University of Virginia Library

9. NINTH INSTALLMENT.

[From this point onward the old man's style, rough at
best, gets more and more incoherent; he repeats himself,
and is utterly regardless of the rules of construction—his
interpolations and foot-notes increase in number, and become
almost vexatious, indicating the inevitable decay
of the powers of mind and body.—Ed. Whig.]

It was a well-timed thing in me to buy the City Hall,
Dr. Preston's Church, etc., just when I did. The people
had entertained much unamiable emotion in regard to
the edifice first named, which had been reported to be
unsafe. Judge Guigon[1] they said was inclined to be,
not severe—that would be too strong a word—but a little
brash; the Common Council exhibited the usual, but
not more than the usual, defectiveness of common sense,
and an odor approximating the job-stench pervaded the
atmosphere.

When I attempted to pull down the walls of the said-to-be-unsound
City Hall, nitro-glycerine had to be used,
and with most disastrous results. The Broad Street Methodist
Church steeple was completely skinned of its slate
scales, and so badly cracked that it was carried at a right-shoulder
shift for nearly eighteen months. Architects
having given it up as a hopeless case, Drs. Cullen and
McGuire were called in, and after a vain attempt to reduce
the luxation, flooded the body of the building with
chloroform, and performed the operation of resection
with the happiest results. The explosion also produced
a violent irritation of the neck of the pool or baptistery

of Dr. Burrows's church, which caused it to leak unhealthily
until sugar-of-lead pipes were introduced. A
cure soon followed. Thereupon everybody admired his
own wisdom, and said, “Didn't I tell you so—didn't I?
I knew what I was talking about; and I always said that
five thousand dollars would make the City Hall bran
new, and strong enough to last a thousand years.”

But as everybody had said that, nobody, not even the
councilmen, felt badly.

It will be recollected that in the Valentine House
Square the Virginia Historical Society building stood,
and Ford's Hotel Square was occupied by Brice Church,
enough space being left in both squares for green sward
and a number of graceful trees. In the Central Square,
after the City Hall was blown down, and the other buildings
removed, rose the massive and beautiful Music Hall,
also with its green sward and trees. I did not call it an
Academy of Music, because it was not, and was never intended
to be an academy. Music was not taught there,
nor had the building any connection near or remote
with Academus, after whom so many Northern musical
shebangs were in my day strangely and unwittingly misnamed—a
fact which wholly escaped the notice of the
Richmond Dispatch. There was simply what its name
implied, a hall for popular concerts of vocal and instrumental
music. In planning the hall, I was greatly aided
by Mr. N. B. Clapp, and a few other gentlemen of taste;
in truth, after giving them an outline of my ideas, I left
the matter wholly in their charge. The public and myself
were well pleased with their work. The room is
noble in the best sense of the term—lofty, airy, frescoed
with exquisite taste, ornamented with busts and statues
of the greatest composers, placed at appropriate intervals
in niches, with abundant light by day, and glorious at
night with jets and chandeliers. No handsomer building,
until my cathedral was finished, ornamented the
city. It was named Burwell Hall, in honor of my
friend, Miss Kate Burwell,[2] a charming musician.

While the hall was in process of construction, I entered
into negotiations with Theodore Thomas with the view
of engaging him and his orchestra to reside permanently
in Richmond; but this could not be done, the field being
too small for him. Nor would he agree to come more
than twice during the winter, that is to say, the first week
in December and the last in February, and even then he
would not consent to remain more than three days each
time, although I was willing to pay him any sum within
reason for doing so. But before the hall was completed,
arrangements had been made by which concerts, and occasionally
operas, of the first order of merit, should be
given every fortnight during the winter, all the expenses
of which were paid out of the endowment. I made but
one stipulation with the management, and that was that
the programmes should invariably be so arranged as to
please the audiences and gradually to elevate their musical
taste—the rule theretofore being to make out the programmes
in New York, with selections adapted to a very
few well-educated musical people, while the mass were
compelled to sit by and pretend to enjoy what they could
not possibly comprehend. The sight of these anxious
fools (of whom I was one) looking into the faces of
educated musicians to find when the time came to be
in raptures, had so often made me sick that I was determined
to do away with it forever, at Burwell Hall, anyhow.

[I recall now with grim delight the fury into which the
virtuosi were thrown when the hall was inaugurated with a
real old-fashioned Virginia fiddling jubilee—not intended
as any reflection upon the Peace (accurately peace) Jubilee
in Boston—which lasted five days. Curdsville College
came down in a body, President George Walker at the
head; all the famous white and black fiddlers in the State
attended and made exhibition of their skill; and such a
riproarious time was had as was never had in Richmond
before or since. The people got blind drunk with jigs
and reels and whisky. Many marriages occurred soon
afterwards. The solos by Mr. James A. Cowardin, Mr.
Henry Lubbock, and Mr. Arthur Gooch, were pronounced
not inferior to the best Curdsville performances; and the

memorial ode to Ruffin's band, recited by Mr. Henry
Hudnall, set to music by Madison Chamberlayne, was
sung throughout the State for years afterwards. The inaugural
address was made by Mayor Keiley.[3] ]

Music being heaven itself, or the nearest thing to it,
except, perhaps, a sweetheart's first kiss, I always intended
that the concerts at Burwell Hall should be as free as
heaven's air. But this I soon found would never do.
The vulgus had to be kept out. The price of admission,
therefore, was fixed at a sum sufficient to effect that end—
say seventy-five cents—and the money thus obtained was
devoted to the education of poor youth of both sexes who
showed decided musical talent. But whenever there was
a pretty, sweet girl, or a girl that was sweet and not pretty,
who wanted to go to the concerts, and didn't have the
seventy-five cents, you may be sure she not only went but
got one of the best seats in the house. And inasmuch as
girls (until they get married, after which they are apt to
be a shade stingy to everybody but their husbands and
children) are naturally generous and do not like to be receiving
all the time, even from their beaux and fathers, I
provided that they should always select their own escorts,
who went in free of charge also. The trouble was to distribute
the tickets so as not to give offense. Remembering
the dowry business, and unwilling to incur any more
odium than I already endured, I intrusted the distribution
to two excellent old gentlemen, in whose generosity and
discretion I had all confidence, and whose uniform courtesy
and uprightness (brought down from a better age) I had
long secretly but greatly admired—I mean General W. H.
Richardson and Col. Sherwin McRae. As it was a ticklish
business, I paid them largely for it. They did their duty
faithfully and thoroughly well, avoiding the breakers on
which I had been wrecked in the matter of dowries. How
the young girls did love them! Unwilling to limit their
tickets to the City of Richmond, they requested permission
to send them to the country, and that the editors of

the country papers should be the medium through which
the tickets should go. I readily accepted so sensible a
proposition. An increase in the circulation of country
papers was soon observable, and we had at the concerts
some such girls as grow in no other part of this world but
in old Virginia—dear, gentle, sweet, pure lily-buds and
blush-roses of life, sinless as children or angels. Ah, my
God! how they enjoyed the music. Sitting at my place
in the parquette, I would look up into their faces glorified
with delight, and—yes, these were the happiest hours of
my life. General R. and Colonel McR. never allowed
one of them or their lovers or attendants, whoever they
might be, in coming to, staying in, or going from the
city, to pay a cent; everything was paid for them. Most
of the editors sent down delightful girls. But Sandy
Garber, from time to time, by way of variety, transmitted
some mountain specimens that were—were—I be dog if I
know how to tell what they were. It was a treat, though,
to the rest of the audience to behold them and watch
their bewilderment.

The pleasure which General Richardson and Colonel
McRae[4] derived from their new occupation prolonged
their lives to an indefinite period. My memory is a little
treacherous, and my books of reference not accessible,
and so I will not undertake to say precisely how long they
lived. Never before in the history of the world, I dare
be sworn, were ticket agents so universally beloved.

About this time Judge Staples,[5] of the Court of Appeals,
came to me and said,—

“Moses, it does seem hard that with all your money

and your lavish generosity, you have never thought of
doing anything for the Court of Appeals.”

“Judge,” said I, “you are out of your reckoning. I
have thought about the Court of Appeals, thought a great
deal—thought so much that I am inclined to say outright
that the court ought to have the whole capitol to itself.”

“What!” exclaimed the judge, opening his eyes wide,
“what do you mean by that?”

“I'll tell you fifty years hence.” [His opinion seems
to have been that the legislature should be abolished, and
the affairs of the State intrusted solely to the courts—
all legislation for Virginia and the other States, especially
of the South, being transferred to Washington.—Ed.
Whig.] “All I can now say is that, much as the legislature
has abused me for offering to build a new capitol, there
are too many good and sensible fellows in that body to
refuse to put at no distant day you, the Circuit Court, and
the two libraries in the enlarged, mansarded, fire-proof,
and glass-domed governor's house.”

“Ah, my dear boy,” said the judge, with a sigh, “that
is a long time off, I fear. Come, plank down twenty or
twenty-five thousand.”

“No, judge; I've literally not one dollar to spare, nor
has Binford. But you'll get your new court-room sooner
than you fancy.”

[So it turned out. Before the fall of 1877, on the site
of the old executive mansion, there was a very admirable
edifice containing the Supreme and Circuit Courts, the
law and literary libraries, a room for the Virginia Historical
Society, etc., etc., which was a comfort and convenience
to everybody in and out of the General Assembly, and
a most elegant addition to the architectural beauties of the
Capitol Square.]

Underneath Burwell Hall was another hall nearly as
large, which I devoted to the use of wandering lecturers
and readers who had neither the means of paying rent nor
the reputation to insure paying audiences. Although
there were not many of these creatures left (a fortunate
thing for the human race), I regarded them as a greatly
afflicted and afflicting set, and peculiarly in need of my
care. Therefore I caused to be made a most ingenious

series of screens, which, being touched with a spring,
moved swiftly and silently up to and around the audience,
so that no matter how small it might be, even if it consisted
of only two people, the house should appear to be
crowded to suffocation. This proved to be a great comfort
to me and my fellow-lecturers and readers. Letters
of thanks poured in upon me from all parts of the civilized
world, Richmond was never without a lecture or a reading
even in midsummer, and I felt that I had done a good
thing.

So excellent was the screen scheme that I caused similar
lecture-halls to be erected in all the cities, towns, and
county court-houses, and places where there seemed to be
any apprehension of a lecture or like infliction. These
halls were built mostly for the benefit of Johnny Reb[6]
and myself, particularly of the latter, who had gradually
played himself out to the finest dead-head point. By not
charging anything for admission, not having anything to
pay for rent, lights, or fuel, and by allowing ourselves
(out of a fund for that purpose) fifty cents a head for every
fellow who could be induced or bullied into coming in,
Johnny and I, and others managed to make lecturing pay
fairly well. [I remember to have cleared four dollars and
a half on one occasion in the village of Izzardville, but
that great success was due in part to the fact that the
lecture was for a charitable or religious purpose.]