Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various

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"The next morning, (October 12,) at ten o'clock, the rehearsal for the
concert began, which was to be given at court at six in the afternoon.
Herr Welsch (oboist) had the politeness to invite me to be present. I
was held at the lodgings of Herr Ries, who received me with a hearty
shake of the hand. Here I was an eye-witness of the gentlemanly bearing
of the members of the Chapel toward each other. One heart, one mind
rules them. 'We know nothing of the cabals and chicanery so common;
among us the most perfect unanimity prevails; we, as members of one
company, cherish for each other a fraternal affection,' said Simrock to
me.

"Here also I was an eye-witness to the esteem and respect in which this
chapel stands with the Elector. Just as the rehearsal was to begin, Ries
was sent for by the prince, and upon his return brought a bag of gold.
'Gentlemen,' said he, 'this being the Elector's name-day, he sends you a
present of a thousand thalers.'

"And again I was eye-witness of this orchestra's surpassing excellence.
Herr Winneberger, Kapellmeister at Wallenstein, laid before it a
symphony of his own composition, which was by no means easy of
execution, especially for the wind instruments, which had several solos
_concertante_. It went finely, however, at the first trial, to the great
surprise of the composer.

"An hour after the dinner-music, the concert began. It was opened with
a symphony of Mozart; then followed a recitative and air, sung by
Simonetti; next a violincello concerto, played by Herr Romberger
(Bernhard Romberg); fourthly, a symphony, by Pleyel; fifthly, an air by
Righini, sung by Simonette; sixthly, a double concerto for violin and
violoncello, played by the two Rombergs; and the closing piece was the
symphony by Winneberger, which had very many brilliant passages. The
opinion already expressed as to the performance of this orchestra was
confirmed. It was not possible to attain a higher degree of exactness.
Such perfection in the _pianos, fortes, rinforzandos_,--such a swelling
and gradual increase of tone, and then such an almost imperceptible
dying away, from the most powerful to the lightest accents,--all this
was formerly to be heard only at Mannheim. It would be difficult to find
another orchestra in which the violins and basses are throughout in such
excellent hands."

We pass over Junker's enthusiastic description of the two Rombergs,
merely remarking, that every word in his account of them is fully
confirmed by the musical periodical press of Europe during the entire
periods of thirty and fifty years of their respective lives after the
date of the letter before us,--and that their playing was undoubtedly
the standard Beethoven had in view, when afterward writing passages for
bowed instruments, which so often proved stumbling-blocks to orchestras
of no small pretensions. What Junker himself saw of the harmony and
brotherly love which marked the social intercourse of the members of
the Chapel was confirmed to him by the statements of others. He adds,
respecting their personal bearing towards others,--"The demeanor of
these gentlemen is very fine and unexceptionable. They are all people of
great elegance of manner and of blameless lives. Greater discretion of
conduct can nowhere be found. At the concert, the ill-starred performers
were so crowded, so incommoded by the multitude of auditors, so
surrounded and pressed upon, as hardly to have room to move their arms,
and the sweat rolled down their faces in great drops. But they bore all
this calmly and with good-humor; not an ill-natured face was visible
among them. At the court of some little prince, we should have seen,
under the circumstances, folly heaped upon folly.

"The members of the Chapel, almost without exception, are in their best
years, glowing with health, men of culture and fine personal appearance.
They form truly a fine sight, when one adds the splendid uniform in
which the Elector has clothed them,--red, and richly trimmed with gold."

And now for the impression which Beethoven, just completing his
twenty-first year, made upon him.

"I heard also one of the greatest of pianists,--the dear, good
Beethoven, some compositions by whom appeared in the Spires 'Blumenlese'
in 1783, written in his eleventh year. True, he did not perform in
public, probably because the instrument here was not to his mind. It is
one of Spath's make, and at Bonn he plays upon one by Steiner. But, what
was infinitely preferable to me, I heard him extemporize in private;
yes, I was even invited to propose a theme for him to vary. The
greatness of this amiable, light-hearted man, as a virtuoso, may, in my
opinion, be safely estimated from his almost inexhaustible wealth of
ideas, the altogether characteristic style of expression in his playing,
and the great execution which he displays. I know, therefore, no one
thing which he lacks, that conduces to the greatness of an artist. I
have heard Vogler upon the piano-forte,--of his organ-playing I say
nothing, not having heard him upon that instrument,--have often heard
him, heard him by the hour together, and never failed to wonder at his
astonishing execution; but Beethoven, in addition to the execution, has
greater clearness and weight of idea, and more expression,--in short,
he is more for the heart,--equally great, therefore, as an adagio or
allegro player. Even the members of this remarkable orchestra are,
without exception, his admirers, and all ear whenever he plays. Yet
he is exceedingly modest and free from all pretension. He, however,
acknowledged to me, that, upon the journeys which the Elector had
enabled him to make, he had seldom found in the playing of the most
distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right
to expect. His style of treating his instrument is so different from
that usually adopted, that it impresses one with the idea, that by a
path of his own discovery he has attained that height of excellence
whereon he now stands.

"Had I acceded to the pressing entreaties of my friend Beethoven, to
which Herr Winneberger added his own, and remained another day in
Mergentheim, I have no doubt he would have played to me hours; and the
day, thus spent in the society of these two great artists, would have
been transformed into a day of the highest bliss."

Doubtless, Herr Junker, judging from the enthusiasm with which you have
written, it would have been so; and for our sake, as well as your own,
we heartily wish you had remained!

Again in Bonn,--the young master's last year in his native city,--that
_petite perle_. It was a fortunate circumstance for the development of
a genius so powerful and original, that the place was not one of such
importance as to call thither any composer or pianist of very great
eminence,--such a one as would have ruled the musical sphere in which
he moved, and become an object of imitation to the young student.
Beethoven's instructors and the musical atmosphere in which he lived and
wrought were fully able to ground him firmly in the laws and rules of
the art, without restraining the natural bent of his genius. His taste
for orchestral music, even, was developed in no particular school,
formed upon no single model,--the Electoral band playing, with equal
care and spirit, music from the presses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich,
Mannheim, Paris, London. Mozart, however, was Beethoven's favorite,
and his influence is unmistakably impressed upon many of the early
compositions of his young admirer.

But the youthful genius was fast becoming so superior to all around him,
that a wider field was necessary for his full development. He needed the
opportunity to measure his powers with those of the men who stood,
by general consent, at the head of the art; he felt the necessity of
instruction by teachers of a different and higher character, if any
could be found. Mozart, it is true, had just passed away, but still
Vienna remained the great metropolis of music; and thither his hopes and
wishes turned. An interview with Haydn added strength to these hopes and
wishes. This was upon Haydn's return, in the spring of 1792, after his
first visit to London, where he had composed for and directed in the
concerts of that Johann Peter Salomon in whose house Beethoven first
saw the light. The veteran composer, on his way home, came to Bonn, and
there accepted an invitation from the Electoral Orchestra to a breakfast
in Godesberg. Here Beethoven was introduced to him, and placed before
him a cantata which he had offered for performance at Mergentheim,
the preceding autumn, but which had proved too difficult for the
wind-instruments in certain passages. Haydn examined it carefully, and
encouraged him to continue in the path of musical composition. Neefe
also hints to us that Haydn was greatly impressed by the skill of the
young man as a piano-forte virtuoso.

Happily, Beethoven was now, as we have seen, free from the burden of
supporting his young brothers, and needed but the means for his journey.

"In November of last year," writes Neefe, in 1793, "Ludwig van
Beethoven, second court organist, and indisputably one of the first of
living pianists, left Bonn for Vienna, to perfect himself in composition
under Haydn. Haydn intended to take him with him upon a second journey
to London, but nothing has come of it."

A few days or weeks, then, before completing his twenty-second year,
Beethoven entered Vienna a second time, to enjoy the example and
instructions of him who was now universally acknowledged the head of
the musical world; to measure his powers upon the piano-forte with the
greatest virtuosos then living; to start upon that career, in which,
by unwearied labor, indomitable perseverance, and never-tiring
effort,--alike under the smiles and the frowns of fortune, in sickness
and in health, and in spite of the saddest calamity which can befall
the true artist, he elevated himself to a position, which, by every
competent judge, is held to be the highest yet attained in perhaps the
grandest department of pure music.

Beethoven came to Vienna in the full vigor of youth just emerging into
manhood. The clouds which had settled over his childhood had all passed
away. All looked bright, joyous, and hopeful. Though, perhaps, wanting
in some of the graces and refinements of polite life, it is clear, from
his intimacy with the Breuning family, his consequent familiarity with
the best society at Bonn, the unchanging kindness of Count Waldstein,
the explicit testimony of Junker, that he was not, could not have been,
the young savage which some of his blind admirers have represented him.
The bare supposition is an insult to his memory. That his sense of
probity and honor was most acute, that he was far above any, the
slightest, meanness of thought or action, of a noble and magnanimous
order of mind, utterly destitute of any feeling of servility which
rendered it possible for him to cringe to the rich and the great, and
that he ever acted from a deep sense of moral obligation,--all this his
whole subsequent history proves. His merit, both as an artist and a man,
met at once full recognition.

And here for the present we leave him, moving in Vienna, as in Bonn,
in the higher circles of society, in the full sunshine of prosperity,
enjoying all that his ardent nature could demand of esteem and
admiration in the saloons of the great, in the society of his brother
artists, in the popular estimation.

* * * * *

A WORD TO THE WISE.

Love hailed a little maid,
Romping through the meadow:
Heedless in the sun she played,
Scornful of the shadow.
"Come with me," whispered he;
"Listen, sweet, to love and reason."
"By and by," she mocked reply;
"Love's not in season."

Years went, years came;
Light mixed with shadow.
Love met the maid again,
Dreaming through the meadow.
"Not so coy," urged the boy;
"List in time to love and reason."
"By and by," she mused reply;
"Love's still in season."

Years went, years came;
Light changed to shadow.
Love saw the maid again,
Waiting in the meadow.
"Pass no more; my dream is o'er;
I can listen now to reason."
"Keep thee coy," mocked the boy;
"Love's out of season."

HENRY WARD BEECHER.[A]

[Footnote A: _Life Thoughts, gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses
of Henry Ward Beecher._ By a Member of his Congregation. Boston:
Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1858. pp. 299.]

There are more than thirty thousand preachers in the United States,
whereof twenty-eight thousand are Protestants, the rest Catholics,--one
minister to a thousand men. They make an exceeding great army,--mostly
serious, often self-denying and earnest. Nay, sometimes you find them
men of large talent, perhaps even of genius. No thirty thousand
farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, or traders have so much of that
book-learning which is popularly called "Education."

No class has such opportunities for influence, such means of power; even
now the press ranks second to the pulpit. Some of the old traditional
respect for the theocratic class continues in service, and waits upon
the ministers. It has come down from Celtic and Teutonic fathers,
hundreds of years behind us, who transferred to a Roman priesthood the
allegiance once paid to the servants of a deity quite different from the
Catholic. The Puritans founded an ecclesiastical oligarchy which is by
no means ended yet; with the most obstinate "liberty of prophesying"
there was mixed a certain respect for such as only wore the prophet's
mantle; nor is it wholly gone.

What personal means of controlling the public the minister has at his
command! Of their own accord, men "assemble and meet together," and look
up to him. In the country, the town-roads centre at the meeting-house,
which is also the _terminus a quo_, the golden mile-stone, whence
distances are measured off. Once a week, the wheels of business, and
even of pleasure, drop into the old customary ruts, and turn thither.
Sunday morning, all the land is still. Labor puts off his iron apron and
arrays him in clean human clothes,--a symbol of universal humanity, not
merely of special toil. Trade closes the shop; his business-pen, well
wiped, is laid up for to-morrow's use; the account-book is shut,--men
thinking of their trespasses as well as their debts. For six days, aye,
and so many nights, Broadway roars with the great stream which sets this
way and that, as wind and tide press up and down. How noisy is this
great channel of business, wherein Humanity rolls to and fro, now
running into shops, now sucked down into cellars, then dashed high up
the tall, steep banks, to come down again a continuous drip and be lost
in the general flood! What a fringe of foam colors the margin on either
side, and what gay bubbles float therein, with more varied gorgeousness
than the Queen of Sheba dreamed of putting on when she courted the eye
of Hebrew Solomon! Sunday, this noise is still. Broadway is a quiet
stream, looking sober, or even dull; its voice is but a gentle murmur of
many waters calmly flowing where the ecclesiastical gates are open
to let them in. The channel of business has shrunk to a little
church-canal. Even in this great Babel of commerce one day in seven is
given up to the minister. The world may have the other six; this is for
the Church;--for so have Abram and Lot divided the field of Time, that
there be no strife between the rival herdsmen of the Church and the
World. Sunday morning, Time rings the bell. At the familiar sound, by
long habit born in them, and older than memory, men assemble at the
meeting-house, nestle themselves devoutly in their snug pews, and button
themselves in with wonted care. There is the shepherd, and here is the
flock, fenced off into so many little private pens. With dumb, yet
eloquent patience, they look up listless, perhaps longing, for such
fodder as he may pull out from his spiritual mow and shake down before
them. What he gives they gather.

Other speakers must have some magnetism of personal power or public
reputation to attract men; but the minister can dispense with that;
to him men answer before he calls, and even when they are not sent by
others are drawn by him. Twice a week, nay, three times, if he will, do
they lend him their ears to be filled with his words. No man of science
or letters has such access to men. Besides, he is to speak on the
grandest of all themes,--of Man, of God, of Religion, man's deepest
desires, his loftiest aspirings. Before him the rich and the poor meet
together, conscious of the one God, Master of them all, who is no
respecter of persons. To the minister the children look up, and their
pliant faces are moulded by his plastic hand. The young men and maidens
are there,--such possibility of life and character before them, such
hope is there, such faith in man and God, as comes instinctively to
those who have youth on their side. There are the old: men and women
with white crowns on their heads; faces which warn and scare with the
ice and storm of eighty winters, or guide and charm with the beauty
of four-score summers,--rich in promise once, in harvest now. Very
beautiful is the presence of old men, and of that venerable sisterhood
whose experienced temples are turbaned with the raiment of such as have
come out of much tribulation, and now shine as white stars foretelling
an eternal day. Young men all around, a young man in the pulpit, the old
men's look of experienced life says "Amen" to the best word, and their
countenance is a benediction.

The minister is not expected to appeal to the selfish motives which
are addressed by the market, the forum, or the bar, but to the eternal
principle of Right. He must not be guided by the statutes of men,
changeable as the clouds, but must fix his eye on the bright particular
star of Justice, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. To him,
office, money, social rank, and fame are but toys or counters which the
game of life is played withal; while wisdom, integrity, benevolence,
piety are the prizes the game is for. He digs through the dazzling sand,
and bids men build on the rock of ages.

Surely, no men have such opportunity of speech and power as these thirty
thousand ministers. What have they to show for it all? The hunter,
fisher, woodman, miner, farmer, mechanic, has each his special wealth.
What have this multitude of ministers to show?--how much knowledge
given, what wise guidance, what inspiration of humanity? Let the best
men answer.

This ministerial army may be separated into three divisions. First, the
Church Militant, the Fighting Church, as the ecclesiastical dictionaries
define it. Reverend men serve devoutly in its ranks. Their work is
negative, oppositional. Under various banners, with diverse, and
discordant war-cries, trumpets braying a certain or uncertain sound, and
weapons of strange pattern, though made of trusty steel, they do battle
against the enemy. What shots from antique pistols, matchlocks, from
crossbows and catapults, are let fly at the foe! Now the champion
attacks "New Views," "Ultraism," "Neology," "Innovation," "Discontent,"
"Carnal Reason"; then he lays lance in rest, and rides valiantly
upon "Unitarianism," "Popery," "Infidelity," "Atheism," "Deism,"
"Spiritualism"; and though one by one he runs them through, yet he never
quite slays the Evil One;--the severed limbs unite again, and a new
monster takes the old one's place. It is serious men who make up the
Church Militant,--grim, earnest, valiant. If mustered in the ninth
century, there had been no better soldiers nor elder.

Next is the Church Termagant. They are the Scolds of the Church-hold,
terrible from the beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they
have always a burden against something. _Obsta decisis_ is their
motto,--"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are
called for, the Church Termagant holds up its hand. A turbulent people,
and a troublesome, are these sons of thunder,--a brotherhood of
universal come-outers. Their only concord is disagreement. It is not
often, perhaps, that they have better thoughts than the rest of men,
but a superior aptitude to find fault; their growling proves, "not
that themselves are wise, but others weak." So their pulpit is a
brawling-tub, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They have a
deal of thunder, and much lightning, but no light, nor any continuous
warmth, only spasms of heat. _Odi presentem laudare absentem_,--the
Latin tells their story. They come down and trouble every Bethesda in
the world, but heal none of the impotent folk. To them,

"Of old things, all are over old,
Of new things, none is new enough."

They have a rage for fault-finding, and betake themselves to the pulpit
as others are sent to Bedlam. Men of all denominations are here, and it
is a deal of mischief they do,--the worst, indirectly, by making a sober
man distrust the religious faculty they appeal to, and set his face
against all mending of anything, no matter how badly it is broken. These
Theudases, boasting themselves to be somebody, and leading men off to
perish in the wilderness, frighten every sober man from all thought of
moving out of his bad neighborhood or seeking to make it better.--But
this is a small portion of the ecclesiastic host. Let us be tolerant to
their noise and bigotry.

Last of all is the Church Beneficent or Constructant. Their work is
positive,--critical of the old, creative also of the new. They take hold
of the strongest of all human faculties,--the religious,--and use this
great river of God, always full of water, to moisten hill-side and
meadow, to turn lonely saw-mills, and drive the wheels in great
factories, which make a metropolis of manufactures,--to bear alike the
lumberman's logs and the trader's ships to their appointed place; the
stream feeding many a little forget-me-not, as it passes by. Men of
all denominations belong to this Church Catholic; yet all are of one
_persuasion_, the brotherhood of Humanity,--for the one spirit loves
manifoldness of form. They trouble themselves little about Sin, the
universal but invisible enemy whom the Church Termagant attempts to
shell and dislodge; but are very busy in attacking Sins. These ministers
of religion would rout Drunkenness and Want, Ignorance, Idleness, Lust,
Covetousness, Vanity, Hate, and Pride, vices of instinctive passion or
reflective ambition. Yet the work of these men is to build up; they cut
down the forest and scare off the wild beasts only to replace them with
civil crops, cattle, corn, and men. Instead of the howling wilderness,
they would have the village or the city, full of comfort and wealth and
musical with knowledge and with love. How often are they misunderstood!
Some savage hears the ring of the axe, the crash of falling timber,
or the rifle's crack and the drop of wolf or bear, and cries out, "A
destructive and dangerous man; he has no reverence for the ancient
wilderness, but would abolish it and its inhabitants; away with him!"
But look again at this destroyer, and in place of the desert woods,
lurked in by a few wild beasts and wilder men, behold, a whole New
England of civilization has come up! The minister of this Church of the
Good Samaritans delivers the poor that cry, and the fatherless, and him
that hath none to help him; he makes the widow's heart sing for joy, and
the blessing of such as are ready to perish comes on him; he is eyes to
the blind, feet to the lame; the cause of evil which he knows not he
searches out; breaking the jaws of the wicked to pluck one spirit out
of their teeth. In a world of work, he would have no idler in the
market-place; in a world of bread, he would not eat his morsel alone
while the fatherless has nought; nor would he see any perish for want of
clothing. He knows the wise God made man for a good end, and provided
adequate means thereto; so he looks for them where they were placed,
in the world of matter and of men, not outside of either. So while he
entertains every old Truth, he looks out also into the crowd of new
Opinions, hoping to find others of their kin: and the new thought does
not lodge in the street; he opens his doors to the traveller, not
forgetful to entertain strangers,--knowing that some have also thereby
entertained angels unawares. He does not fear the great multitude, nor
does the contempt of a few families make him afraid.

This Church Constructant has a long apostolical succession of great men,
and many nations are gathered in its fold. And what a variety of beliefs
it has! But while each man on his private account says, CREDO, and
believes as he must and shall, and writes or speaks his opinions in what
speech he likes best,--they all, with one accordant mouth, say likewise,
FACIAMUS, and betake them to the one great work of developing man's
possibility of knowledge and virtue.

Mr. Beecher belongs to this Church Constructant. He is one of its
eminent members, its most popular and effective preacher. No minister
in the United States is so well known, none so widely beloved. He is
as well known in Ottawa as in Broadway. He has the largest Protestant
congregation in America, and an ungathered parish which no man attempts
to number. He has church members in Maine, Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas,
California, and all the way between. Men look on him as a national
institution, a part of the public property. Not a Sunday in the year but
representative men from every State in the Union fix their eyes on him,
are instructed by his sermons and uplifted by his prayers. He is
the most popular of American lecturers. In the celestial sphere of
theological journals, his papers are the bright particular star in that
constellation called the "Independent": men look up to and bless the
useful light, and learn therefrom the signs of the times. He is one of
the bulwarks of freedom in Kansas,--a detached fort. He was a great
force in the last Presidential campaign, and several stump-speakers
were specially detailed to overtake and offset him. But the one man
surrounded the many. Scarcely is there a Northern minister so bitterly
hated at the South. The slave-traders, the border-ruffians, the
purchased officials know no Higher Law; "nor Hale nor Devil can make
them afraid"; yet they fear the terrible whip of Henry Ward Beecher.

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