Chapter XVI (3)

An amusing eccentricity of feeling, certainly a very nice distinction, was shown during slave times by a woman belonging to a friend of ours. Some disturbance had taken place on the premises of a neighbor, Mr. H----, who, being a severe old man, forthwith forbade that any negro should again visit his place. This result was very dispiriting to Judy, the slave above referred to, for she had a cousin belonging to Mr. H---- to whom she was in the habit of paying frequent visits, and for whom she felt undoubtedly very great affection; and as time passed and Mr. H---- continued implacable, her indignation grew and her wrath waxed exceeding strong. It came to pass that the cousin one night fared over-sumptuously on cold cabbage and beans, and when the mists of dawn had fled she too had left to join her friends over Jordan.

Presently a messenger came from Mr. H----: "Would Mrs. S---- be so kind as to allow Judy to come over and prepare the body for burial?"--that being one of Judy's specialties.

The family was at table when the message was delivered, and Judy was serving cakes and muffins, with short parentheses sacred to the memory of her cousin. Mrs. S---- had respected her affliction and given her permission to retire, but Judy continued to return with more cakes and more muffins, and, as soon as they were handed, to retire to a corner with her apron at her eyes, even after Mr. H----'s message had been delivered and she had been told to go. During one of her temporary absences Mr. S---- asked his wife, "Why don't you tell her to go, if she is going? It seems nobody can be 'laid out' without Judy, but any of the rest can wait at table."

"But this is her cousin, and she may not wish to perform so trying a service; so I will leave it to her.--Judy, if you prefer not going to Mr. H----'s just at present, I will send word that I cannot spare you."

Judy threw her apron over her head with a vari-toned cry issued in the keys of grief, anger and scorn. Then she stiffened her neck and rolled her eyes from side to side till the whites glistened again. "Go dar, indeed!" she indignantly exclaimed. "Ef I couldn't go on de lot to see my own dear cousin, I know I ain't gwine to dress up his dead nigger!"

The leading trait of the negro is his instability, his superficiality. It is superlative. His emotions are as easily aroused and as evanescent as those of children, flowing in a noisy and tumultuous current, but utterly without depth and volatile as ether. To this may in a measure be attributed his lack of progress, but I doubt whether he be capable of any high order of development without an infusion of Caucasian blood which will dissipate his simian type, improving the shape of his retreating forehead, changing the contour of his heavy jaw, giving weight and measurement to his now inferior and inactive brain. Since the surrender and the institution of public schools, and the opportunities for improvement afforded him, we seem to have all around us evidence of this utter instability of character. Never since the world began has he had, and never will he have again, the incentives and aids to improvement which at that time fell into his hands. There was, as one spur to ambition, the spirit of resentment which he was supposed naturally to entertain at having been kept in servitude by even the kindest of masters; but the negro is amiable and forgiving, and not only during but after the war conducted himself with admirable good feeling and moderation. Granting, then, that he indulged no feeling of resentment, there must have been, should have been, there was, a sentiment of rivalry with the whites which was pardonable and proper to the most amiable and forgiving nature; and at first the young negroes applied themselves with assiduity, and learned with an avidity which delighted some classes, and was no doubt a discomfiting surprise to others. It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which they mastered the alphabet of progress, and white mothers said to their indolent or refractory children, "Are you not ashamed to see little negroes more studious than yourself, making even greater progress according to their advantages, and in matters with which you should be already familiar?"

As time went on even the indolent or refractory white boy to some extent improved, and seemed conditionally sure of further improvement; but the negro, having arrived at a certain point--and that usually no high one--seemed incapable of further progress, as a man, though not afflicted with dimness of vision, is prevented by natural causes from seeing beyond the horizon. Doubtless the spirit of rivalry already mentioned, born of defiance and resentment in a mild form, was to some extent the incentive to application, and its brief duration serves to illustrate the instability of which we speak. Doubtless, also, many others, by reason of poverty, which necessitated manual labor, were unable to continue the pursuit of an education to any great advantage; but what numbers of white children, by the losses of war placed on the same footing--placed identically on the same footing, because they also and their parents were compelled to earn by labor their daily bread--have yet continued to improve! The negro had the same privilege of night study and (immediately after the war) as many teachers at his service as any white child. He had also one advantage over the white: he had never learned the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_, and the silver lining to this cloud of ignorance lay in the fact that he was thereby enabled more speedily to increase his store of worldly goods, thus leaving time for greater devotion to the particular of mental development.

But take the minority of instances, where every advantage has been given him; where, freed from the relations of master and slave, he has been thrown with whites and the spirit of emulation naturally excited; where his parents have made every sacrifice necessary to procure him tutors (numbers of them had private teachers, and very competent ones too, just after the war) and books and all the paraphernalia of learning, and even the best social position possible to him in the section where he happened to be, themselves retreating into the background with the pathetic humility and self-abnegation of parents who believe and desire their offspring to be of a higher order than themselves,--does the highest culture of which he seems capable make him more than the peer of the mediocre white? I and hundreds of others have read with pleasure the speech of Rev. William D. Johnson, A.M., colored delegate to the Methodist Episcopal Conference which some months ago met in Georgia. It was a good speech for a colored man--a capitally, wonderfully good speech--and I applaud it with cordial pleasure and reciprocation of the good feeling which pervades it; but is it more than the address of the average white? As the address of any one of the white members would it have been reported, or have attracted attention, save for its animus?

There are exceptional cases among the negroes as among the whites; but because we have a Cuvier, a Webster, a Dupuytren, are we prepared to assert as a general fact that the brain of the white man weighs sixty-four ounces? And I speak of the negroes as a class. I refer to the negro of the South, not to the barbarian of Africa, who really exists, nor to the negro of the Northern mind, who is only "founded on fact." I refer to the negro as he is in our day and generation, not as he will or may be after centuries of revolution in his circumstances which will produce Heaven knows what changes in his mental, moral and physical nature. Many believe that these negroes, whom and whose children we have civilized, having with their freedom received ideas of social equality and personal ambition which except in isolated cases can never be realized on this continent, will gradually return, as in South Carolina they are now doing, to their original land, and thus eventually civilize their own race. Were they to return in a body, they would all probably relapse into barbarism, but if a clear stream be kept running, though the pool through which it flow be stagnant, it will in time become pure. And there is material in this country for a pretty continuous flow.

I do not say that the negro is incapable of progress, but his mental horizon is very limited, and seems bounded by natural causes as immovable (except by aid of foreign blood, which having he ceases to be a genuine negro) as the chains of mountains which in some localities limit the horizon in material Nature; and that as a people they will become the peer of the white race is simply impossible, for if progress be a law of Nature, it will be obeyed by the white man also, and he is already centuries ahead of the black, with advantages of every possible nature. Also, that they should now be competent to fill the offices many of them occupy is a pure absurdity, as demonstrated all around us--at the polls, in the jury-box, in the chair of the magistrate. A very cruel absurdity it has sometimes proved.

But speaking of their mercurial nature: I was once spending the summer at a village in the mountains, and not far from my chamber-window were three or four cabins occupied by very cleanly, orderly negroes, who had hitherto been a source of no annoyance, for I am very fond of negroes and like to have them about me. These cabins were situated near the mouth of a deep ravine heavily wooded and producing echoes of beautiful distinctness. One evening negroes began to assemble in and around the largest cabin, and there was evidently to be a meeting of some very mournful--or at any rate solemn--character, for they came quietly, shook hands silently, and crept into their places with a stealthy gliding motion. It was a weird, uncanny scene. The moon rose slowly behind the great black mountains, and cast its rays upon the tree-tops and shimmered its light on the whitewashed cabins, and only half revealed the dark figures that glided like spectres in and out; but nothing could pierce the depths of that black ravine, and it was easy to believe it the abode of spirits blest or otherwise--especially otherwise. There was a long, oppressive silence: then they began to sing. What remarkable voices they have, especially the men--so full, so rich, so deep and sonorous! If the mental development of the negro is to involve change in his physical conformation, it is to be hoped it will not interfere with his chest and lungs, nor with that wonderful cavern in the back of his mouth and at the base of the nose. Some should be kept barbarians that they may continue to be vocal instruments. No one who has heard him only as a "minstrel" can have any conception of the exquisite mournfulness, the agonizing pathos, which the negro voice is capable of expressing; nor, we may fairly add, of the wild, devil-may-care jollity; but this last is more truly represented on the stage, the invariable adjuncts of caricature not only contributing to stimulate the comedian, but broadening the effect of his voice on the hearer. Why is it that we always have caricature in negro delineations--that we never have any simple representations of the reality or any touches of unalloyed pathos? In all Nature there is nothing more pathetic than a pitiful negro. You may paint the negro's lips and roach his hair, and even exaggerate the peculiarities of his feet, but I can pick you up one, out on the suburbs or down in the alleys, who has become old and feeble and cannot work any more, whose old master is dead and whose children have kicked him out, who steals and struggles and starves in ignorant terror of the poorhouse; and for yours people will raise their opera-glasses to their eyes--for mine, their handkerchiefs.

But to return. Oh how inexpressibly mournful were their chants that night! I remember one especially. It began with a wailing recitative--a prolonged, mournful recitative in the minor key by female voices only, and at its close the men joined them in a full, deep chorus, slow and solemn, the last words of which were "Dead and gone!" The black ravine took up the sound, and from its deep, mysterious heart came back the solemn echo, "Dead and gone!" It was simply horrible. I never felt so homesick in my life; and as the mournful chant rolled toward the mountain, and then came floating back again like a corpse upon the ebbing tide, I leaned my head upon the window-sill and cried heartily. One by one my friends died and were buried, my children became orphans, and, by a curious freak of circumstances, their father and I were left to a childless old age. All possible accidents were put in requisition, all manner of possible misfortunes called upon to contribute their quota of woe. Then I fell to wondering how people could like to sing mournful things and make themselves and other people miserable; and that made me think of what negroes liked, and that naturally led to watermelons; so I dried my eyes and summoned my maid: "Betty, what is it they are singing about? Is anybody dead?"

"It's de las' en' of a funerul, I b'lieve, m'm--somebody whar dey didn't git done preachin' over him, 'count of a storm."

"Betty, the singing does make me feel so badly. Just step over and say I will send them a barrel of watermelons and cantaloupes, and those Mrs. Brown sent me too, if they will get up a dance or make any kind of cheerful noise. There is a tambourine among the children's toys: you can beat it as you go."

Betty laughed, and went over. There was a pause in the singing: then I heard a man's voice: "Go 'way wid dat fool talk! Whar she gwine git watermillions an' mushmillions by de bar'l, an' dey ain't more'n fa'rly ripe?"

"Mr. Smith sent 'em from de city," simpered Betty, who liked to put on airs with the country-folk; "an' Mrs. Brown, of your nabority, reposed her some to-day."

"Dat's so 'bout dem from town, 'cos I helped to tote 'em up to de house," said another.

"Huk kum she ain't et 'em?"

"The baby conwulshed, an' Mrs. Smith's mind disbegaged of de melons," replied Betty.

"Huk kum he sen' so many?" asked the first speaker, who appeared to be business-manager, and duly afraid of being swindled--fervid in fair speech, and correspondingly suspicious. "His wife mus' be a mons'ous hearty 'ooman!"

"He knowed she were goin' to resperse 'em to her village fren's too, of course. Which we all know dere ain't no place where you carn't" (Betty was from Cumberland county, and pronounced the _a_ broad, to the envious disgust of the Rockbridge darkies) "git fruit like you carn't git it in the country. It is always five miles off, an' de han's is busy, or de creek is riz an' you carn't cross it."

"Come now, town-nigger, we don't want none o' yo' slack-jaw; an' ain't gwine take it, nudder!"

"Mos' incertny not," sang out a high-pitched female voice from some unseen point.

"Comin' here wid yo' half-white talk an' half-nigger!"

"But who'll git up de fus' larf?" inquired the metropolitan, suavely waiving personal discussion.

"Yo' git de 'millions, an' de laf's boun' ter foller. Don't be skeered 'bout de laf."

And his veracity proved unimpeachable, for as the melons were distributed the air became vocal with rude wit and noisy laughter, and the deep ravine gave back loud "yah-yahs" which sounded truly demoniac in the darkness, and were no doubt the reproachful, sneering laughter of the late lamented, whose obsequies were for the second time abbreviated--the resentful, mocking laughter of him who was "dead and gone."

But the negro, as said before, has one advantage over his impecunious white brother--a genius for theft. The white man may not have, as a general thing, sterner principle or a softer conscience, but it cannot be said, except in isolated cases, that he has a passion for stealing. The Chinaman is regarded by severe moralists as somewhat lax in the matter of honesty, and indeed, to be candid, he has been accused of cultivating theft as one of the fine arts; but even he has the grace to be, or to affect to be, ashamed of it, and indignantly resentful at being suspected of the immorality. The negro, on the other hand, is only terribly afraid of being punished, and on being forgiven feels immediately purified and free from sin. He has, in fact, no moral principle, and his code of honesty is comprised in a conversation I overheard this winter. Our youngest child seemed to have a vague, indefinite fear of rogues, and a very imperfect idea of what a rogue might be, and was always asking questions on the subject. One morning, while his nurse was dressing him, I heard him inquire, "How big is a rogue, Betty? Can he hear a mile?"

Before she could reply, his brother, very little older, rose to explain: "Why, Bob, you've seen a many a rogue. A rogue is thes' a man. Papa an' Uncle Bob looks ezactly like other rogues."

"Is papa an' Unker Bob rogues?" asked the youngest with innocent wonder.

"No, chile--dat dey ain't!" said Betty as she filled his eyes with soap. "Yo' papa an' yo' uncle Borb is jes' as ornes' as anybody, 'cos rogues is folks what steals an' _gits cotch_!"

JENNIE WOODVILLE.

THE AFTER-DINNER SPEECH OF THE BARONESS CONTALETTO.

In one of the most salubrious sections of Alaska there exists--or did exist in December, 1876--a society named "The Irreparables." It was composed of women only. For this there were several reasons. The subjects discussed were not supposed to interest men, but this might have been remedied had not the men, already in a minority in the village, absolutely refused to have anything to do with a society in which they were sure to be voted down without any very promising power of appeal. It was at one time suggested that they could become associate members, but the notary, upon examining their prospective position in the club, declared that their taxes would be so many and their rights so few that it was an offer not to be considered. So the matter was dropped, and an "Irreparable" was always a creature of the gentler sex.

The most important event in the year to this society was its annual meeting and festive celebration in December. Upon this occasion the members reviewed their accounts, perhaps voted in a new member, acted upon delinquents, and, in a word, settled up the business of the year. The festivities sometimes took the shape of a mothers' meeting, a quilting-party or a cozy little tea. In 1876 they were, however, affected by the excitement that prevailed throughout the whole United States, and which fairly reached them in December. Alaska, it was true, was not one of the thirteen colonies, but neither was Ohio nor Colorado. It was much larger than Rhode Island or Delaware. It had great possibilities, and it had cost money, which was more than could be said of the original thirteen, leaving out Pennsylvania, which even then could not be counted as a very expensive investment on the part of Mr. Penn. These patriotic reasons fired the hearts of the "Irreparables," and they determined that Alaska should celebrate the Centennial of their country, and that the celebration should be theirs.

Then the question arose of what nature this celebration should be. An Exposition was clearly out of the question, and even a school-fair was voted troublesome. Some of the younger members favored a dance, but this was objected to, because of the absurdity of a roomful of women waltzing and treading the light, fantastic German by themselves. It would seem, said the Baroness Contaletto, like a burlesque of merriment; and so the dance fell through. A service of song, a tea-drum, a cream-cornet, and a pound-party met the same fate; and finally all minds gently but firmly centred upon a dinner-party; and so it _was_ a dinner with courses.

Naturally enough, it was not at first easy to arrange, but the admirable spirit of organization pervading the society soon brought everything into shape. There was a committee upon the bill of fare, upon the toasts, upon invitations, upon the room and upon the general arrangements. It was true that the only room in the village that was suitable was the little hall back of the tavern, and the invitations were verbally given at the meeting when the matter was decided upon; but as one never knows what emergencies may arise, it is always well to have a committee ready to act.

The chairwoman of most of the committees was the Baroness Contaletto. This was not because of her rank, as, in fact, she had no claim to her title either from birthright or marriage. Her claim rested upon the fine sense the village had of the fitness of things. She _looked_ like a baroness: she always made it a point to behave like one. In the course of time they called her so, and when she added the name of Contaletto, the village acknowledged the fitness of _that_, and very soon the Baroness Contaletto was universally accepted, and Thisba Lenowski forgotten. The reason of her being so many chairwomen also rested on her fitness. She was a woman of ideas and of deeds. The minister's plans might come to naught, the editor's predictions be falsified, and the schoolmaster's reforms die out; but the enterprises undertaken by the baroness went through to a swift success. Her ideas were both contagious and epidemic, and she was always a known quantity in the place.

And so when she pooh-poohed the dance, laughed at the tea-drum and shivered at the idea of the cream-cornet, declaring for the dinner, the matter was settled, and each of the younger members promptly decided who she would ask to escort her and deliberated as to what she should wear.

Then the baroness arose. She glanced around. She read the thoughts of the members. She looked at two women. One was the sister of the county clerk: she was a woman of the most appreciative character, the clearest sense, and--she was the faithful echo of the baroness. The second was a pretty girl. She represented the other pretty girls. Then the baroness spoke. She said it was of the first importance to do this thing decorously and in order. When men had suppers they never invited women. They wanted to have a good time, and women spoiled it. She was not in favor of an "invitation entertainment." She supposed that what they wanted was a society, an "Irreparable," dinner. Therefore, _she_ did not propose to invite men.

"But," said the pretty girl, with a rosy color mounting to her cheeks and an ominous flash in her eyes, "when I was in New Moscow _I_ was invited to the Hercules dinner."

"To the table?" asked the baroness.

"Well--no," replied the pretty girl.

"Did you get anything to eat?" pursued the baroness.

"Oh no," answered the victim, as if this was something preposterous--"of course I didn't. We did not expect anything. But I had a splendid seat, and I heard all the toasts and everything."

"That _was_ very nice," answered the baroness, grimly; "but I think we can do quite as well. We will invite the gentlemen to the gallery--fortunately, there is one--we will have toasts, and _we_ will be very entertaining."

Of course the baroness had her way. Here, at once, was an advantage in the absence of associate members. Rosy cheeks and pretty eyes now counted in the society for nothing, and when the sister of the county clerk promptly moved that no gentleman be invited to the floor, the sexton's wife seconded the motion. It was carried, and on the night appointed the "Irreparables" had their dinner, and up in the gallery sat the minister, the sheriff, the county clerk, the editor of the _Snow-Drift_, the head-teacher and a dozen other gentlemen, all in strict evening--if still Alaskian--toilettes. At first it was funny. Then it wasn't funny. It became tiresome, and the sheriff went away. His boots creaked, the ladies looked up, and then not a married man but smiled delightedly and settled himself in his seat.

They paid much attention to the wine. It had been bought in New Moscow of the Hercules Club, and was of course all right. Yet it was over the wine that the county clerk grew restless. It was not that he wished for it particularly, but when the "Irreparables" drank champagne with their soup, sauterne with the meat, ate their nuts and made their toasts with sherry, his patience was put to a severe test. It was something to see that most of the glasses went away almost untasted, but the head-teacher found it best to keep a steady eye upon him and save him from doing more than mutter his opinions.

But when the toasts came the gallery visibly brightened up. The "Irreparables" toasted the country and its resources, the United States, Mrs. Seward, the Centennial, Mrs. Grant, and the widow the chief alderman was to marry. They drank to Queen Victoria, and, with a remembrance of past loyalty, to the czarina. To each toast a member responded in terms fitting and witty, and when the pretty girl arose and, with a glance at the gallery, gave "The gentlemen--God bless them!" the baroness stood up and made reply. She thanked the company in the name of the gentlemen. She spoke of them in high and eloquent terms. She alluded to their usefulness, their courage, their good looks. She did them full justice as resources in times of trouble, of war and of midnight burglaries.

The county clerk ran his fingers through his hair, the color came into the cheeks of the clergyman, and a subdued murmur as of pleasure ran through the little group in the gallery.

Then the baroness continued. She said she was not a woman-suffragist--at least she wasn't sure that she was. She had, she thanked her stars, her own opinion upon most matters, but while she had no positive objection to right-minded women having any real or fancied wrongs redressed, and in their own way, she had not yet thought clearly enough upon the subject to be sure that the ballot was the remedy. She knew there was a great deal of nonsense talked about the moral influence women would exert in politics: perhaps they would, but to her it seemed very much like watering potato-blossoms to get rid of the worms at the root.

Here the county clerk half rose, but the head-teacher held him with his disciplining eye, and he sat down again.

What was needed, said the baroness, was not mending, regenerating, giving freedom or doing justice. These things were all very good, but more was necessary. "There is no remedy," she said with rising inflections and with emphasis--"no remedy but a total change. What we want is not an extension of the suffrage, but a _limitation_!"

She wished it, however, distinctly understood that she in no way meant to affirm that woman was man's superior: she did not think so. In his own place man could not be surpassed. The sciences, the arts, the industrial pursuits, religion, civilization, all owed a deep debt to man, and it could not be ignored. She was the last person in the world to wish to ignore it. Properly governed, disciplined and educated, his development might outrun hope, defy prophecy. Out of his place he was a comet without an orbit. Drawn hither and thither by sinister stars, he was an eccentricity beyond calculation and full of harm. For this reason the interests of humanity demanded that the place of man in the conduct of affairs should be well defined and limited. It was well to look this matter in the face.

"Now," proceeded the baroness, "I leave it to any class of men, to any one man, to declare whether the world is, or ever has been, well governed. Is there any age, any country upon record, where justice has reigned, where the interests of every class have been consulted, and where the people have lived together in mutual esteem, in unity and in prosperity? If we look through the world to-day, we find but one country that is governed in anything like a satisfactory manner. It is loved by some classes of its people, and admired by very many foreigners. When we reflect that it is governed by a queen, and that history tells us that its most prosperous period in the past was under Queen Elizabeth, it is certainly safe to assume--No, no, my friends," she said, hastily, "do not applaud. That is not my point. It is possible that women may govern better than men, but that is yet to be tested. This illustration proves but one thing--_that a country is better for not being governed by a man_."

Her point was this: she did not appear as an advocate of suffrage for women, but as an earnest petitioner against its being any longer held by men. The one thing a man could _not_ do was--to govern! This was no assertion. It was a fact proved by all history. Since the beginning of the world men had had the governing power in their hands, and what a mess they had always made of it! There had never been a decent government. Oppression, rebellion, anarchy, war, bloodshed, slavery and tyranny,--this was their record.

If women could do anything better, she was in favor of giving them the opportunity of proving it, but it was not her purpose to propose the after-treatment. She was not a physician in charge, but the surgeon for the moment.

She had made suggestions: she freely confessed it. She had, for instance, proposed to their talented townsman, the editor of the _Snow-Drift_, a series of articles upon the existing Presidential contest. As far as she could learn, there was a great lack of unanimity regarding the vote, and it was not clear to the Hayes party that Tilden was elected. Now, she had suggested that there were certain classes concerned but _not_ consulted in the election, and to them she proposed leaving the decision. The legal voters had blundered horribly in some way, and she would have been in favor of allowing the Indians, the Chinese, the convicts, the idiots _and_ the women to decide the matter. It could not be made worse, and it might be made better.

But leaving all these questions of a past hour, she would put the axe where George Washington did not put it--at the root of the tree--near enough also, she would remark, to leave no stump, and so at once place politics upon a new basis by taking the governing power away from the gentlemen, God bless them!

LOUISE STOCKTON.

MUSIC IN AMERICA

England and America have long been classed among the unmusical countries of the world, and for good reasons. Their history so far records the names of no composers of a high rank; and although in both countries there are plenty of amateurs and minor musicians who fully appreciate the best there is in the art, yet the people as a whole are not influenced by it in the same way as the Germans and the Italians, to whose hungry souls music is as necessary as is oxygen to their lungs. If we adopt the good old-fashioned classification of instrumental and vocal pieces into "music for the feet," or dance music, "music for the ear," or drawing-room music, "and music for the head and heart," or classical music, we are forced to admit that so far only the first of these classes has found general favor with our masses. Waltzes, quick-steps, galops, quadrilles, are the daily food of our people, and there are thousands of pianos scattered throughout the country which are never used for any other purpose than to play this dance music, which occupies about the same place in relation to the higher forms of music as dancing on the stage does to artistic acting. Next comes the somewhat more elevated branch of drawing-room or _salon_ music, which in the cities and towns is very largely cultivated. It is typified by the popular "Maiden's Prayer," and also includes the more sensational of the French and Italian opera melodies with all their vocal pyrotechnics, as well as the pianoforte fantasias on these same melodies--in short, all music written with a view to giving the performer an opportunity of displaying facility of execution rather than genuine feeling.

It is only in our centres of culture, the largest of our cities, that sufficient interest is taken in the highest products of musical genius to call into life and to support respectable orchestras and choruses; and even in these centres of culture there is no excess of devotion, as is perhaps best shown by the great rarity of amateur string quartettes, those most intellectual and most enjoyable of all musical clubs, whose sphere is classical chamber music, the direct opposite in most respects of the drawing-room music just spoken of. How different all this is from the state of affairs in Germany, where every town of ten thousand inhabitants has its well-managed opera-house and its various kinds of musical clubs for public and private amusement! The difference may best be realized by reading Wagner's admirable little essay, _Ueber Deutsches Musikwesen_, republished in the first volume of his collected works.

Perhaps there is no better way of arriving at a just estimate of the present state of general musical culture in this country than by looking at what may be called the creative department, and examining the vocal and instrumental sheet-music of native composers continually issued in such large quantities by our publishers. Were we to follow an old maxim, that the best way of judging the inner life of a nation is to listen to its music, and accordingly judge of the sentiments and emotions of Americans by their sheet-music, we should arrive at very discouraging results. The characteristics of our sheet-music, briefly summed up, are: (1) trite and vulgar melody, devoid of all originality, repeating what has been heard a thousand times already; (2) equally trite and monotonous accompaniments, the harmony limited to half a dozen elementary chords, the rhythm mechanical and commonplace, and the cadences unchanging as the laws of Nature; (3) insipid, sensational titles; (4) words usually so silly that a respectable country newspaper would refuse to print them in its columns--true to the French _bon-mot_, that what is too stupid to be spoken or read must be sung.

This may seem too sweeping a condemnation, but it is not. There are some honorable exceptions of course, but only just enough of them to attract notice by the contrast, and thus to prove the rule. If an aspiring young composer wishes to appear in print, the point to which he must direct his attention is to secure, not a good original melody or a piquant accompaniment, but a "catching" title, like "Timber-Thief Galop," "Silver Bill Polka," or "Sitting Bull March." If his choice in this respect does not please the publisher, his manuscript may yet escape the paper-basket if its title-page happens to be embellished with a grotesque cartoon or a sentimental picture of a couple of lovers or cats who have met by moonlight alone. From these external and all-essential attributes an experienced agent can form an accurate estimate of how large the sale of a new piece will be; and he will tell you that so little does the excellence of the music contribute to its success that in general the sale of compositions in this country stands in inverse ratio to their merits.

The sheet-music nuisance seems to be a phenomenon peculiar to this country; for, although France, England, Italy, and even Germany, annually produce much music which is not worth the printer's ink, yet in comparison with ours it might almost be called classical. And the melancholy thing about it is, that specimens of these flimsy productions may be seen lying about freely on the pianos of people who would blush at the mere thought of having books of the same intellectual and aesthetic level lying on their parlor-tables for general inspection and for the entertainment of guests. For, while the corrupting influence of an impure story or a bad picture has long since been recognized, it still seems to be imagined by many educated people that music being the "divine art" any form of it must of course be desirable, and better than nothing at all. This is the form of Philistinism which before all others must be combated ere we can hope to materially purify our musical atmosphere. The error naturally arose from the great amount of silly talk about music, which is usually represented as being incapable of lending itself to the expression of any but the noblest sentiments and emotions. Quite the contrary. If good music has all those wonderful powers which have been ascribed to it from time immemorial, it follows necessarily that bad music must exert equal powers in an opposite direction. In fact, bad music is even a more demoralizing agent than, for instance, a miserable newspaper. The latter is once hastily read through and then thrown away, while a poor musical composition is apt to be preserved in the parlor--perhaps, neatly bound with some others of like value, is carefully studied, or even memorized, and repeatedly sung at evening parties; and in this way it cannot but slowly vitiate the taste of performer and hearer alike, and make them deaf to the beauties of better things.

If we turn from this aspect of music in America to our concert-halls, the prospect is much brighter. In this department we have achieved more than in any other, and no one is now obliged to go abroad in order to hear a good concert, as he is if he wishes to enjoy a respectable operatic performance. How much of this is due to the energy of one man, Mr. Theodore Thomas, everybody knows, and it is not too much to say that the "new departure" he is about to make may be expected to mark an epoch in the history of American music. Cincinnati will henceforth claim the position of musical metropolis, and whether its pre-eminence be conceded or a vigorous rivalry maintained, the whole country must feel the good effect of that generous ambition which has rescued a noble enterprise from an uncertain and fluctuating condition, and offered it a secure haven.

Americans have already good reasons for being proud of their concerts, for except in Berlin there are perhaps no audiences in Europe which have the advantage of us in this respect. This can be seen by comparing our programmes with those offered in continental cities, as recorded every week in the _Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik_, published at Leipsic. I have repeatedly seen paragraphs in leading German papers calling attention to Mr. Thomas's programmes, and hinting that their own conductors might learn something from them. What is particularly noticeable about them is their cosmopolitanism, and this has contributed much to their success. It has been said, however, by some that Thomas's sole aim seems to be to offer as many novelties as possible, and that he disregards artistic perspective in the arrangement of his programmes. He has indeed never followed the illiberal principle that it is bad taste to perform the works of living masters--a principle which has done much to bring to the brink of ruin a certain association in Boston--but he has endeavored to do justice to all the composers from Bach to Berlioz and Wagner. If Mr. Thomas makes an effort to introduce to his audience a new symphony by Brahms or a new symphonic poem by Saint Saeens immediately after its issue from the press, we certainly ought to be very grateful to him for his enterprise. When a prominent author writes a new book everybody is eager to get sight of it as soon as possible, and no one has any fault to find with this curiosity. But when a similar eagerness is manifested to hear a new symphony, the conservatives at once cry out, "For shame! Would you neglect the old masters for the sake of pieces which the wear and tear of time have not yet proved to possess permanent value?" The Messrs. Conservatives evidently do not perceive the ludicrous aspect of their position. If their influence were not fortunately losing instead of gaining in strength, we might soon look for the extinction of art through the infanticide of genius. Mr. Thomas is not a conservative, and, thanks to this fact, we are often enabled to hear a new composition even before it has been performed in all the German capitals.

Of the condition of our operatic affairs it is impossible to speak in the same terms of self-congratulation as of our concerts, and will remain impossible as long as our opera troupes differ in no essential respects--except in being less sure of their parts--from travelling bands of negro minstrels. An orchestra may with impunity travel from one city to another: it always remains the same, and only needs a good hall to appear to advantage. But an operatic performance is such a complicated affair that excellence can only be attained after years of constant practice under the same conditions and with the same materials, and without constant changes in the chorus, orchestra and stage surroundings. European experience seems to show that without government assistance good dramatic and operatic performances are not possible. In France and Germany, where such assistance is given, the theatres are good: in England and America, where none is given, they are bad. Perhaps in course of time our national or city governments will come to recognize and support the theatre as an educational institution, or at least as a good means of suppressing intemperance and other vices by supplying a harmless mode of amusement. There is little prospect, however, that this will happen soon. It is more likely that some of our rich men will at last come to see the folly of founding so many new colleges, and devote their money to other uses. Had Mr. Samuel Wood left his money for the establishment of a permanent first-class opera instead of a conservatory, he would have done a wiser thing. The importance of a good opera-house as an institution for promoting musical culture is not yet generally understood--naturally enough, considering the wretched performances we have so far been obliged to endure. The opera has one great advantage over concerts: it is more attractive to the uninitiated. It appeals to the eye as well as the ear. The scenic splendors will attract many unmusical and semi-musical people who shun the purely intellectual atmosphere of a classical concert as a great bore; and while they gaze at the wonders of the scenery they unconsciously drink in the music, so that in course of time they learn to appreciate that for its own sake. When _Lohengrin_ was first performed in the German cities the masses attended it chiefly to see the new and brilliant scenic effects. They found the music stupid, devoid of melody and form, and bristling with "algebraic" harmonies. But they went so often to see the swan drawing the mysterious knight through the waters of the Rhine that they finally learned that the opera is a rich storehouse of the most exquisite melody, that a wonderful unity of forms pervades the whole, and that the algebraic harmonies serve to express depths of emotion hitherto unknown. In the same way the Vienna people have been lately crowding the theatre to see the Rhine-daughters in their long blue robes swimming about under the surface of the river, to see the fight with the dragon, the march of the gods over the rainbow, the ride of the walkyries on their wild steeds, the burning Walhalla, etc., and have gradually discovered that their critics at Bayreuth again hoaxed them when they wrote that the music of the _Trilogy_ was "atomic," that it was devoid of melody, and that the harmony was in defiance of all the laws of euphony.

These illustrations show the value of good scenery. Independently of its artistic value, it is a legitimate bait for enticing people to a place where they are obliged to hear good music. Good scenery, however, has never been the strong point of our opera troupes. They never had more than one strong point. Formerly, some of the great _prime donne_ used to pay us an occasional visit, but now even they have learned to avoid us, because we are no longer willing to pay five dollars for an evening's amusement. London, Paris and St. Petersburg are at present the head-quarters of the costly "stars." Nor is this fact to be regretted. The decline of the star system is rather to be greeted as the dawn of a better era. It has always been the curse of the opera and the greatest obstacle to improvement. There was a time when the prima donna was so omnipotent that even the composers were her slaves, being frequently obliged to alter passages to suit the taste of the stage goddess; and there are instances on record of whole operas having been composed in vain because she did not happen to be pleased with them, and refused to sing. This evil period we have happily out-grown, but an equally great nuisance remains. The exorbitant prices still demanded by the "stars" are out of all proportion to their deserts, and show that even if the composers are their slaves no longer, the spectators and managers still are so. In Paris and elsewhere it is often found impossible to do justice to the secondary stage appointments because the salaries of the soprano and the tenor swallow the whole income. The Germans, on the other hand, are too artistic and rational to endure such an imposition. To them the one-star-and-ten-satellites system seems an abomination, and doubtless Emperor William had the sympathies and approval of all his subjects when he refused to engage Patti at a price that would have proved disastrous to the high aims of the imperial opera, which are to preserve an evenly-balanced and uniform excellence of all the parts of a performance. There are signs that even England is outgrowing the star system. Carl Rosa has adopted the German system of dispensing with "phenomenal" singers, putting the minor roles into good hands, and keeping a well-trained chorus and orchestra; and his success, as everybody knows, has been enormous. Now let some competent manager in this country follow his example: let him show that he does not merely aim at getting the people's money, but that he has also the ambition of honestly interpreting the works of the masters and developing a healthy taste for good dramatic music and acting, and there can be little doubt that instead of increasing the number of failures now recorded, the enterprise would prove a success, and show, as Carl Rosa's has done, that in this way opera can be made to pay even without government assistance.

Although our rulers have not yet recognized the theatre as a possible source of culture, they have done something which to the country at large is of even greater importance than this would be. They have been gradually introducing vocal music as a regular branch of study in our public schools. In this matter we seem to have anticipated England, for while singing was introduced in the schools of Boston more than forty, and in Baltimore more than thirty, years ago, in the British House of Commons only twenty-five years ago, when a member proposed that singing should be taught in all schools, as in Germany, "the suggestion was received with ridicule, and was deemed deserving of no other response than a loud laugh." But there has also been, and still is, some opposition to its general introduction in this country. Only a few months ago the St. Louis press urged its removal from the schools on the ground that it is one of the "ornamental" studies, and that more time is in that city, for instance, devoted to it than to the practical subjects of geography and arithmetic. This last objection has not much force. All that is really practical and generally useful in geography and arithmetic can be learned in a few years, whereas to make progress in the difficult art of music it is necessary to begin early and continue for many years. The true answer to such an objection is, that there is no need of neglecting either of these branches. There is time enough for all of them if only a proper method of instruction be pursued. Still more untenable is the idea that music is merely an ornamental study and of no practical value. This idea rests on the mistaken theory of education which holds that only the intellect needs training. If our sole aim is to get something to eat and to drink, and a house to shelter us from the weather, then we need only cultivate the intellect so that we may be able to compete with others. But if we care for beautiful homes, if we wish to enjoy life in a higher sense than that in which a savage enjoys it, and to make ourselves and others happy, then the training of the emotions through music is as important as the training of the intellect in a practical and not an "ornamental" sense.

Fortunately, none of the objections hitherto urged against singing in public schools have been able to effect any change for the worse. Vocal music is now taught in the common schools of nearly every city and large town in New England and the Northern and Western States. In Boston--which has always been noted for its excellence in this department--thanks to the intelligent labors of Mr. Lowell Mason and Mr. Julius Eichberg, it is now possible, on occasion, to raise a chorus of five thousand well-trained juvenile voices. And it is gratifying to observe with what unanimity the good influence of public-school singing is attested by the commissioners of all those States which have given it a fair trial. The grounds on which it is usually commended are that it puts life and variety into the dull routine of studies--that it promotes order and discipline, stimulates the social feelings, electrifies the wearied nervous system, conduces to health by the regular and vigorous exercise of the lungs, trains the moral sentiments by refining the aesthetic emotions, and tends to improve the congregational singing in our churches. To quote the language of the Commissioner of Education (_Report for 1873_): "Experience proves that as music is perfected and used in the daily routine of school duties, just in that proportion are the deportment and general appearance of the schools improved." Indeed, it is difficult to calculate all the good results that in course of time must follow from general musical instruction in our schools. It is certainly the only effective method of removing in a few generations the reproach that we are not a musical people. In Germany--which perhaps has done more for music than all other countries combined--the foundation for musical culture is laid in the schools by the singing of folk-songs (_Volkslieder_) and chorals in three-or four-part harmony. And those who have read the history of music know that these same folk-songs and chorals were the first musical fruits grown on German soil: they were the fruits on which in past centuries the people lived and formed their taste. It is evident, therefore, that in now teaching these folk-songs and chorals to their children the Germans are guided by that important law of evolution which shows that the development of the child partly does, and partly should be made to, conform to the development of the race, step by step.

There is no reason why we should not follow this same principle. Of course it will not be necessary to confine ourselves to German folk-songs, although these are on the whole the best. We are a mixed people, compounded of all nationalities, and hence the folk-songs of Italy, France, Scotland, Russia and various other countries should all be acclimated in our schools. There is something peculiarly healthy and fresh about folk-songs which one only finds again in the very highest efforts of individual creative genius. They are like flowers that have grown up in virgin forests, nurtured by rain and sunshine, fanned by vigorous breezes and shielded from all the hot-house influences of a morbid civilization. So rich and spontaneous are many of these melodies that they can be thoroughly enjoyed even when sung without harmony or accompaniment, while for advanced classes it is easy to write second and third vocal parts, thus adding to their interest and value.