Chapter XVI: Part 16

But his life was waning. His friends had passed away, he had lost several children, his health was broken. He desired to retire to Oxford and spend the remainder of his life in scholarly seclusion. He asked to exchange his bishopric for a canonry, but this could not be permitted. He then begged to be allowed to resign his charge, but the king replied that he might live where he pleased, but that he should die a bishop in spite of himself. In August, 1752, Bishop Berkeley removed himself, his wife, his daughter, and his goods to Oxford, where his son George was a student; and here on the fourteenth of the following January, as he was resting on his couch by the fireside at tea-time, his busy brain stopped thinking, and his kind heart ceased to beat.

ON THE PROSPECT OF
PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame:

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true;

In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first Acts already past,
A fifth shall close the Drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

ESSAY ON TAR-WATER

From 'Siris'

The seeds of things seem to lie latent in the air, ready to appear and produce their kind, whenever they light on a proper matrix. The extremely small seeds of fern, mosses, mushrooms, and some other plants, are concealed and wafted about in the air, every part whereof seems replete with seeds of one kind or other. The whole atmosphere seems alive. There is everywhere acid to corrode, and seed to engender. Iron will rust, and mold will grow, in all places. Virgin earth becomes fertile, crops of new plants ever and anon show themselves, all which demonstrate the air to be a common seminary and receptacle of all vivifying principles....

The eye by long use comes to see, even in the darkest cavern; and there is no subject so obscure, but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly where it is the chief passion, it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views; nor is it contented with a little ardor in the early time of life; active, perhaps, to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge, must dedicate his age as well as youth, the later growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth....

As the nerves are instruments of sensation, it follows that spasms in the nerves may produce all symptoms, and therefore a disorder in the nervous system shall imitate all distempers, and occasion, in appearance, an asthma for instance, a pleurisy, or a fit of the stone. Now, whatever is good for the nerves in general is good against all such symptoms. But tar-water, as it includes in an eminent degree the virtues of warm gums and resins, is of great use for comforting and strengthening the nerves, curing twitches in the nervous fibres, cramps also, and numbness in the limbs, removing anxieties and promoting sleep, in all which cases I have known it very successful.

This safe and cheap medicine suits all circumstances and all constitutions, operating easily, curing without disturbing, raising the spirits without depressing them, a circumstance that deserves repeated attention, especially in these climates, where strong liquors so fatally and so frequently produce those very distresses they are designed to remedy; and if I am not misinformed, even among the ladies themselves, who are truly much to be pitied. Their condition of life makes them a prey to imaginary woes, which never fail to grow up in minds unexercised and unemployed. To get rid of these, it is said, there are who betake themselves to distilled spirits. And it is not improbable they are led gradually to the use of those poisons by a certain complaisant pharmacy, too much used in the modern practice, palsy drops, poppy cordial, plague water, and such-like, which being in truth nothing but drams disguised, yet coming from the apothecaries, are considered only as medicines.

The soul of man was supposed by many ancient sages to be thrust into the human body as into a prison, for punishment of past offenses. But the worst prison is the body of an indolent epicure, whose blood is inflamed by fermented liquors and high sauces, or rendered putrid, sharp, and corrosive by a stagnation of the animal juices through sloth and indolence; whose membranes are irritated by pungent salts; whose mind is agitated by painful oscillations of the nervous system, and whose nerves are mutually affected by the irregular passions of his mind. This ferment in the animal economy darkens and confounds the intellect. It produceth vain terrors and vain conceits, and stimulates the soul with mad desires, which, not being natural, nothing in nature can satisfy. No wonder, therefore, there are so many fine persons of both sexes, shining themselves, and shone on by fortune, who are inwardly miserable and sick of life.

The hardness of stubbed vulgar constitutions renders them insensible of a thousand things that fret and gall those delicate people, who, as if their skin was peeled off, feel to the quick everything that touches them. The remedy for this exquisite and painful sensibility is commonly sought from fermented, perhaps from distilled liquors, which render many lives wretched that would otherwise have been only ridiculous. The tender nerves and low spirits of such poor creatures would be much relieved by the use of tar-water, which might prolong and cheer their lives. I do therefore recommend to them the use of a cordial, not only safe and innocent, but giving health and spirit as sure as other cordials destroy them.

I do verily think there is not any other medicine whatsoever so effectual to restore a crazy constitution and cheer a dreary mind, or so likely to subvert that gloomy empire of the spleen which tyrannizeth over the better sort (as they are called) of these free nations, and maketh them, in spite of their liberty and property, more wretched slaves than even the subjects of absolute power who breathe clear air in a sunny climate, while men of low degree often enjoy a tranquillity and content that no advantage of birth or fortune can equal. Such indeed was the case while the rich alone could afford to be debauched; but when even beggars became debauchees, the case was altered.

The public virtue and spirit of the British legislature never showed itself more conspicuous in any act, than in that for suppressing the immoderate use of distilled spirits among the people, whose strength and numbers constitute the true wealth of a nation: though evasive arts will, it is feared, prevail so long as distilled spirits of any kind are allowed, the character of Englishmen in general being that of Brutus, _Quicquid vult valde vult_ [whatever he desires he desires intensely]. But why should such a canker be tolerated in the vitals of a State, under any pretense, or in any shape whatsoever? Better by far the whole present set of distillers were pensioners of the public, and their trade abolished by law; since all the benefit thereof put together would not balance the hundredth part of its mischief.

This tar-water will also give charitable relief to the ladies, who often want it more than the parish poor; being many of them never able to make a good meal, and sitting pale and puny, and forbidden like ghosts, at their own table, victims of vapors and indigestion.

Studious persons also, pent up in narrow holes, breathing bad air, and stooping over their books, are much to be pitied. As they are debarred the free use of air and exercise, this I will venture to recommend as the best succedaneum to both; though it were to be wished that modern scholars would, like the ancients, meditate and converse more in walks and gardens and open air, which upon the whole would perhaps be no hindrance to their learning, and a great advantage to their health. My own sedentary course of life had long since thrown me into an ill habit, attended with many ailments, particularly a nervous colic, which rendered my life a burden, and the more so because my pains were exasperated by exercise. But since the use of tar-water, I find, though not a perfect recovery from my old and rooted illness, yet such a gradual return of health and ease, that I esteem my having taken this medicine the greatest of all temporal blessings, and am convinced that under Providence I owe my life to it.

HECTOR BERLIOZ

(1803-1869)

To the concert-goer the name Hector Berlioz calls up a series of vast and magnificent whirlwinds of vocal and orchestral sonority, the thoughts of scores that sound and look imposingly complex to the eyes and ears of both the educated and uneducated in the composer's art. We have a vision of close pages embodying the most unequivocal and drastic of musical "realism." The full audacity and mastery of a certain sort of genius are represented in his vast works. They bespeak, too, the combative musician and reformer. Berlioz took the kingdom of music by violence.

His _chef d'oeuvres_ do not all say to us as much as he meant them to say, not as much as they all uttered twenty years ago. There is much clay as well as gold in them. But such tremendous products of his energy and intellect as the 'Requiem,' the 'Te Deum,' 'The Damnation of Faust,' his best descriptive symphonies such as the 'Romeo and Juliet,' are yet eloquent to the public and to the critical-minded. His best was so very good that his worst--weighed as a matter of principle or execution, regarded as music or "programme music"--can be excused.

Berlioz's actual biography is a long tale of storm and stress. Not only was he slow in gaining appreciation while he lived; full comprehension of his power was not granted him till after his energetic life was over. Recognition in his own country is incomplete to day. He was born in 1803, near picturesque Grenoble, in the little town of Côte St. André, the son of an excellent country doctor. Sent to Paris to study medicine, he became a musician against his father's wish, and in lieu of the allowance that his father promptly withdrew, the young man lived by engaging in the chorus of the Gymnase, and by catching at every straw for subsistence. He became a regular music-student of the Conservatory, under the admirable Lesueur and Reicha; quitted the Conservatory in disgust at its pedantry, in 1825; and lived and advanced in musical study as best he could for a considerable time. His convictions in art were founded largely on the rock of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber; and however modern, and however widely his work departs from such academic models, Berlioz never forswore a certain allegiance to these great and serene masters. He returned to the Conservatory, studied hard, gained the Prix de Rome, gradually took a prominent place among Parisian composers, and was as enthusiastically the subject of a cult as was Wagner. His concerts and the production of his operas encountered shameful cabals. His strongest works were neglected or ill-served. To their honor, German musicians understood him, Schumann and Liszt in especial. Only in Germany to-day are his colossal operas heard. The Italian Paganini showed a generous interest in his struggles. Russia and Austria too admired him, while his compatriots hissed. His career was one of endless work, disappointments, brief successes, battles, hopes, and despairs. Personally, too, it was full of the happiness and unhappiness of the artistic temperament.

It was between the two periods of his Conservatory life that he endured his chief sentimental misfortune,--his falling in love with and finally marrying Henrietta Smithson. Miss Smithson was a young English actress playing Shakespearean roles in France with a passing success. She was exquisitely lovely--Delaroche has painted her spirituelle beauty in his 'Ophelia.' The marriage was the typically unfortunate artist-match; and she became a paralytic invalid for years. After her death, tours in Germany and elsewhere, new works, new troubles, enthusiasms, and disappointments filled up the remainder of the composer's days. He returned to his beloved Dauphiné, war-worn and almost as one who has outlived life. In his provincial retreat he composed the huge operatic duology 'The Trojans at Carthage,' and 'The Taking of Troy,' turning once more to Virgil, his early literary love. Neither of them is often heard now, any more than his amazing 'Benvenuto Cellini.' Their author died in Dauphiné in 1869, weary, disenchanted, but conscious that he would be greater in the eyes of a coming generation than ever he had been during his harassed life.

Berlioz's literary remains are valuable as criticisms, and their personal matter is of brisk and varied charm. His intense feeling for Shakespeare influenced his whole æsthetic life. He was extremely well read. His most unchecked tendency to romanticism was balanced by a fine feeling for the classics. He loved the greater Greek and Latin writers. His Autobiography is a perfect picture of himself emotionally, and exhibits his wide æsthetic nature. His Letters are equally faithful as portraiture. He possessed a distinctively literary style. He tells us how he fell in love--twice, thrice; records the disgraceful cabals and intrigues against his professional success, and explains how a landscape affected his nerves. He is excellent reading, apparently without taking much pains to be so. Vivacity, wit, sincerity, are salient traits. In his volume of musical essays entitled 'A Travers Chants' (an untranslatable title which may be paraphrased 'Memoirs of Music and Musicians') are superior appreciations of musicians and interpreters and performances in opera-house and concert-hall, expressed with grace and taste in the _feuilletonist's_ best manner. In the Journal des Débats, year by year, he wrote himself down indisputably among the great French critics; and he never misused his critical post to make it a lever for his own advantage. His great treatise on Orchestration is a standard work not displaced by Gevaert or more recent authorities. He was not only a musical intelligence of enormous capacity: he offers perhaps as typical an embodiment of the French artistic temperament as can be pointed out.

THE ITALIAN RACE AS MUSICIANS AND AUDITORS

From Berlioz's Autobiography

It appears, however,--so at least I am assured,--that the Italians do occasionally listen. But at any rate, music to the Milanese, no less than to the Neapolitans, Romans, Florentines, and Genoese, means nothing but an air, a duet, or a trio, well sung. For anything beyond this they feel simply aversion or indifference. Perhaps these antipathies are mainly due to the wretched performance of their choruses and orchestras, which effectually prevents their knowing anything good outside the beaten track they have so long followed. Possibly, too, they may to a certain extent understand the flights of men of genius, if these latter are careful not to give too rude a shock to their rooted predilections. The great success of 'Guillaume Tell' at Florence supports this opinion, and even Spontini's sublime 'Vestale' obtained a series of brilliant representations at Naples some twenty-five years ago. Moreover, in those towns which are under the Austrian rule, you will see the people rush after a military band, and listen with avidity to the beautiful German melodies, so unlike their usual insipid cavatinas. Nevertheless, in general it is impossible to disguise the fact that the Italians as a nation really appreciate only the material effects of music, and distinguish nothing but its exterior forms.

Indeed, I am much inclined to regard them as more inaccessible to the poetical side of art, and to any conceptions at all above the common, than any other European nation. To the Italians music is a sensual pleasure, and nothing more. For this most beautiful form of expression they have scarcely more respect than for the culinary art. In fact, they like music which they can take in at first hearing, without reflection or attention, just as they would do with a plate of macaroni.

Now, we French, mean and contemptible musicians as we are, although we are no better than the Italians when we furiously applaud a trill or a chromatic scale by the last new singer, and miss altogether the beauty of some grand recitative or animated chorus, yet at least we can listen, and if we do not take in a composer's ideas it is not our fault. Beyond the Alps, on the contrary, people behave in a manner so humiliating both to art and to artists, whenever any representation is going on, that I confess I would as soon sell pepper and spice at a grocer's in the Rue St. Denis as write an opera for the Italians--nay, I would _sooner_ do it.

Added to this, they are slaves to routine and to fanaticism to a degree one hardly sees nowadays, even at the Academy. The slightest unforeseen innovation, whether in melody, harmony, rhythm, or instrumentation, puts them into a perfect fury; so much so, that the _dilettanti_ of Rome, on the appearance of Rossini's 'Barbiere di Seviglia' (which is Italian enough in all conscience), were ready to kill the young maestro for having the insolence to do anything unlike Paisiello.

But what renders all hope of improvement quite chimerical, and tempts one to believe that the musical feeling of the Italians is a mere necessary result of their organization,--the opinion both of Gall and Spurzheim,--is their love for all that is dancing, brilliant, glittering, and gay, to the utter neglect of the various passions by which the characters are animated, and the confusion of time and place--in a word, of good sense itself. Their music is always laughing: and if by chance the composer in the course of the drama permits himself for one moment not to be absurd, he at once hastens back to his prescribed style, his melodious roulades and _grupetti_, his trills and contemptible frivolities, either for voice or orchestra; and these, succeeding so abruptly to something true to life, have an unreal effect, and give the _opera seria_ all the appearance of a parody or caricature.

I could quote plenty of examples from famous works; but speaking generally of these artistic questions, is it not from Italy that we get those stereotyped conventional forms adopted by so many French composers, resisted by Cherubim and Spontini alone among the Italians, though rejected entirely by the Germans? What well-organized person with any sense of musical expression could listen to a quartet in which four characters, animated by totally conflicting passions, should successively employ the same melodious phrase to express such different words as these: "O, toi que j'adore!" "Quelle terreur me glace!" "Mon coeur bat de plaisir!" "La fureur me transporte!" To suppose that music is a language so vague that the natural inflections of fury will serve equally well for fear, joy, and love, only proves the absence of that sense which to others makes the varieties of expression in music as incontestable a reality as the existence of the sun.... I regard the course taken by Italian composers as the inevitable result of the instincts of the public, which react more or less on the composers themselves.

THE FAMOUS "SNUFF-BOX TREACHERY"

From the Autobiography

Now for another intrigue, still more cleverly contrived, the black depths of which I hardly dare fathom. I incriminate no one; I simply give the naked facts, without the smallest commentary, but with scrupulous exactness. General Bernard having himself informed me that my Requiem was to be performed on certain conditions, ... I was about to begin my rehearsals when I was sent for by the Director of the Beaux-Arts.

"You know," said he, "that Habeneck has been commissioned to conduct all the great official musical festivals?" ("Come, good!" thought I: "here is another tile for my devoted head.") "It is true that you are now in the habit of conducting the performance of your works yourself; but Habeneck is an old man" (another tile), "and I happen to know that he will be deeply hurt if he does not preside at your Requiem. What terms are you on with him?"

"What terms? We have quarreled. I hardly know why. For three years he has not spoken to me. I am not aware of his motives, and indeed have not cared to ask. He began by rudely refusing to conduct one of my concerts. His behavior towards me has been as inexplicable as it is uncivil. However, as I see plainly that he wishes on the present occasion to figure at Marshal Damrémont's ceremony, and as it would evidently be agreeable to you, I consent to give up the baton to him, on condition that I have at least one full rehearsal."

"Agreed," replied the Director; "I will let him know about it."

The rehearsals were accordingly conducted with great care. Habeneck spoke to me as if our relations with each other had never been interrupted, and all seemed likely to go well.

The day of the performance arrived, in the Church of the Invalides, before all the princes, peers, and deputies, the French press, the correspondents of foreign papers, and an immense crowd. It was absolutely essential for me to have a great success; a moderate one would have been fatal, and a failure would have annihilated me altogether.

Now listen attentively.

The various groups of instruments in the orchestra were tolerably widely separated, especially the four brass bands introduced in the 'Tuba mirum,' each of which occupied a corner of the entire orchestra. There is no pause between the 'Dies Iræ' and the 'Tuba mirum,' but the pace of the latter movement is reduced to half what it was before. At this point the whole of the brass enters, first all together, and then in passages, answering and interrupting, each a third higher than the last. It is obvious that it is of the greatest importance that the four beats of the new _tempo_ should be distinctly marked, or else the terrible explosion, which I had so carefully prepared with combinations and proportions never attempted before or since, and which, rightly performed, gives such a picture of the Last Judgment as I believe is destined to live, would be a mere enormous and hideous confusion.

With my habitual mistrust, I had stationed myself behind Habeneck, and turning my back on him, overlooked the group of kettle-drums, which he could not see, when the moment approached for them to take part in the general melee. There are perhaps one thousand bars in my Requiem. Precisely in that of which I have just been speaking, when the movement is retarded, and the wind instruments burst in with their terrible flourish of trumpets; in fact, just in _the_ one bar where the conductor's motion is absolutely indispensable, Habeneck _puts down his baton, quietly takes out his snuff box_, and proceeds to take a pinch of snuff. I always had my eye in his direction, and instantly turned rapidly on one heel, and springing forward before him, I stretched out my arm and marked the four great beats of the new movement. The orchestras followed me, each in order. I conducted the piece to the end, and the effect which I had longed for was produced. When, at the last words of the chorus, Habeneck saw that the 'Tuba mirum' was saved, he said, "What a cold perspiration I have been in! Without you we should have been lost." "Yes, I know," I answered, looking fixedly at him. I did not add another word.... Had he done it on purpose? ... Could it be possible that this man had dared to join my enemy, the Director, and Cherubini's friends, in plotting and attempting such rascality? I don't wish to believe it ... but I cannot doubt it. God forgive me if I am doing the man injustice!

ON GLUCK

From the Autobiography

Of all the ancient composers, Gluck has, I believe, the least to fear from the incessant revolutions of art. He sacrificed nothing either to the caprices of singers, the exigencies of fashion, or the inveterate routine with which he had to contend on his arrival in France, after his protracted struggles with the Italian theatres. Doubtless his conflicts at Milan, Naples, and Parma, instead of weakening him, had increased his strength by revealing its full extent to himself; for in spite of the fanaticism then prevalent in our artistic customs, he broke these miserable trammels and trod them underfoot with the greatest ease. True, the clamor of the critics once succeeded in forcing him into a reply; but it was the only indiscretion with which he had to reproach himself, and thenceforth, as before, he went straight to his aim in silence. We all know what that aim was; we also know that it was never given to any man to succeed more fully. With less conviction or less firmness, it is probable that, notwithstanding his natural genius, his degenerate works would not have long survived those of his mediocre rivals now completely forgotten. But truth of expression, purity of style, and grandeur of form belong to all time. Gluck's fine passages will always be fine. Victor Hugo is right: the heart never grows old.

ON BACH

From the Autobiography

You will not, my dear Demarest, expect an analysis from me of Bach's great work: such a task would quite exceed my prescribed limits. Indeed, the movement performed at the Conservatoire three years ago may be considered the type of the author's style throughout the work. The Germans profess an unlimited admiration for Bach's recitatives; but their peculiar characteristic necessarily escaped me, as I did not understand the language and was unable to appreciate their expression. Whoever is familiar with our musical customs in Paris must witness, in order to believe, the attention, respect, and even reverence with which a German public listens to such a composition. Every one follows the words on the book with his eyes; not a movement among the audience, not a murmur of praise or blame, not a sound of applause; they are listening to a solemn discourse, they are hearing the gospel sung, they are attending divine service rather than a concert. And really such music ought to be thus listened to. They adore Bach, and believe in him, without supposing for a moment that his divinity could ever be called into question. A heretic would horrify them, he is forbidden even to speak of him. God is God and Bach is Bach. Some days after the performance of Bach's _chef d'oeuvre_, the Singing Academy announced Graun's 'Tod Jesu.' This is another sacred work, a holy book; the worshipers of which are, however, mainly to be found in Berlin, whereas the religion of Bach is professed throughout the north of Germany.

MUSIC AS AN ARISTOCRATIC ART

From the Autobiography

Dramatic art in the time of Shakespeare was more appreciated by the masses than it is in our day by those nations which lay most claim to possess a feeling for it. Music is essentially aristocratic; it is a daughter of noble race, such as princes only can dower nowadays; it must be able to live poor and unmated rather than form a _mésalliance_.

THE BEGINNING OF A "GRAND PASSION"

From the Autobiography

I have now come to the grand drama of my life; but I shall not relate all its painful details. It is enough to say that an English company came over to perform Shakespeare's plays, then entirely unknown in France, at the Odéon. I was present at the first performance of 'Hamlet,' and there, in the part of Ophelia, I saw Miss Smithson, whom I married five years afterward. I can only compare the effect produced by her wonderful talent, or rather her dramatic genius, on my imagination and heart, with the convulsion produced on my mind by the work of the great poet whom she interpreted. It is impossible to say more.

This sudden and unexpected revelation of Shakespeare overwhelmed me. The lightning-flash of his genius revealed the whole heaven of art to me, illuminating its remotest depths in a single flash. I recognized the meaning of real grandeur, real beauty, and real dramatic truth; and I also realized the utter absurdity of the ideas circulated by Voltaire in France about Shakespeare, and the pitiful pettiness of our old poetic school, the offspring of pedagogues and _frères ignorantins_.

But the shock was too great, and it was a long while before I recovered from it. I became possessed by an intense, overpowering sense of sadness, that in my then sickly, nervous state produced a mental condition adequately to describe which would take a great physiologist. I could not sleep, I lost my spirits, my favorite studies became distasteful to me, and I spent my time wandering aimlessly about Paris and its environs. During that long period of suffering, I can only recall four occasions on which I slept, and then it was the heavy, death-like sleep produced by complete physical exhaustion. These were one night when I had thrown myself down on some sheaves in a field near Ville-Juif; one day in a meadow in the neighborhood of Sceaux; once on the snow on the banks of the frozen Seine, near Neuilly; and lastly, on a table in the Café du Cardinal at the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue Richelieu, where I slept for five hours, to the terror of the _garçons_, who thought I was dead and were afraid to come near me.

It was on my return from one of these wanderings, in which I must have seemed like one seeking his soul, that my eyes fell on Moore's 'Irish Melodies,' lying open on my table at the song beginning "When he who adores thee." I seized my pen, and then and there wrote the music to that heart-rending farewell, which is published at the end of my collection of songs, 'Irlande,' under the title of 'Elégie.' This is the only occasion on which I have been able to vent any strong feeling in music while still under its influence. And I think that I have rarely reached such intense truth of musical expression, combined with so much realistic power of harmony.

ON THEATRICAL MANAGERS IN RELATION TO ART

From the 'Autobiography'

I have often wondered why theatrical managers everywhere have such a marked predilection for what genuine artists, cultivated minds, and even a certain section of the public itself persist in regarding as very poor manufacture, short-lived productions, the handiwork of which is as valueless as the raw material itself. Not as though platitudes always succeeded better than good works; indeed, the contrary is often the case. Neither is it that careful compositions entail more expense than "shoddy." It is often just the other way. Perhaps it arises simply from the fact that the good works demand the care, study, attention, and, in certain cases, even the mind, talent, and inspiration of every one in the theatre, from the manager down to the prompter. The others, on the contrary, being made especially for lazy, mediocre, superficial, ignorant, and silly people, naturally find a great many supporters. Well! a manager likes, above everything, whatever brings him in amiable speeches and satisfied looks from his underlings, he likes things that require no learning and disturb no accepted ideas or habits, which gently go with the stream of prejudice, and wound no self-love, because they reveal no incapacity; in a word, things which do not take too long to get up.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

(1091-1153)

Born in 1091, at Fontaines, a castle of his father Tescelin, near Dijon, France, and devotedly instructed by his pious and gentle mother Aleth, Bernard of Clairvaux was from early childhood imbued with an active religious enthusiasm. When the time came to choose his way of life, instead of going into battle with his knighted brothers, he made them, as well as his uncle the count of Touillon, join a band of thirty companions, with whom he knelt in the rude chapel at Citeaux to beg the tonsure from Abbot Stephen Harding. To rise at two o'clock in the morning and chant the prayer-offices of the church until nine, to do hard manual labor until two, when the sole meal of the day--composed of vegetable food only--was taken, to labor again until nightfall and sing the vespers until an early bedtime hour: such was the Cistercian's daily observance of his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,--vows which Bernard and his followers were to lay down only upon the cross of ashes spread upon the hard cell floor to receive their outstretched, dying bodies.

Citeaux became famous from the coming of these new recruits. There was, in those tough old days, a soldierly admiration for faithfulness to discipline; and when Bernard was professed in 1114, Abbot Stephen was obliged to enlarge the field of work. Bernard was sent in 1115 to build a house and clear and cultivate a farm in a thickly wooded and thief-infested glen to the north of Dijon, known as the Valley of Wormwood. Here at the age of twenty-four, in a rude house built by their own hands with timber cut from the land, the young abbot and his companions lived like the sturdy pioneers of our Northwest, the earth their floor and narrow wooden bunks in a low dark loft their beds. Of course the stubborn forest gave way slowly, and grudgingly opened sunny hillsides to the vine and wheat-sheaf. The name of the settlement was changed to Clairvaux, but for many years the poor monks' only food was barley bread, with broth made from boiled beech leaves. Here Tescelin came in his old age to live under the rule of his sons; and Humbeline, the wealthy and rank-proud daughter, one day left her gay retinue at the door of their little abbey and went to join the nuns at Jouilly.

While Bernard was studying and planting at Clairvaux, the word of his piety and worth went everywhere through the land, and he came to be consulted not only by his Superior at Citeaux, but by villein and noble, even to the august persons of Louis the Fat of France and Henry the Norman of England. His gentleness and integrity became the chief reliance of the royal house of France, and his sermons and letters began to be quoted at council board and synod even as far as Rome. The austerity and poverty of the Cistercians had caused some friends of the monks of Cluny to fall under Bernard's zealous indignation. He wrote to William of St. Thierry a famous letter, mildly termed an Apology; in which, by the most insinuating and biting satire, the laxity and indulgence which had weakened or effaced the power of monastic example (from which arraignment the proud house of Cluny was deemed not to escape scot-free) were lashed with uncompromising courage.

France and Burgundy, with the more or less helpful aid of the Norman dukes in England, had been very loyal to the interests of the Papacy. When the schism of Anacletus II. arose in 1130, Innocent II., driven from Rome by the armed followers of Peter de Leon, found his way at once to the side of Louis VI. There he found Bernard, and upon him he leaned from that time until the latter had hewed a road for him back to Rome through kings, prelates, statesmen, and intriguers, with the same unflinching steadfastness with which he had cut a way to the sunlight for his vines and vegetables in the Valley of Wormwood. Bernard it was who persuaded Henry of England to side with Innocent, and it was he who stayed the revival of the question of investitures and won the Emperor to the Pope at Liege. At the Council of Rheims in October 1131, Bernard was the central figure; and when the path was open for a return to Italy, the restored Pope took the abbot with him, leaving in return a rescript releasing Citeaux from tithes. Bernard stayed in Italy until 1135, and left Innocent secure in Rome.

After a short period of peace at Clairvaux, he had to hurry off again to Italy on account of the defection of the influential monastery of Monte Casino to Anacletus.

Not long after his last return from Italy, Bernard met Pierre Abélard. This brilliant and unfortunate man had incurred the charge of heresy, and at some time in the year 1139 Bernard was induced to meet and confer with him. Nothing seems to have resulted from the conference, for Abélard went in 1140 to the Bishop of Sens and demanded an opportunity of being confronted with Bernard at an approaching synod. The abbot of Clairvaux, although unwilling, was at last persuaded to accept the challenge. Louis VII., King of France, Count Theobald of Champagne, and the nobles of the realm assembled to witness the notable contest. Abélard came with a brilliant following; but on the second day of the synod, to the surprise of everybody, he abruptly closed the proceeding by appealing to Rome. The works of Abélard were condemned, but his appeal and person were respected, and Bernard prepared a strong condemnatory letter to be sent to the Pope. As the great scholar was on his way to Rome to follow his appeal, he stayed to rest at Cluny with Peter the Venerable, who persuaded him to go to Bernard. When the two great hearts met in the quiet of Clairvaux, all animosities were resolved in peace; and Abélard, returning to Cluny, abandoned his appeal and observed the rule of the house until his death, which he endured, as Peter the Venerable wrote to Héloise, fully prepared and comforted, at Châlons in 1142.

The infidels of the East having taken Edessa in 1146, the power of the Christians in the Holy Land was broken; and Eugenius III., who had been a monk of Clairvaux, appointed Bernard to preach a new crusade. He set on foot a vast host under the personal leadership of Louis VII. and Conrad the Emperor, accompanied by Queen Eleanor and many noble ladies of both realms. The ill fortunes which attended this war brought to Bernard the greatest bitterness of his life. So signal was the failure of the Second Crusade, that but a pitiful remnant of the brilliant army which had crossed the Bosphorus returned to Europe, and Bernard was assailed with execration from hut and castle throughout the length of Europe. His only answer was as gentle as his life: "Better that I be blamed than God." He did not neglect, however, to point out that the evil lives and excesses of those who attempted the Crusade were the real causes of the failure of the Christian arms.

In Languedoc in 1147 he quelled a dangerous heresy, and silenced Gilbert, bishop of Poitiers, at the Council of Rheims.

In 1148 Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, who nine years before had visited Clairvaux and formed a lasting friendship for Bernard, came there again to die in the arms of his friend. It is related that the two saints had exchanged habits upon the first visit, and that Malachy wore that of Bernard on his death-bed. The funeral sermon preached by Bernard upon the life and virtue of his Irish comrade is reputed to be one of the finest extant. It seemed as if the Gael had come to show the Goth the way of death. Bernard's health, early broken by self-imposed austerity and penances, had never been robust, and it had often seemed that nothing but the vigor of his will had kept him from the grave. In the year 1153 he was stricken with a fatal illness. Yet when the archbishop of Trèves came to his bedside, imploring his aid to put an end to an armed quarrel between the nobles and the people of Metz, he went cheerfully but feebly to the field between the contending parties, and by words which came with pain and in the merest whispers, he persuaded the men who were already at each other's throats to forget their enmities.

He died at Clairvaux on January 12th, 1153, and was buried, as he wished, in the habit of Saint Malachy. In 1174 he was sainted, and his life is honored in the liturgy of the church on the 20th of August.

The marks of Saint Bernard's character were sweetness and gentle tolerance in the presence of honest opposition, and implacable vigor against shams and evil-doing. His was the perfect type of well-regulated individual judgment. His humility and love of poverty were true and unalterable. In Italy he refused the mitres of Genoa and Milan in turn, and in France successively declined the sees of Châlons, Langres, and Rheims. He wrote and spoke with simplicity and directness, and with an energy and force of conviction which came from absolute command of his subject. He did not disdain to use a good-tempered jest as occasion required, and his words afford some pleasant examples of naïve puns. He was a tireless letter-writer, and some of his best writings are in that form. He devoted much labor to his sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, the work remaining unfinished at his death. He wrote a long poem on the Passion, one beautiful hymn of which is included in the Roman Breviary.

SAINT BERNARD'S HYMN

Jesu! the very thought of thee
With sweetness fills my breast,
But sweeter far thy face to see
And in thy presence rest.

Nor voice can sing nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find,
A sweeter sound than thy blest name,
O Savior of mankind!

O hope of every contrite heart!
O joy of all the meek!
To those who fall, how kind thou art,
How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah, this
Nor tongue nor pen can show.
The love of Jesus, what it is
None but his loved ones know.

Jesu! our only joy be thou,
As thou our prize wilt be!
Jesu! be thou our glory now
And through eternity!

MONASTIC LUXURY

From the Apology to the Abbot William of St. Thierry

There is no conversation concerning the Scriptures, none concerning the salvation of souls; but small-talk, laughter, and idle words fill the air. At dinner the palate and ears are equally tickled--the one with dainties, the other with gossip and news, which together quite prevent all moderation in feeding. In the mean time dish after dish is set on the table; and to make up for the small privation of meat, a double supply is provided of well-grown fish. When you have eaten enough of the first, if you taste the second course, you will seem to yourself hardly to have touched the former: such is the art of the cooks, that after four or five dishes have been devoured, the first does not seem to be in the way of the last, nor does satiety invade the appetite.... Who could say, to speak of nothing else, in how many forms eggs are cooked and worked up? with what care they are turned in and out, made hard or soft, or chopped fine; now fried, now roasted, now stuffed; now they are served mixed with other things, now by themselves. Even the external appearance of the dishes is such that the eye, as well as the taste, is charmed....

Not only have we lost the spirit of the old monasteries, but even its outward appearance. For this habit of ours, which of old was the sign of humility, by the monks of our day is turned into a source of pride. We can hardly find in a whole province wherewithal we condescend to be clothed. The monk and the knight cut their garments, the one his cowl, the other his cloak, from the same piece. No secular person, however great, whether king or emperor, would be disgusted at our vestments if they were only cut and fitted to his requirements. But, say you, religion is in the heart, not in the garments? True; but you, when you are about to buy a cowl, rush over the towns, visit the markets, examine the fairs, dive into the houses of the merchants, turn over all their goods, undo their bundles of cloth, feel it with your fingers, hold it to your eyes or to the rays of the sun, and if anything coarse or faded appears, you reject it. But if you are pleased with any object of unusual beauty or brightness, you at once buy it, whatever the price. I ask you, Does this come from the heart, or your simplicity?

I wonder that our abbots allow these things, unless it arises from the fact that no one is apt to blame any error with confidence if he cannot trust in his own freedom from the same; and it is a right human quality to forgive without much anger those self-indulgences in others for which we ourselves have the strongest inclination. How is the light of the world overshadowed! Those whose lives should have been the way of life to us, by the example they give of pride, become blind leaders of the blind. What a specimen of humility is that, to march with such pomp and retinue, to be surrounded with such an escort of hairy men, so that one abbot has about him people enough for two bishops. I lie not when I say, I have seen an abbot with sixty horses after him, and even more. Would you not think, as you see them pass, that they were not fathers of monasteries, but lords of castles--not shepherds of souls, but princes of provinces? Then there is the baggage, containing table-cloths, and cups and basins, and candlesticks, and well-filled wallets--not with the coverlets, but the ornaments of the beds. My lord abbot can never go more than four leagues from his home without taking all his furniture with him, as if he were going to the wars, or about to cross a desert where necessaries cannot be had. Is it quite impossible to wash one's hands in, and drink from, the same vessel? Will not your candle burn anywhere but in that gold or silver candlestick of yours, which you carry with you? Is sleep impossible except upon a variegated mattress, or under a foreign coverlet? Could not one servant harness the mule, wait at dinner, and make the bed? If such a multitude of men and horses is indispensable, why not at least carry with us our necessaries, and thus avoid the severe burden we are to our hosts?...

By the sight of wonderful and costly vanities men are prompted to give, rather than to pray. Some beautiful picture of a saint is exhibited--and the brighter the colors the greater the holiness attributed to it: men run, eager to kiss; they are invited to give, and the beautiful is more admired than the sacred is revered. In the churches are suspended, not _coronae_, but wheels studded with gems and surrounded by lights, which are scarcely brighter than the precious stones which are near them. Instead of candlesticks, we behold great trees of brass fashioned with wonderful skill, and glittering as much through their jewels as their lights. What do you suppose is the object of all this? The repentance of the contrite, or the admiration of the gazers? O vanity of vanities! but not more vain than foolish. The church's walls are resplendent, but the poor are not there.... The curious find wherewith to amuse themselves; the wretched find no stay for them in their misery. Why at least do we not reverence the images of the saints, with which the very pavement we walk on is covered? Often an angel's mouth is spit into, and the face of some saint trodden on by passers-by.... But if we cannot do without the images, why can we not spare the brilliant colors? What has all this to do with monks, with professors of poverty, with men of spiritual minds?

Again, in the cloisters, what is the meaning of those ridiculous monsters, of that deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity, before the very eyes of the brethren when reading? What are disgusting monkeys there for, or satyrs, or ferocious lions, or monstrous centaurs, or spotted tigers, or fighting soldiers, or huntsmen sounding the bugle? You may see there one head with many bodies, or one body with numerous heads. Here is a quadruped with a serpent's tail; there is a fish with a beast's head; there a creature, in front a horse, behind a goat; another has horns at one end, and a horse's tail at the other. In fact, such an endless variety of forms appears everywhere, that it is more pleasant to read in the stonework than in books, and to spend the day in admiring these oddities than in meditating on the law of God. Good God! if we are not ashamed of these absurdities, why do we not grieve at the cost of them?

FROM HIS SERMON ON THE DEATH OF GERARD

"As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon."--Sol. Song i. 5

Perhaps both members of the comparison--viz., "As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon"--refer only to the first words, "I am black." It may be, however, that the simile is extended to both clauses, and each is compared with each. The former sense is the more simple, the latter the more obscure. Let us try both, beginning with the latter, which seems the more difficult. There is no difficulty, however, in the first comparison, "I am black as the tents of Kedar," but only in the last. For Kedar, which is interpreted to mean "darkness" or "gloom," may be compared with blackness justly enough; but the curtains of Solomon are not so easily likened to beauty. Moreover, who does not see that "tents" fit harmoniously with the comparison? For what is the meaning of "tents" except our bodies, in which we sojourn for a time? Nor have we an abiding city, but we seek one to come. In our bodies, as under tents, we carry on warfare. Truly, we are violent to take the kingdom. Indeed, the life of man here on earth is a warfare; and as long as we do battle in this body, we are absent from the Lord,--i.e., from the light. For the Lord is light; and so far as any one is not in Him, so far he is in darkness, i.e., in Kedar. Let each one then acknowledge the sorrowful exclamation as his own:--"Woe is me that my sojourn is prolonged! I have dwelt with those who dwell in Kedar. My soul hath long sojourned in a strange land." Therefore this habitation of the body is not the mansion of the citizen, nor the house of the native, but either the soldier's tent or the traveler's inn. This body, I say, is a tent, and a tent of Kedar, because, by its interference, it prevents the soul from beholding the infinite light, nor does it allow her to see the light at all, except through a glass darkly, and not face to face.