Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Oh what actors every body in Paris became at that period! Some were so by nature; for very nearly one half of the world is always acting a part. Others did it because it was the tone of the day; and these formed the heroic or tragic band, who did every thing with Roman dignity and firmness, and carried the farce of representation into the very last act of the tragedy. Others were driven to act parts which did not belong to them, by the perils or necessities of their situation; and amongst these, was Madame de Salins, who, dressed somewhat in the _mode paysanne_, was out frequently, went boldly to police offices, and to military authorities, inquiring diligently after her husband, John Bonfin, and demanded intelligence regarding the state and condition of a man who had never existed. A change in the direction of civic affairs, and the decapitation of two or three gentlemen, who had watched her diligently while in her lodging near the Place du Petit Chatelet, had now set her comparatively free, and she used her powers of persuasion, and her liberty, so well, that she obtained letters of recommendation to the medical officers of the armies of Dumouriez and Kellerman, with a satisfactory pass for herself, and her father, with two children. Upon what pretence she made her traveling party so large, I do not know; but she certainly carried her point. She was out more than once at night, too, and I remarked that Mariette was now sent daily to the house of Doctor L——, to bring the bottles of medicine which were still required by Father Bonneville—a task, which I always previously fulfilled.

As the distance was considerable, and the way somewhat intricate, I was permitted to accompany and guide my little companion, as far as the street leading into the Place du Chatelet, but was directed to go no farther, and wait there for her return. I had learned by this time to ask no questions, but I could not help thinking that Mariette often stayed a long time.

I do not know that I was of a very observing disposition, or inclined to be particularly censorious, but one thing I remarked which surprised me a good deal, and I recollect, quite well, that it gave me uncomfortable feelings. In my first interview with Madame de Salins, she had appeared overwhelmed with grief and terror, her clothes stained with her husband’s blood, and a look of wild, almost frantic horror in her face, which was never to be forgotten. Now, however, she had not only completely recovered her composure, but was generally cheerful, and sometimes even gay. Clouds of anxiety, indeed, would occasionally float over her beautiful brow, and she would fall into deep fits of thought; but it often seemed to me very strange that she should have so soon and so completely forgotten the husband, for whom she had seemed to mourn so sincerely. Indeed, there is nothing which so shocks—I might say, so terrifies, the earnest heart of youth, as to perceive how transient are those feelings of which to them life is made up, in the bosoms of persons older, of more experience, and more world-hardened than themselves. I loved Mariette, however, and Mariette loved me, and that was a feeling which I then fondly fancied could never decay or alter.

At length, one day, Father Bonneville declared himself strong enough to go out, and as there was a slight lull at the time in the political storm, we went to see—that is he and I—some places of public interest. I recollect an elderly gentleman coming up and joining in conversation with us, in a very mild and placable tone. The good Father was very much upon his guard, however, and in answer to some questions, said he had been very ill since he had come to Paris, and had enjoyed no opportunity of seeing the sights of the capital till the time of his stay was nearly expired. Whether the old gentleman considered us as very stupid or not I do not know, but he soon left us, and we found afterward that he was one of those worthy public denunciators, who at that time brought so many heads under the axe of the guillotine. He lived to a good old age, and I saw him afterward in London, playing at cards with great devotion, and furnished with a handsome diamond snuff-box.

This little incident, which I have only mentioned as characteristic of the times, had no result that I know of upon our fate. Three days afterward, the two post-chaises were got in order, horses were brought from the post-house, and to my infinite satisfaction we all rolled away together out of that grim city of Paris, which will ever remain associated in my mind with memories of blood and crime. It was a fine day—one of those days in February which come as if to bid us prepare for summer, long ere summer is near, and which I think are more beautiful and striking in France, than in any other country I know. The sunshine lay softly upon the face of the country, and on the top of a tall, bare tree, near the post-house, where we first stopped to change horses, a thrush was pouring forth its evening song, and making the air thrill with melody. I got out of our own little post-chaise to call Mariette’s attention to the bird, but when I looked into their cabriolet, to my surprise I saw that Madame de Salins was weeping bitterly. The post-master approached and looked in likewise; but she had great presence of mind, and instantly beckoning the man up, she asked him some questions regarding the movements of the armies, and whether he could give her any news of Citizen Bonfin, who commanded a company in Davoust’s volunteers. The man, who seemed to compassionate her greatly, replied that he could not, and asked if she had any apprehensions regarding him. She answered that the last she had heard of her husband, was, that he had been very severely wounded, but that careful nursing might yet save his life. The good post-master was not a Parisian, nor a litterateur, and so without affecting atheism, he prayed God to bless her endeavors, and we rolled on upon our way.

We went on for two or three hours after dark, and lodged as we found it expedient, at a post-house some little distance from Clermont. There, however, our landlord, the post-master, proposed a change in our arrangements, which was a very agreeable one to me. He laughed at four persons of one family traveling in two post-chaises, assured us that it would be much more convenient for us to go in a larger vehicle, having one to dispose of which would exactly suit us, and that we should save a good deal of money by the number of post-horses. His arguments seemed quite conclusive both to Father Bonneville and Madame de Salins, although he demanded two hundred livres, and our two carriages, for the one he intended to supply, which was not worth two hundred livres in itself. I was surprised at their acquiescence; for I did not believe they had much money to spare; but I rather imagine that they were afraid to oppose any thing he thought fit to suggest, and that if he had known their exact situation, he might have taxed them still more largely. By one contrivance or another, however, the papers of the family had been put into such good order, that no suspicion seems to have been excited any where. Perhaps, indeed, we were too insignificant to attract much attention, and at the end of a four days’ journey, we found ourselves rapidly approaching the frontiers of France, somewhat to the right of our then victorious army. This was, perhaps, the most dangerous point of our whole expedition, and at a spot where two hours more would have placed us in security beyond the limits of France, we paused for the night, in order to consider carefully the next step, lest we should lose the fruit of all our exertions at the very moment that it seemed within our grasp.

A BOY’S MANŒUVRE.

It was decided to drive right toward the frontier, beyond which the advance of the French army has already been considerable. All the country, almost to the banks of the Rhine was virtually in the hands of France; but no general system of administration had been thought of. The people were foreign, monarchical and anti-Gallican, and were ready enough to give every assistance to fugitives from a system which they hated and condemned.

This decision was taken, like all desperate ones, upon the calculation, right or wrong, of the chances. I was in the room when all points were discussed between Father Bonneville and Madame de Salins. Mariette lay sleeping in a corner of her mother’s bed, looking like a cherub; but I, more anxious perhaps, and more alive to the real perils of our situation than any one of my age could have been, not disciplined by the scenes which I had gone through during the last two months, was still up, and listening eagerly for every word. The order was given for the post-horses to be put to, the next morning, and as was necessary, the route was stated.

The post-master showed some little hesitation, saying that the road we proposed to go was directly that to the head-quarters of the army, and that we were none of us military people.

“But I am the wife of a soldier,” replied Madame de Salins, at once, and with a tone of dignity, “and these letters are for the surgeons-general of that army, to whom I must deliver them.”

She laid her hand upon the packet of letters which she possessed, as she spoke, and the post-master replied in a more deferential tone—“Very well, citoyenne, I dare say it is all right, and I can send you to the frontier; but whether you can get horses beyond or not, I can’t tell. Mind, I am not responsible beyond the frontier.”

The next morning at the hour appointed the horses were put to the carriage. They were three in number—we had previously had four—and they were harnessed, as was very common then in France, and is now, abreast. The postillion, instead of getting into his great jack-boots, as I had always previously seen, got upon the front seat of the carriage, gathered up the reins, and with the crack of a long whip set out toward the frontier. He was a sullen-looking, dull, uncommunicative person of that peculiar race found in the neighborhood of Liege, and called Walloons; and I, who was sitting with my shoulder close to his, though with my back toward him, and with nothing to intercept our communication—for the carriage was open in front—endeavored in vain to make him speak a word or two, addressing him frequently but obtaining no reply.

At first I supposed that he could speak no French, and at last gave up the undertaking. But I soon found that he could speak French enough when it suited his purpose.

We drove along for about seven miles without meeting a single human being, and seeing very few cultivated fields; for as frontier districts generally are, the land was left nearly untended, nobody caring much to plant harvests that they were never sure of reaping.

We at length came to a rude stone pillar, upon as bleak and desolate a spot as I ever remember to have seen. The ground was elevated, but sloped gently down to the neighboring country both before and behind us. At least three miles of desolate marsh, which retained its moisture, heaven knows how, swept around us on every side, and the only object which denoted human habitation was the outline of a village, with some trees, seen at the distance of some four or five miles on the plain which lay a little below us in advance. When we reached the rude sort of obelisk I have mentioned, the driver drew in his reins, and the horses stopped to breathe, as I supposed, after climbing the hill: but the next moment the man got down from the front seat, and approaching the side at which Father Bonneville sat, demanded his drink-money.

“I will give it you when we reach the next post-house,” said Father Bonneville.

“This is the only post-house I shall take you to,” replied the man sullenly, but in very good French, “I am not bound to go an inch beyond the line.”

The good priest remonstrated mildly, but the postillion answered with great insolence, threatening to take out the horses and leave us there.

Father Bonneville answered without the slightest heat, that he must do so if he pleased; that we were at his mercy; but that he was bound, if possible to take us to the next post-house.

Seeing that this menace had produced no effect upon the quiet and gentle spirit of the good old man, the postillion now determined to try another manœuvre, and grumbled forth that he knew very well we were aristocrats, seeking to fly from the country, and that therefore, like a good citizen, he should turn his horses round, drive us back, and denounce us at the municipality.

I had listened anxiously to the conversation, with a heart beating with the fear of being stopped, and indignation at the man’s conduct. At length a sudden thought struck me—what suggested it I do not know—nor how it arose, nor whether indeed thought had any thing to do with it, though I have called it a thought. It was more an impulse—an instinct—a sudden determination taken without reason, which made me clamber with the activity of a monkey over the back of the seat on which I was sitting, and snatch up the reins and the whip which the postillion had laid down upon the foot-board. I was determined to be out of France at all events, whoever staid behind; and I cut the horses on either flank without waiting to give notice or ask permission. I had once or twice driven a cart, loaded with flour, from the mill by the banks of the stream, up to Father Bonneville’s house and back again. I had not the slightest fear in the world; Father Bonneville cried, “Stop, stop!” but I drove on.

Madame de Salins gave a timid cry of surprise and fear, but I drove on. The postillion ran shouting and blaspheming after the carriage and tried to catch the reins; but I gave him a tremendous cut over the face with the whip, and drove on.

I know not what possessed me; but I seemed as if I was suddenly set free—free from the oppressive shackles of everlasting fear, and forethought and anxiety. The frontier of France was behind me. I was in a land where there were no guillotines—no spies, as I thought—no denouncers—no sans-culottes with bloody heads upon their pikes. I was free—to act, and to think, and to speak, and to come, and to go, as I liked. The cold, leaden, heavy spell of terror which had hung upon me was broke the moment I passed that frontier line, and the first use I made of my disenchantment was to drive the horses down that hill like a madman. Father Bonneville held tight on by the side of the carriage. Madame de Salins caught up Mariette, and clasped her tightly in her arms; but still I drove on without trepidation or pause; not that I disregarded the commands of my good preceptor: not that I was insensible to the alarm of Madame de Salins; but a spirit was upon me that I could not resist. I had no fear, and therefore I saw not why they should have any. The course I was pursuing seemed to my young notions to offer the only chance of safety, and therefore I thought they ought to rejoice as well as myself; and on I went, making the dry dust of a March day fly up into clouds along our course, and leaving the unhappy postillion, cursing and swearing, far, far behind us.

Happily for me, the horses were docile, and had been long accustomed to run between the two post-houses. If they had had a will of their own, and that will had been contrary to mine, I am very much afraid the majority of heads and legs would have carried the question; but they comprehended the object of which I aimed, and though unaccustomed to the hand that drove them, yielded readily to its direction—which was lucky—for about half-way down the hill there was an enormous stone in the middle of the road, which would have inevitably sent us rolling down into the middle of the valley if either of the off wheels had come in contact with it. The third horse puzzled me a little; but it did not matter. They had but one way to go, and we got to the bottom of the hill without accident.

“Stop them, stop them, Louis,” cried Father Bonneville, when all danger was in reality passed.

“I cannot just yet, Father,” I replied, tugging a little at the reins, “but they will go slower in a moment themselves;” and for nearly a mile we went on at a full gallop. Then the good beasts fell easily into a canter, with the exception of one, who shook his head and tugged at the rein when I attempted to bring him in, but soon yielded to the influence of example, and was reduced to a trot as speedily as the other two.

When our pace was brought to a speed of about eight miles an hour, I looked round joyously into the carriage, saying—“We have left that rogue far behind.”

“Louis, Louis, you should not have done this!” exclaimed Father Bonneville, shaking his head.

But Madame do Salins put her hand on his arm, saying, “He has saved us, Father. Do not—do not check such decision and presence of mind. Remember he is to be a man, and such qualities will be needful to him.”

I was very proud of her praise: got the horses easily into a quiet, ordinary pace, and drove directly into the village which we had seen from above, and where, as I had expected, the post-house was to be found.

The horses stopped of their own accord at the door, and we soon had two or three people round us. Thanks to Father Bonneville’s peculiar skill in acquiring languages, the people who seemed good and kindly disposed, were soon made acquainted with as much of our story as was necessary to tell. They entered into our cause warmly; but the post-master—or rather the post-mistress’s son—a little in awe of the French army, some thirty or forty miles distant, strongly advised that we should proceed without delay, lest our French postillion should come up, and embarrass the authorities by demanding our apprehension.

The advice was very palatable to us all; the French horses were unharnessed in a few minutes; four fresh ones—somewhat fat and slow, indeed—were attached to the carriage; and Father Bonneville conscientiously deposited with the post-master the “_pour boire_,” or drink-money, for our abandoned postillion, with a couple of livres additional for the long walk he had to take.

It mattered little now whether we went fast or slow; for we were in a hospitable country, and amongst friendly people, and ere nightfall we were many miles beyond pursuit.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

MADELINE.

A LEGEND OF THE MOHAWK.[3]

BY MRS. MARY O. HORSFORD.

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride;
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the Temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves
On the languid zephyr’s breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the autumn
Hung o’er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga,
At the last night’s eventide,
Rode the groom—a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride;
Seeking as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline
Leave to lead her to the altar
When the morrow’s sun should shine.

All the children of the village,
Decked with garlands white and red,
All the young men and the maidens
Had been up to see her wed;
And the aged people, seated
In the doorways, ’neath the vine,
Thought of their own youth, and blessed her
As she left the house divine.

Pale she was, but very lovely,
With a brow so calm and fair,
When she passed the benediction
Seemed still falling on the air.
Strangers whispered they had never
Seen who could with her compare,
And the maidens looked with envy
On her wealth of raven hair.

In the glen beside the river,
In the shadow of the wood,
With wide open doors for welcome,
Gambrel-roofed the cottage stood,
Where the festal board was waiting,
For the bridal guests prepared,
Laden with a feast, the humblest
In the little village shared.

Every hour was winged with gladness,
Whilst the sun went down the west,
Till the chiming of the church bell
Told to all the hour for rest:
Then the merry guests departed—
Some a camp’s rude couch to bide;
Some to bright homes—each invoking
Blessings on the gentle bride.

Tranquilly the morning sunbeam
Over field and hamlet stole,
Wove a glory round each red leaf,
And effaced the frost-king’s scroll.
Eyes responded to its greeting
As a lake’s still waters shine,
Young hearts bounded—and a gay group
Sought the home of Madeline.

Bird-like voices ’neath the casement
Chanted through the fragrant air
A sweet orison for wakening—
Half thanksgiving and half prayer.
But no white hand raised the curtain
From the vine-clad panes before;
No light form with buoyant footstep
Hastened to fling wide the door.

All was silent in the dwelling—
All so silent a chill fear
Of some unseen ill crept slowly
Through the gay group waiting near.
Moments seemed as hours in passing,
Till the mild-eyed man drew nigh,
Who had blessed the blushing orphan
Ere the yester sun was high.

He, with glance of dark foreboding,
Passed the threshold of the door;
Paused not where a crimson torrent
Curdled on the oaken floor:
But sought out the bridal-chamber—
God in Heaven! could it be
Madeline who knelt before him
In that trance of agony?

Cold, inanimate beside her,
By the ruthless Cow-boys slain
In the night-time whilst defenseless,
He—the brave—she loved was lain.

O’er her snowy dress were scattered
Stains of deep and fearful dye,
And the soul’s glance beamed no longer
From her tearless, vacant eye.
Round her slight form hung the tresses
Braided oft with pride and care,
Silvered by that night of madness
With its anguish and despair.

She lived on to see the roses
Of another summer wane,
But the light of reason never
Shone in her sweet eyes again.
Once, where blue and sparkling waters
Through a verdant forest run,
And the green boughs kiss the current,
Wandered I at set of sun.

Twilight, as a silver shadow,
O’er the softened landscape lay,
When amid a rambling village
Paused I in my wandering way:
Plain and gray the church before me
In the quiet grave-yard stood,
And the woodman’s axe resounded
Faintly from the neighboring wood.

Through the low, half-open wicket,
Slightly worn, a pathway led—
Silently I paced its windings,
Till I stood among the dead.
Passing by the grave memorials
Of departed worth and fame,
Long I paused before a record
That no pomp of words could claim.

Simple was the slab, and lowly,
Shaded by a jessamine,
And the single name recorded,
Plainly writ, was “Madeline.”
But beneath it, through the clusters
Of the jessamine, I read
“Spes,” engraved in bolder letters—
This was all the marble said.

-----

[3] A detail of the incident related in the poem may be found among the records of the Revolutionary War.

* * * * *

MOORISH MEMORIES.

(SUGGESTED BY A TILE FROM THE ALHAMBRA—THE GIFT OF THOMAS H. HYATT, ESQ.,
LATE CONSUL-GENERAL TO THE BARBARY STATES.)

BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

An hour of precious romance I owe, my friend, to thee,
And on the wings of Fancy my spirit crossed the sea;
The same transporting magic did to thy gift belong
That sparkled in Aladdin’s Lamp, old theme of Eastern song!
An Andalusian summer clad earth in brightest guise—
Gave dark green to the foliage, deep azure to the skies,
And sternly mountain-barriers up reared their crests of snow,
While palace-spire and minaret flashed at their feet below.

Approached by winding avenues, Grenada lay in sight—
Gay pleasure-grounds and gardens basked in the dazzling light;
To groves of palm and cypress flocked birds of plumage rare,
And happy genii were afloat upon enchanted air.
Throned on a height, commanding the Darro’s vale of flowers,
I saw the red Alhambra’s tall battlements and towers;
Oh! would that mine were language to paint its pictured walls,
Its colonnades and court-yards, its galleries and halls.

Methought the dreams of childhood were realized at last,
And magic hands uplifted a pall that hid the past,
While looking on its panels with colored stones inlaid,
And alabaster vases on which the sunbeam played.
In gem-embroidered kaftan, and grave with cares of state,
Dispensing equal justice, a king was at the gate—
The hajib[4] was in waiting to hear his high command,
And in the foreground gathered proud nobles of the land.

Luxurious rooms I entered through quaintly carven doors,
And trod on fretted pavements and tessellated floors;
And in secluded chambers, for beauty’s use designed,
On gorgeous silken cushions voluptuous forms reclined.
To win their smiles full often had gallant cavaliers
Met with a shock, like thunder, at the Tournament of Spears,
And all had won the homage by Love and Valor paid,
When, under moon-lit balconies awoke the serenade.

Xarifa, rose of sunset—Zoroyda, star of dawn!
Ye never can be numbered with things of beauty gone:
Poetical embalmment bestows a glorious light,
That frights away the minions of darkness, dust and blight.
Umbrageous courts I traversed, where lime and orange grew,
And fig and date their shadows on beds of roses threw,
Then bathed in perfumed waters, and listened to the sound
Of singing founts diffusing a grateful coolness round.

While silvery Xenil wandered through blooming bower and plain,
Back came once more the splendor of Moorish rule in Spain;
I heard the stormy clarion, the atabal’s deep roll,
And felt the joy of battle awake within my soul.
Elvira’s gates unfolded, and, grim with many a scar,
A host of Moorish horsemen rode fiercely forth to war;
The standard of the Prophet above them was unrolled,
And dallied with the lifting wind its green and golden fold.

Gemmed saddle-cloth and armor were blinding to the gaze,
And burnished lance and scimetar flashed back the sunbeam’s blaze,
While prancing in the van, as if their nostrils scented gore,
The milk-white steeds of Yemen, king, sheick and emir bore.
When fled that martial pageant, like vapor on the gale,
Woke on the banks of Darro a startling voice of wail,
And tones so full of sweetness and wild, despairing wo,
Were never heard by listening ear from mortal lips to flow.

LAMENT FOR GRENADA.

Alas for thee, Grenada!
Thy Crescent waned away
When traitors leagued to shatter
Thy mace of royal sway.
Unworthy of the mother
That warmed them into life,
They heard the Gothic trumpet,
And armed not for the strife.
Look round! an earthly paradise
Is changed into a tomb,
A blight is on thy loveliness,
And mildew on thy bloom;
Where streamed the Moorish pennon
Triumphantly of old,
Decay and mournful silence
Divided empire hold.

Alas for thee, Grenada!
Thy chiefs are shadows now,
And ashes have been sprinkled
Upon thy crownless brow:
Thy glory is departed,
Thy day of pomp is o’er,
And “Allah illah Allah!”
Is a battle-cry no more.
Castilian valor vainly
To cloud thy glory strove
Ere Treachery within thy walls
His cunning web-work wove;
By bloody parricidal hands
Inflicted was the blow
That brought thee, gem of cities!
In all thy grandeur low.

-----

[4] Prime Minister.

* * * * *

MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI.

BY JOHN S. DWIGHT.

This masterpiece of Mozart must always stand as the highest type of musical drama. Yet most persons who go to this famous opera for the first time, and look over the libretto, are disappointed in a worse sense than the travelers who complain of the first unimposing view of Niagara. It seems to them a waste of so much fine music, to couple it with the mere story of a desperate rake, (a young cavalier _estremamente licenzioso_, as he is set down in the list of characters,) who, after running a most extravagant career, is brought to judgment in a marvelous way; namely, by his inviting in jest the statue of an old man whom he had murdered, the father of the noble lady he had sought to ruin, to sup with him; and by being surprised in the midst of his feast by the statue in good earnest, with the whole _posse comitatûs_ of the nether world rising to claim him! We are at a loss at first to account for the charm of so vulgar and grotesque a tissue of absurdities. Yet there is a meaning in it that concerns us all.

Don Juan is one of the permanent, traditional types of character; and Mozart’s music sympathetically, instinctively, rather than with any conscious philosophical purpose, brings out the essence of it. The gay gallant, magnetic disturber of every woman’s peace that comes within his sphere, is not intended for that vulgar sensualist, that swaggering street-rake, which caricatures the part in most performances we may have seen. The true conception of Mozart’s Don Juan is that of a gentleman, to say the least, and more than that, a man of genius; a being, naturally full of glorious passion, large sympathies, and irrepressible energies; noble in mind, in person, and in fortune; a large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature. Dramatically he is made a little more than human, yet in a purely human direction. He is such as we all are, “only more so,” to borrow an expressive vulgarism. Remarkably is he such as Mozart himself was. He is a sort of ideal impersonation of two qualities, or springs of character, raised as it were to the highest power, projected into supernatural dimensions—which is only the poet’s and musician’s way of truly recognizing the element of infinity in every passion of the human soul, since not one ever finds its perfect satisfaction. Mozart in his own life knew them too well, these two springs or sources of excitement! They are: (1.) the genial temperament, the exquisite zest of pleasure, the sensibility to every charm and harmony of sense, amounting to enthusiasm, and content with nothing short of ecstasy; that appetite for outward beauty, which lends such a voluptuous, Titian coloring to his music. And (2.) as the crowning enthusiasm of the young, fresh soul, as the highest mortal foretaste of celestial bliss, the sentiment of sexual love—that sentiment which is the key-note of every opera. In Mozart, music appears as the peculiar native language of these passions, these experiences. His music is all fond sensibility, pure tranquillity of rapture, and most luxurious harmony of soul and sense; and therefore in him we have the finest development of the dramatic element in music. The two together make the genuine Giovanni creed—the creed of Mozart and of Music—the natural creed and religion of joy. This free and perfect luxury of passion and fruition, Mozart imagines raised (as we have said) to the highest power, in the hero of the old tradition. His Don Juan is a grand believer in the passions and in pleasure; he is the splendid champion and Titan of that side of the problem of life, a superb vindicator of the senses. He stands before us in the glorious recklessness of self-assertion and protests against the soul-and-passion-starving conventionality, the one-sided, frigid spiritualism of an artificial, priest-ridden, Mammon-worshiping society; opposing to those meshes of restraint his own intense consciousness of _being_, (with a blind instinct that it is good, divine at bottom, and only needing to appear in its own natural language of a Mozart’s music to prove this;) strong in the faith, against the world, that Joy, Joy is the true condition and true sign of life; but blindly seeking to realize this in the ecstatic lawlessness of love, which necessarily involves sooner or later a proportional reaction of the outraged Law and Wisdom of the Universe.

Excessive love of pleasure, helped by a rare magnetism of character, and provoked by the suppressive moralism of the times, have engendered in him a reckless, roving, insatiable appetite, which each intrigue excites and disappoints, until the very passion in which so many souls are first taught the feeling of the Infinite, becomes a fiend in his breast and drives him to a devilish love of power that exults over woman’s ruin, or rather, that does not mind how many hearts and homes fall victims to his unqualified assertion of the everywhere rejected and _snubbed_ faith in Passion. The buoyant impulse, generous and good in the first instance, goes on thus undoubtingly, defying bounds, till it becomes pure willfulness, and the first flush of youth and nobleness is hardening to Satanic features. The beauty and the loveliness of woman have lost to him now all their sacredness; they are mere fuel to the boundless ambition of a passion which knows no delight beyond the brief excitement of intrigue and sensual indulgence. He becomes the impersonation and supernatural genius of one of the holiest springs of human sentiment _perverted_, because _denied_; and he roams the earth a beautiful, terrible, resistless, fallen angel, and victim after victim are quaffed up by his hot breath of all-devouring passion. And so he perseveres until Hell claims its own in the awful consummation of the supper scene. Art could not choose a theme more fraught with meaning and with interest. It is still the old theme and under-current of Opera: the Body and the Soul;[5] the Liberty of passion, unmeet for its own guidance, in conflict with the Law, intensely narrowed down by social custom from God’s great law of universal harmony.

The character of Don Juan, thus conceived, this splendid embodiment of the free, perfect, unmisgiving luxury of sense and passion, would be no character at all, but only an absurdity, an impossibility in the spoken drama. There is no prose about it; nothing literal and sober; take away the exaltation, the rhythmical nature of it, and it falls entirely to the ground. Only Music could conceive and treat it; Music, which is the language of the ideal, innermost, _potential_ life, and not of the actual life. But music equally does justice to both sides of the fact. In this triumphant career of passion, inasmuch as it is among men and laws and sympathies and social customs, a fearful retribution is foreshadowed. But not in _him_, not in this Titan of the senses, this projected imagination of unlimited enjoyment and communion. It is through the music that the shuddering presentiment continually creeps. Through music, which in acknowledging the error, in laying bare the fatal discord, at the same time symbolizes its resolution. Through music, in whose vocabulary sin and suffering and punishment are never final; in whose vivid coloring the great doom itself is but a vista into endless depths of harmony and peace and unexclusive bliss beyond.

The splendid sinner’s end is rather melodramatic in the opera; and yet there is a poetic and a moral truth in it; and the spectre of the _Commendatore_ is a creation fully up to Shakspeare. No man ever literally came to that; but many have come to dread it. Beings, as we are, so full of energies and of exhaustless passional promptings to all sorts of union and acquaintance with the rest of being; urged, just in proportion to the quantity of life in us, to seek most intimate relationship all round, materially and spiritually, we dread the mad excess of our own pent up forces. Surrounded by set formulas; denied free channels corresponding to our innate tendencies and callings; plagued by traditions, and chafed by some social discipline, in which the soul sees nothing it can understand, except it be the holy principle of Order in the abstract, do we not often start to see what radicalism lurks in every genuine spring of life or passion, in everything spontaneous and lovable? Who, more than the pleasure-loving, sympathy-seeking, generous, child-like, glorious, imaginative, sensitive, ecstatic, sad Mozart, would be apt to shudder in dreams, in the night solitudes of his over-worked, and feverish and wakeful brain, before the colossal shadow of what possibly _he_ might become through excess of the very qualities that made him diviner than common mortals? This allegory can certainly be traced through “Don Giovanni.” The old governor or commander, whom he kills, personates the Law. The cold, relentless marble statue, that stalks with thundering foot-fall into the middle of his solitary orgies alter him, is the stern embodiment of custom and convention, which he defies to the end, and boldly grasps the proffered stony hand, from an impulse stronger than his terrors.

It is an old Middle-Age Catholic story. Under many forms it had been dramatized and poetized as a warning to sinners, before Da Ponte[6] found it so much to the purpose of Mozart, when he wanted to do his best in an opera composed expressly for his dear and own peculiar public at Prague. Coarse as the story seems, perhaps the conflict between good and evil in the human soul was never represented in a better type. It was for Mozart’s music to show that. That in adopting it for music he had any metaphysical idea at all about it, there is no need of supposing. His instinct found in it fine sphere for all his many moods of passion and of music. Here he could display all his universality of musical culture, and his Shaksperian universality of mind. Genius _does_ its work first; the theory of it is what an appreciating, philosophical observer must detect in it when done. “They builded better than they knew.” Love, if it was the ruling sentiment of Mozart’s nature, was for that very reason his chief danger. If it was almost his religion and taught his soul its own infinite capacity, so also seemed the danger therefrom infinite, raising presentiments and visions of some supernatural abyss of ruin, yawning to receive the gay superstructure of man’s volatile enjoyments here in time. Life, power, love, pleasure, crime, futurity and judgment—and a faith left beyond _that!_—what dream more natural, what circle of keys more obvious to modulation, to a soul, whose strings are all attuned to love and melody, whose genius is a powerful demon waiting on its will, and whose present destiny is cast here in a world so false and out of tune that, to so strong a nature, there seems no alternative besides wild excess upon the one hand, or a barren sublimity of self-denial on the other.

In this old legend the worldly and the supernatural pass most naturally into one another. Don Juan, gifted with all the physical and intellectual attributes of power, urged by aspirations blind but uncontainable, full of the feeling of _life_, and resolved to LIVE, if possible, so fully as to fill all with himself and never own a limit, (and this is only a perversion of the true desire to live in harmony _with_ all,) finds the tempting shadow of this satisfaction in the love of woman, and the poor bird flutters charmed and trembling toward his fascinating glance. Imagine now the elegant, full-blooded, rich, accomplished and seductive gallant on his restless rout of pleasures and intrigues. At his side his faithful knave, droll Leporello, expostulating with his master very piously sometimes, yet bound to him by potent magnetism, both of metal and of character (for passion like Giovanni’s _will_ be served.) Leporello is the foil and shadow to his master, and adds to the zest of his life-long intoxication by the blending of the comic with this exquisite wild fever of the blood. Throughout the whole he plays the part of contrast and brings all back to reality and earth again, lest the history should take too serious possession of us. He is the make-weight of common sense tossed into the lighter scale. He justifies its original title of “Don Giovanni, _un drama giocoso_;” for this opera is tragedy and comedy and what you please, the same heterogeneous yet harmonious compound that life itself is. He on the one side gives a dash of charlatanry to Don Juan, just as on the other side he borders on the supernatural. Mark the poetic balance and completeness here: this passion-life of Don Juan has its outward and its inward comment: on the one side Leporello, on the other the supernatural statue and the bodily influx of hell. On the one side it is comic, grotesque and absurd; on the other, it is fearful. Seen in one light he is a charlatan, a splendid joke; seen in the other, he is an unfolding demon and a type of doom; while in his life he is but the free development of human passion in human circumstances. Man always walks between these two mirrors! One shows his shadow, as of destiny, projected, ever-widening, into the Infinite, where it grows vague and fearful. The other takes him in the act, and literally pins down all his high strivings and pretensions to such mere matter of fact, that he becomes ridiculous.

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We come now to the Opera itself, which we can only examine very briefly and unequally, touching here and there. Were we to set about it thoroughly, our article would soon overflow all magazine bounds, since there is not a scene, an air, a bit of recitative, from the beginning to the end, that would not challenge our most critical appreciation.

And first the Overture, composed, they say, in the single night before the first public performance of the opera in Prague; his wife keeping him awake to his work by punch and anecdotes and fairy tales, that made him laugh till the tears ran down his cheeks; and only ready for the orchestra (which had not its equal in all Europe) to play at sight without rehearsal. He may have _written_ it that night, that is to say, have copied it out of his head. It was his habit of composition; his musical conceptions shaped themselves whole in his brain, and were carried about there for days until the convenient time to put them upon paper; and it is not possible that his brain that time could have been without an overture, since there the opera existed as a perfect whole, and in that glowing and creative mood, the instrumental theme and preface to the same must have floated before him as naturally as the anticipation of his audience. Moreover, the first movement of it, the Andante, is essentially the same music with the grand and awful finale of the opera, and is properly put first in the overture (whose office it is to prepare the hearer’s mind) as the grand end and moral of the piece. Accordingly it opens with three stern, startling crashes on the chord of D minor, the sub-bass dividing the measure into equal halves, but the upper parts syncopated; then a pause, and then the same repeated in the Dommant—like the announcement of a power not to be trifled with. Then a series of wild modulations, full of terror, enhanced by the unearthly brass and low reed tones, surging through chromatic intervals, which make the blood creep, and presently overtopped by a pleading melody of the first violins, while a low, feeble whimper of the second violins is heard all the time like the moaning of the wind about an old house. Then alternate sharp calls and low, tremulous pauses; the ground quakes; the din becomes more fearful; the melody begins to traverse up and down all kinds of scales, through intervals continually shifting, and expressive of all manner of uncertainty, like the quick and fruitless runs in all directions of a beast surrounded by the hunters. It is like the breaking up of the familiar foundations of things, that unsettling of the musical Scale!—All this is brief, for it is but a synopsis and foreshadowing of the last scene in the opera. The string instruments then dash off, in the major of the key, into a wild, reckless kind of Allegro, than which there could not be a better musical correspondence of the general subject, that is, of the restless, mischievous career of one outraging all the social instincts and defying all pursuit. This spends itself at leisure, softening at the close toward the genial F natural, the key of nature and the senses, where the overture is merged into the dramatic introduction.

The curtain rises. Scene, a garden in Spain. Time, just before daybreak. Leporello, cloaked, with a lantern, paces watchfully to and fro before a noble villa, and sings with heavy bass of his drudgeries and dangers in the service of his graceless master; kindling half seriously at the thought how fine a thing it would be to play the gallant and the gentleman himself. The light and exquisite accompaniment of the instruments meanwhile is like the softness of a summer night, and seems to count the moments of pleasure. The dreams of the valet are soon disturbed. Don Juan, his face hid by his mantle, rushes from the house, struggling from the grasp of Donna Anna, who, pale and disheveled, clings to him convulsively, and seeks to detain and to discover the bold, mysterious man, who has dared thus to invade her privacy and her honor. Her hurried and accusing melody, in these snatches of recitative, is full of a dignity and a pure and lofty fire that characterize alike her person and the whole music of her port. With drawn sword in one hand, and a torch in the other, her old father, the Commendatore (commander of a religious order) rushes out and challenges the bravo, who deals him a death-thrust. The startlingly vivid orchestral picture, which accompanies and as it were guides these sword thrusts, is followed by a slow, mournful trio of bass voices, in which are gloomily contrasted the scornful triumph of Don Juan, the dying wail and warning of the old man, and the comic terror of Leporello. Nothing could be more thrillingly impressive; that music could mean nothing else but death stalking suddenly into the very midst of life! Then comes the passionate outpouring of the daughter’s grief, and that inimitable scene of the most musical as well as most dramatic dialogue in the whole range of the lyric drama. It is the perfection of recitative. What exquisite tenderness and sincerity of sorrow in that violin figure which accompanies her inquiry for her father, (_padre mio_,) when she first recovers from her swoon! How sweet and comforting that fall of the seventh, where Ottavio tells her: _Hai sposo e padre in me_ (Thou hast husband and father in me!) And how fiery and grand the passage where she inspires the tame lover with that sublimely solemn oath of revenge, and the hot, scouring blast of their swift and wonderful duett which follows it. In all this there is no delicate touch of feeling, no spiritual token of great passion and great purpose, possible to voice or instruments, omitted; no note omissible or of slight significance. Here is an opening of most pregnant import. One scene of moderate length has impressed us, as by the power of fate, to the seeing through of the profoundest drama of life. Here we have witnessed, as it were, the first reaction of the eternal Law, the first hint of destiny in this splendid libertine’s thus far irresistible career. Already is this almost superhuman pleasure-hunt of genius past its climax, and the dread note of retribution is already sounded.

The next scene introduces us to one of the personified reproaches of Don Juan’s better nature. As the Don and his man are plotting new adventures, a lady passes, in hat and feathers, with excited air, and, as they retreat into the shade to note her, she pours out her most musical complaint against the traitor who has played falsely with her heart. The introductory symphony or ritornel, in E flat major, by its bold and animated strain indicates the high-spirited and passionate nature now before us, whose song of ever constant though wronged love, to words that would fain threaten terrible revenge, commences the Terzetto, mainly solo, to which the mocking by-play of the Don and Leporello, accompanied by a mocking figure of the instruments, supplies the other two parts. As he steps up to offer consolation to the lady, he recognizes his own simple, loving, poor deserted mistress, Donna Elvira, and while the same mocking instrumental figure leaves the song hanging in the air, as it were, without any cadence or any close, he slips away and leaves the task of explanation to the disconcerted servant. There is an ardent, passionate yearning in this as in all of Elvira’s melodies, which climb high and are perhaps the most difficult in the opera. The character is seldom conceived truly by the actress. Interpreted by its music, its intention is distinct enough. Elvira is no half-crazed, foolish thing; but one of the highest moral elements in the _personnel_ of the opera; next in dignity, at least, to Donna Anna. However she may appear in the libretto and in the common usage of the stage, Mozart in his music makes her the soul of ardent and devoted love and constancy, still fondly hoping in the deeper, better self of the man who has trifled with her; like a sweet, genuine ray of sun shine, always indicating to Don Juan a chance of escape from the dark labyrinthine fatality of crime in which he goes on involving himself; always offering him true love for false.

Let her not listen then (like the silly girl we commonly see upon the stage, half-magnetized out of a weak sorrow into a weaker involuntary yielding to the ludicrous) to the exquisitely comic appeal of Leporello, when the vain-glorious fellow unrolls his tremendous list of his master’s conquests among the fair sex, enumerating the countries, ranks, styles of beauty, etc. The melody of this “Catalogue Song” is altogether surpassing. It is the perfection of _buffo_, as we have before had the perfection of serious recitative. After naming the numbers for Italy, Germany, etc., when it comes to the climax (Elvira’s own land): _Ma in Espagna mille e trè_, [But in Spain one thousand and three,] it is ludicrously grave; the orchestra meanwhile has chopped the measure into short units, alternate instruments just touching different points of height and depth, till they seem at last to count it all up on the fingers, first downward in the tripping _pizzicato_ scale of the violins, then upward in gruff confirmation in the basses. In the slow time, where it comes to the specification of the different qualities of beauty, the _grande maëstosa_, the _piccina_, etc., the melody is one of the most beautiful and pathetic that could be imagined. One wonders how Mozart could have expended such a wealth of melody upon so light a theme; it seems as lavish a disproportion of means to end, as when we read of travelers roasting their eggs in the cinders of Vesuvius. But such was the musical fullness and integrity of Mozart; the genial vein, once opened, _would_ run only pure gold; and his melodies and harmonies are not merely proportioned to the specialities of the subject, but are at every moment moulded in the style and spirit of the whole work. Besides, the comedy consists here in the contrast of a pathetic melody with a grotesque thought. Moreover the whole thing is truer in the fact, that not only Leporello’s, but Don Juan’s own melodies, as indeed the very nature of music, seem mournfully to rebuke the desperado. In the most comic and most bacchanalian strains, the music saddens with a certain vague presentiment of the fearful _dénouement_ of the drama.