
the only love in the life of Mendelssohn, made not the slightest impress
on his art, save to subdue it. The passing years brought domestic
responsibilities, and the every-day trials of life chafed his soul,
until the wasted body, grown tired before its time, refused to go on,
and death set the spirit free.

* * * * *

Mendelssohn made five visits to England, where his success was even
greater than it was at home. He learned to express himself well in
English, but always spoke with the precision and care that marks the
educated foreigner. So the result was that he spoke really better
"English" than the English. The ease with which the Hebrew learns a
language has often been noted and commented upon. Mendelssohn preferred
German, but was not at a loss to carry on a conversation in French,
Italian or English.

His nature was especially cosmopolitan, and like the true aristocrat
that he was, he was also a democrat, and at home in any society.

When he was invited by the Queen to call upon her at Buckingham Palace,
he went alone, in his afternoon dress, and sent in his card as every
gentleman does when he calls upon a lady. Her Majesty greeted him at the
door of her sitting-room, and dismissed the servants. They met as
equals. In compliment to her guest Victoria spoke only in German. The
Queen, seeing the music-rack was not in order, apologized, womanlike,
for the appearance of the room and began to dust things in the usual
housewifely fashion.

Mendelssohn, with that fine grace which never forsook him, assisted her
in putting things to rights, and when the piano was opened, he proceeded
to carry out two pet parrots, laughingly explaining that if they were to
have music, it was well to insure against competition.

He sat down at the piano and played, without being asked, and sang a
little song in English in graceful but unobtrusive compliment to the
hostess. Then the Queen sang in German, he playing the accompaniment.
And in his letter to his sister Fanny, telling her of all this, in his
easy, gossipy, brotherly way, Felix adds that the Queen has a charming
soprano voice, that only needs a little cultivation and practise to make
her fit to take the leading part in "Elijah."

This was no joke to Felix--he only regretted that Queen Victoria's
official position was such that she could not spare enough time for
music.

Albert did not appear upon the scene until Mendelssohn had extended his
call to an hour, and was just ready to leave. The Prince Consort was too
perfect a gentleman to ever obtrude when his wife was entertaining
callers, but now he apologized for not knowing the Meister had honored
them--which we hope was a white lie. But, anyway, Felix consented to
remain and play a few bars of the oratorio they had heard him conduct
the night before. Then Albert sang a little, and Victoria insisted on
making a cup of tea for the guest before they parted. When he went away,
Albert and Victoria both walked with him down the hall, and as he bade
them good-by, Victoria spoke the kindly "Auf wiedersehen."

In the story of her life, Victoria has in spirit corroborated this
account of her meeting with Mendelssohn. She refers to him as her dear
friend and the friend of her husband, and pays incidentally a gentle
tribute to his memory.

The universal quality of Mendelssohn's knowledge, his fine forbearance
and diplomatic skill in leading a conversation into safe and peaceful
waters, were very marked. He was recognized by the King of Saxony as a
king of art, and so was received into the household as an equal; and
surely no man ever had a more kingly countenance. His body, however,
seemed to lag behind, and was no match for his sublime spirit. But when
fired by his position as Conductor, or when at the piano, the slender
body was nerved to a point where it seemed all suppleness and sinewy
strength.

In his "Songs Without Words," the spirit of the Master is best shown.
There the grace, the gentleness and the sublimity of his soul are best
mirrored. And if at twilight you should hear his "On the Wings of Song,"
played by one who understands, perhaps you will feel his spirit near,
and divine the purity, kindliness and excellence of Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.




[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT]

FRANZ LISZT


Were I to tell you what my feelings were on carefully perusing and
reperusing this essay, I could hardly find terms to express myself.
Let this suffice: I feel more than fully rewarded for my trials, my
sacrifices and artistic struggles, on noting the impression I have
made on you in particular. To be thus completely understood was my
only ambition; and to have been understood is the most ravishing
gratification of my longing.

--_Liszt in a Letter to Wagner_


FRANZ LISZT

In writing of Liszt there is a strong temptation to work the superlative
to its limit. In this instance it is well to overcome temptation by
succumbing to it.

That word "genius" is much bandied, and often used without warrant; but
for those rare beings who leap from the brain of Jove, full-armed, it is
the only appellation. No finespun theory of pedagogics or heredity can
account for the marvelous talent of Franz Liszt--he was one sent from
God.

Yet we find a few fortuitous circumstances that favored his evolution.
Possibly, on the other hand, there are those who might say the boy
attracted to himself the human elements that he required, and thus
worked out his freedom, acquiring that wondrous ability to express his
inmost emotions. Art is the beautiful way of doing things. All art is
the expression of sublime emotions; and there seems a strong necessity
in every soul to impart the joy and the aspiration that it feels. And
further, art is for the artist first, just as work is for the worker--it
is all just a matter of self-development. And how blessed is it to think
that every soul that works out its own freedom gives freedom to others!
Liszt is the inspirer of musicians, just as Shakespeare is the inspirer
of writers. Strong men make it possible for others to be strong. No man
of the century gave the science of music such an impulse for good as
this man. To go no further in way of proof, let the truth be stated yet
once again, that it was Franz Liszt who threw a rope to the drowning
Wagner.

On October Twenty-second, in the year Eighteen Hundred Eleven, when a
man-child was born at the village of Raiding, Hungary, the heavens gave
no sign, and no signal-flags nor couriers proclaimed the event, all as
had been done a week before when a babe was born to the Prince and
Princess Esterhazy at the same place. Now the child born last was the
son of obscure parents, the father being an underling secretary of the
Prince, known as Liszt. The child was very weak and frail, and for some
months it was thought hardly possible it could live; but Destiny decreed
that the boy should not perish.

The first recollections of Liszt take in, in a happy view, four men
playing cards at a square table. One of these men was the boy's father,
another was Mein Herr Joseph Haydn, and the other two players are lost
in the fog of obscurity. Did they ever know what a wonderful game they
played, as little Franz Liszt, sitting on a corner of the table,
listened to their talk and admired the buttons on the coat of the
Kappellmeister? After the card-game Haydn sat at the piano and played,
and the boy, just three years old, thought he could do that, too. Then
there was another Kappellmeister in the employ of Prince Nicholas
Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, and his name was Hummel. He was a pupil of
Mozart, and used to tell of it quite often when he came up to Raiding on
little visits, after the wine had been sampled. Liszt the Elder used to
help Hummel straighten out his accounts, and where went Liszt the Elder,
there, too, went little Franz Liszt, who wasn't very strong and banked
on it, and had to be babied. And so little Franz became acquainted with
Hummel and used to sit on his knee at the piano, and together they
played funny duets that set the company in a roar--two tunes at a time,
harmonious discords and counterpoint, such as no one ever heard before,
or since.

At this time there was no piano at the Liszt cottage, but the boy
learned to play at the neighbors', and practised at the palace of the
Prince. His father and mother once took him there to hear Hummel. On
this occasion Hummel played the Concerto by Reis in C minor. At the
close of the performance, little Franz climbed up on the piano-stool and
very solemnly played the same thing himself, to the immense delight of
the listeners.

The father of Liszt has recorded that at this time the child was but
three years old, but after taking off the proper per cent for the pride
of a fond parent, the probabilities are the boy was five. This is the
better attested when we remember that it was only a few weeks later
that, on the request of Prince Esterhazy, the boy played at a concert in
Oedenburg.

This launched the boy on that public career which was to continue for
just seventy years. There is good evidence that the boy could read music
before he could read writing, and that he threw into his playing such
feeling and expression as Ferdinand Reis, who merely imitated his
master, Beethoven, had never anticipated. That is to say, when he played
"Reis," he improved on him, with variations all his own--attempts often
made with the work of great composers, but which incur risks not
advised.

It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was from the very
first in a distinctly musical environment. He could not remember a time
when he did not attend the band-concerts--his parents wanted to go, and
took the baby because there were no servants to take charge of him at
home. Music was in the air, and everybody discussed it, just as in Italy
you may hear the beggars in the streets criticizing art.

The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the heart of every
hearer, and his success quite turned the head of his father, the worthy
bookkeeper.

To give the child the advantages of an education was now his parents'
one ambition. Having no money of his own, the father importuned his
employer, the Prince, who rather smiled at the thought of spending time
and money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of course,
phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting out of the sun's rays,
and, like the rainbow, a thing not to be seized upon and kept. It was
mere precocity, and precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the
core. This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was probably
wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play I-Spy and leapfrog in the
streets of the village, and to roam the fields. The lad became strong
and well, and when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome
youngster with already those marks of will and purpose on his beautiful
face that were to be his credentials to place and power.

He had often played at concerts in the towns and villages about, and
when there were visitors at the palace this fine, slim son of the
bookkeeper was sent for to entertain them.

This attention kept ambition alive in the hearts of his parents, and
after many misgivings they decided to hazard all and move to Vienna to
give their boy the opportunities they felt he deserved.

The entire household effects being sold, the bookkeeper found he had
nearly six hundred francs--one hundred fifty dollars. To this amount
Prince Esterhazy added fifty dollars, and Hummel gave his mite, and with
tears of regret at breaking up the home-nest, but with high hope,
flavored by chill intervals of fear, the father, mother and boy started
for Vienna.

Arriving in that city the distinguished Carl Czerny, pupil of Beethoven,
was importuned to take the lad. Only the letter from Hummel secured the
boy an audience, for Czerny was already overburdened with pupils. But
when he had listened to the lad's playing, he consented to take him as a
pupil, merely saying that he showed a certain degree of promise. It is
sternly true that Czerny did not fully come into the Liszt faith until
after that concert of April Thirteenth, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-three,
when Beethoven, ripe with years, crowded his way to the front and kissed
the player on both cheeks, calling him "my son." Such a greeting from
the great Master spoke volumes when we consider the lifelong aversion
that Beethoven held toward "prodigies," and his disinclination to attend
all concerts but his own.

And thus did Franz Liszt begin his professional pilgrimage, consecrated
by the kiss of the Master.

Paris was the next step--to Paris, the musical and artistic center of
the world. To win in Paris meant fame and fortune wherever he wished to
exhibit his powers. The way the name of Franz Liszt swept through the
fashionable salons of Paris is too well known to recount. Scarcely
thirteen years of age, he played the most difficult pieces with peculiar
precision and power. And his simple, boyish, unaffected manner--his
total lack of self-consciousness--won him the affection of every
mother-heart. He was fondled, feted, caressed, and took it all as a
matter of course. He had not yet reached the age of indiscretion.

* * * * *

Music is a secondary sexual manifestation, just as are the songs of
birds, their gay and gaudy plumage, the color and perfume of flowers
that so delight us, and the luscious fruits that nourish us--all is sex.
And then, do you not remember that expression of Renan's, "The
unconscious coquetry of the flowers"? Without love there would be no
poetry and no music. All the manifest beauty of earth is only Nature's
nuptial decoration.

James Huneker, not always judicious, but a trifle more judicial than
others that might be named, declares that two women, making a
simultaneous attack upon the great composer, caused him to cut for
sanctuary, and hence we have the Abbe Liszt, thus proving again that
love and religion are twin sisters.

The old-time biographers can easily be placed in two classes: those who
sought to pillory their man, and those who sought to protect him.
Neither one told the truth; but each gave a picture, more or less
blurred, of a being conjured forth from their own inner consciousness.
Franz Liszt was naturalized in the Faubourg Saint Germain. It was here
that he was first hailed as the infant prodigy, and proud ladies, at his
performances, pressed to the front and struggled for the privilege of
imprinting on his fair forehead a chaste and motherly kiss.

* * * * *

Eight years had passed: years of work and travel and constant growing
fame. The youth had grown into a man, and his return to the scene of his
former triumphs was the signal for a regathering of the clans to note
his progress--or decline. The verdict was that from "Le Petit Prodige,"
he had evolved into something far more interesting--"Le Grand Prodige."
Tall, handsome, strong, and with a becoming diffidence and a half-shy
manner, his name went abroad, and he became the rage of the salons. His
marvelous playing told of his hopes, longings, fears and
aspirations--proud, melancholy, imploring, sad, sullen--his tones told
all.

Fair votaries followed him from one performance to another. Leaving out
of the equation such mild incidents as the friendship for George Sand,
which began with a brave avowal of platonics, and speedily drifted into
something more complex; also the equally interesting incident of his
being invited to visit the Chateau of the lovely Adele Laprunarede, and
the Alpine winter catching the couple and holding them willing captives
for three months, blocked there in a castle, with nothing worse than a
conscience and an elderly husband to appease, we reach the one, supreme
love-passion in the life of Liszt. The Countess d'Agoult is worthy of
much more than a passing note.

At twenty years of age she had been married to a man twenty-one years
her senior. It was a "mariage de convenance"--arranged by her parents
and a notary in a powdered wig. It is somewhat curious to find how many
great women have contracted just such marriages. Grim disillusionment
following, true love holding nothing in store for them, they turn to
books, politics or art, and endeavor to stifle their woman's nature with
the husks of philosophy.

Count d'Agoult was a hard-headed man of affairs--stern, sensible and
reasonably amiable--that is to say, he never smashed the furniture, nor
beat his wife. She submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish,
bubbling qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check through
that law of self-protection which causes a woman to give herself
unreservedly only to the One who Understands. Yet the Countess was not
miserable--only at rare intervals did there come moods of a sort of
dread longing, homesickness and unrest; but calm philosophy soon put
these moods to rout. She had focused her mind on sociology and had
written a short history of the Revolution, a volume that yet commands
the respect of students. At intervals she read her essays aloud to
invited guests. She studied art, delved a little in music, became
acquainted with the leading thinking men and women of her time, and
opened her salon for their entertainment.

Three children had been born to her in six years. Maternity is a very
necessary part of every good woman's education--"this woman's flesh
demands its natural pains," says a great writer in a certain play. A
staid, sensible woman was the Countess d'Agoult--tall, handsome,
graceful, and with a flavor of melancholy, reserve and disinterestedness
in her make-up that made her friendship sought by men of maturity. She
talked but little, and won through the fine art of listening.

She was neither happy nor unhappy, and if the gaiety of girlhood had
given way to subdued philosophy, there were still wit, smiles and gentle
irony to take the place of laughter. "Life," she said, "consists in
molting one's illusions."

The Countess was twenty-nine years of age when "Le Grand Prodige," aged
twenty-three, arrived in Paris. She had known him when he was "Le Petit
Prodige"--when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She wished
to see how he had changed, and so went to hear him play. He was
insincere, affected and artificial, she said--his mannerisms absurd and
his playing acrobatic. At the next concert where he played she sought
him out and half-laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He gravely
thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and said that such honesty
and frankness were refreshing. After the concert Liszt remembered this
woman--she was the only one he did remember--she had made her
impression.

He did not like her.

Soon Liszt was invited to the salon of the Countess d'Agoult, and he,
the plebeian, proudly repulsed the fair aristocrat when her attentions
took on the note of patronage. They mildly tiffed--a very good way to
begin a friendship, once said Chateaubriand.

The feminine qualities in the heart of Liszt made a lure of the person
who dared affront him. He needed the flint on which his mind could
strike fire--nothing is so depressing as continual, mushy adulation. He
sought out the Countess, and together they traversed the border-land of
metaphysics, and surveyed, as the days passed, all that intellectual
realm which the dawn of the Twentieth Century thinks it has just
discovered.

She taunted him into a defense of George Sand, who had but recently
returned from her escapade to Venice with Alfred de Musset. Liszt
defended the author of "Leone Leoni," and read to the Countess from her
books to prove his case.

When haughty, proud and religious ladies mix mentalities with sensitive
youths of twenty-four, the danger-line is being approached. The Grand
Passions that live in history, such as that of Abelard and Heloise,
Petrarch and Laura, Dante and Beatrice, swing in their orbit around
world-weariness. Love does not concern itself with this earth alone--it
demands a universe for its free expression. And the only woman who is
capable of the Grand Passion--who stakes all on one throw of the
dice--is the melancholy woman, with this fine, religious reserve. No one
suspected the Countess d'Agoult of indiscretion--she was too cold and
self-contained for that!

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