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 | The miscellaneous works of N.P. Willis |  |
SUPPER AFTER THE OPERA.
Private room over the Mirror office, corner of Ann and
Nassau—Supper on the round table, and brigadier
mixing summat and water—Flagg, the artist, fatiguing
the salad with a paper-folder—Devil in waiting—Quarter
past ten, and enter “Yours Truly”
from the opera.
Brig.—Here he comes, like a cloud dropping from
Olympus—charged with Pico-tricity! Boy (to the
“devil”), stick a steel pen in my hat for a conductor!
Now—let him rain!
Flagg.—Echo—let him reign!
Yours Truly—(looking at the salad-dish).—Less
gamboge for me, if you please, my dear artist! Be
merciful of mustard when you mix for public opinion!
But, nay! brigadier!
Brig.—Thank you for not calling on me to bray,
mi-boy! What shall I neigh at?
Yours Truly.—How indelicate of you to call on
an artist to exercise his profession on a party of pleasure!
Brig.—How?
Yours Truly—Setting him to grind colors in a salad-dish!
What are you tasting with that wooden
ladle, my periodical sodger?
Brig.—Two of “illicit” to one of Croton—potheen
from a private still in the mountains of Killarny!
Knowles sent it to me! You have no idea what a
flavor of Kate Kearney there is about it!—(fmff! fmff!)
Flagg—(absently).—I smell the color of the heath-flowers
in it—crocus-yellow on a brown turf!
Brig.—Stick a pin there, mi-boy!—a new avenue
to the brain for things beautiful! Down with privileged
roads in a republic! Why should the colors
mixed for a limitless sense of beauty go in only at the
eye?
Flagg.—No reason why. I wish we could hear
colors!
Brig.—So you can, my inspired simplicity! and
taste them, too! You can hear things that are read,
and you can taste the brown in a turkey! (Turning
to Yours Truly)—Was that well said, my dear boy?
Yours Truly.—Pardon me if I suggest still an improvement
in the aristocracy of the senses! The
eye has a double door of fringed lids, and the mouth
an inner door of fastidious ivory; and, with the power
to admit or exclude at will, these are the exclusive organs!
The republicans are the nose and ear—open
to all comers, and forced to make the best of them!
Flagg.—A new light, by Jupiter! Let us pamper
the aristocracy! An oyster for my ivory gate, if you
please, general, and let us spite the ear's monopoly
of Pico by drinking her in silence! (—)
Brig.—(—)
Yours Truly.—(—)
Brig.—Touching Pico—is she, or isn't she?—you
know what I want to know, my boy! Disembowel
your mental oyster! What ails Borghese? What
is a “contralto?” Is it anything wrong—or what?
Yours Truly.—A contralto, my particular general,
is a voice that touches bottom—rubs your heart with
its keel, as it were, while floating through you—comparing
with a soprano, as the air on a mountain-top
compares with a breeze from lower down.
Brig.—Best possible description of yourself, mi-boy!
Go on, my contralto!
Flagg.—Yes—go on about Borghese—what is the
philosophy of Borghese's salary being the double of
Pico's?
Yours Truly.—Ah! now you touch the weight
that keeps Borghese down! The public, like yourself,
ask why the prima-donna who gives them the
more pleasure is the poorer paid! Borghese—but
first let me tell you what I think of her, comparison
bellows, a la pastille! I like the smoke, but to talk
with a cigar in the mouth spoils the delicacy of discrimination.)
Brig.—Spare us the scientific, mi-boy!
Yours Truly.—Why, what do you mean? I am as
ignorant of music, my dear sodger, as an Indian is of
botany—but he knows a weed from a flower, and I
talk of music as the audience judge of it—by what I
hear, “mark, and inwardly digest.”
Brig.—But the big words, my dear contralto!
Yours Truly.—“Foreign slip-slops,” I grant you—
but nothing more!—I lived three years in Italy, and,
of course, heard Italian audiences express themselves,
and here and there a phrase sticks to me—but if I
know “B sharp” from “B flat” (which is more than
some musical critics know), it is the extent of my
knowledge. No, general! there is no sillier criticism
of music than technical criticism. You might as well
paint cannon-balls piebald and then judge of their
effect by remembering which color showed through
the touch-hole before priming! Notes go to the ear;
effects shower the nerves. A musician who is a critic,
judges of a prima-donna by the accuracy with which
she imitates what he (the musician) has played on
an instrument—like a tight-rope dancer criticising his
brother of the slack-rope, because he don't swing over
the pit! Analyze the applause at an opera! There
are, perhaps, ten persons in a Palmo audience who are
scientific musicians. These ten admire most what
they can most exclusively admire—rapid and difficult
passages (what the Italians call fiorituri, or “flourishes”)
executed with the most skilful muscular effort
of the vocal organs. These ten, however, pass over,
as very pleasant accidents of the opera, the part which
pleases the rest of the audience—the messa di voce—
the tender expression of slower notes which try the
sweetness of the voice—the absoluteness of the “art
concealing art,” and which, more than all, betrays the
personal sensibility and quality of the actress's mind.
My dear brigadier, true criticism travels a circle, and
ends where it began—with nature. But as the art of
the prima-donna brings her to the same point, the unscientific
audience are most with the most skilful prima-donna—nearer
to a just appreciation of her than
musicians are.
Brig.—Now I see the reason I am so enchanted
with Pico, mi-boy! I was afraid I had no business to
like her—as I didn't know Italian music! What a
way you have of making me feel pleasant!
Yours Truly.—Pico has enchanted the town, brigadier!
and I have endeavored to put the flesh and
blood of language to the ghost of each night's enchantment.
That ghost of remembrance sticks by us
through the next day, and I thought it would be
agreeable to the Mirror readers to have the impression
of the music recalled by our description of it.
Have I done it scientifically? Taste forbid!—even if
I knew how! I interpret for “the million”—not for
“the ten.”
Flagg.—But about Borghese!
Yours Truly.—Well—I have a great deal to say
about Borghese—I have a great deal of the “flesh
and blood” I just spoke of, in reserve for Borghese;
but I shall follow a strong public feeling, and not
clothe her enchantments with language, till she slacks
her hold upon the purse-strings, and shares equally,
at least, with the donna whom the public prefer.
There goes the brigadier—fast asleep! Good night,
gentlemen! (Exit “Yours Truly.”)
Ole Bull's Concert.—We longed last night for
one of “Curtis's acoustic chairs,” by which all the
sound that approaches a man is inveigled into his ear
and made the most of, for we heard Niagara attentively
through, and at every change in the music
wished it louder. We thought even the “dying fall”
too expiring. It occurred to us, by the way, that if
the text of this discoursed music had been one of the
psalms instead of God's less interpretable voice in the
cataract, the room for enthusiasm, as well as the
preparation for it, on the part of the audience, would
have been vastly greater. In a mixed assembly (of
the quality of that at Palmo's last night) no chamber
of imagination is furnished or tenanted except that of
religion, and the very name of a bible psalm on the violin
would have clothed any music of Ole Bull's performing
with the aggrandizing wardrobe of association
kept exclusively for “powerful sermons” and
“searching prayers.” We rather wonder that this
ready access to the excitability of the mass has not
been taken advantage of by the violinists.
We confess to a little surprise in Ole Bull's organization.
With the
“Bust of a Hercules—waist of a gnat”—
is a woman! The music he draws from it is all delicacy,
sentiment, pathos, and variable tenderness—
never powerful, masculine, or imposing. “The
Mother's Prayer,” and the “Solitude of a Prairie,”
are more effective than “Niagara,” for that reason.
The audience are prepared for a different sex in a
cataract. We know very well that the accordatura of
a violin is of all compass, and that Paganini “played
the devil” on it, as well as the angel, and we repeat
our surprise, that, even in a piece whose name suggests
nothing but masculine power, the burthen should
be wholly feminine! Fact, as this unquestionably is,
we leave it to our readers to reconcile with another fact
—that the applause at one of Ole Bull's concerts bears
no proportion to the enthusiasm, as the ladies, without
exception, are enchanted with him, and the men (who
do the applauding) are, almost without exception, dissatisfied
with him.
“Gentle shepherd, tell us why!”
Even at the high price of tickets, nobody draws
like the Norwegian. A very sensible correspondent
of ours proposed to him (through the Mirror) to lower
his price, and allow those who could not afford the
dollar to have an opportunity of hearing him. He is
the soul of kindness and charity, and we should suppose
this would strike him as a felicitous hint.
Battle of the Cravats.—The front row of the
opera resembles a pianoforte with its white and black
keys—the alternation of black and white cravats is so
evenly distributed. The Frenchmen are all in black
cravats of course, and the English and Americans in
white, and a man might stop his ears and turn his
back to the orchestra (when the two donnas are on
the stage together) and tell who is singing, Pico or
Borghese, by the agitation of the black cravats or the
white. It is a strong argument in favor of the white
cravats, apropos, that the Americans, whose sympathy
is with the French in almost everything, should
have joined the English in this division of opinion.
We have received two or three most bellicose letters
on each side of this weighty argument, and would
publish them if we had a spare page.
The Opera.—Madame Pico was evidently struggling,
last evening, against the effects of her late illness;
but she delighted the audience as usual, with
her impassioned and effective singing. The opera
in its general character—particularly in the lachrymose
tone, throughout, of the part allotted to Pico.
Sanquirico was a relief to this ennui, and he so
charmed one lady in the house, that she threw him a
bouquet! He played capitally well—barring one little
touch of false taste in using two English words by
way of being funny. It let him down like the falling
out of the bottom of a sedan.
Several of our French friends, by the way, have requested
us to contradict the on dit we mentioned in
the Mirror, touching a “cabal to keep Pico subservient
to Borghese.” A regularly-formed one there
doubtless is not—but the French are zealous allies,
and every one of them does as much for Borghese as
he can, and, of course, as much as he could do in a
cabal. On the contrary, there seems to be no one individual
taking any pains about Pico—the general enthusiasm
at the opera excepted. Let us state a fact:
We have received many visits and more than a dozen
letters, to request even our trifling critical preference
for Borghese; and no sign has been given, either by
Pico or her friends, that our critical preference was
wished for, or otherwise than tacitly acknowledged.
This being true of a mere newspaper, what must be
probably the difference of appeal to more direct sources
of patronage? One or two persons have talked
feelingly of pity for Borghese's mortification! We
are watching to see when her mortification will be so
insupportable that she will slacken her grasp upon
Pico's just share of the profits! We are not only the
true exponent of public opinion in reference to the
merits of these ladies, but, if we are not personally
impartial, it is because (though we have no acquaintance
with either of the two ladies) we chance to know
most of Borghese's friends. Pico is evidently a kind-hearted
person, indolently careless of her pecuniary
interests, and it is impossible to see the shadows of
mental suffering in her face and not wish to aid her—
but we should not sacrifice critical taste to do even
that, and we have not written a syllable that her effect
on the public has not more that justified. At the
same time we have never said a syllable to disparage
Borghese, and have only forborne to say as much of
her merits as we should otherwise have done, because
she was overpaid and strongly hedged in with supporters.
Servants in Livery, Equipages, etc.—There is
a stage of civilization at which a country will not—and
a subsequent stage at which a country will—tolerate
liveried servants. In a savage nation, an able-bodied
man who should put on a badge of hopeless and submissive
servitude for the mere certainty of food and
clothing, would be considered a disgrace to his tribe.
The further step of making that badge ornamental to
the servile wearer, would probably be resented as an
affront to the pre-eminence of display which is the
rightful prerogative of chiefs and warriors.
In a crowded and highly-civilized country, it is
found convenient for patricians to secure the tacit
giving-way of plebeian encounter in thronged places—
convenient for them to distinguish their own servants
from other people's in a crowd at night—and, more
particularly, in large and corrupt cities, it is convenient
to have such attendants for ladies as may secure
them from insult in public—the livery upon the follower
showing that the person he follows is not only respectable,
but of too much consequence to be annoyed
with impunity. The ostentation of servants in livery
is scarce worth a comment, as, unless newly assumed,
it is seldom thought of by the owner of the equipage,
nor is it offensive to the passer-by, except in a country
where it is not yet common.
The question whether a country is ready for liveries
—that is to say, whether it has arrived at that stage
where the want they imply is felt, and where the distinctions
they imply are acknowledged—is the true
point at issue. It is a curious point, too, for, in every
other nation, liveries may be excused as traditional
—as being only modifications of the dresses of feudal
retainers—while Americans, without this apology,
must defend the abrupt adoption of liveries on the
mere grounds of propriety and convenience.
We certainly have not yet arrived at that point of
civilization where liveries are needed—as in England
—to protect a lady from insult in the street. A female
may still walk the crowded thoroughfares of
New York by daylight—as she dare not do in London—unattended,
either by a gentleman or a servant
in livery. (We live in hope of overtaking the civilization
of the mother-country!) Neither has a liveried
equipage, as yet, the tacit consequence, in America,
which secures to it in London the convenient concessions
of the highway. We are republican enough,
thus far, to allow no privileges to be taken for granted;
and he who wishes to ride in a vehicle wholly invisible
to omnibus-drivers, and at the same time to
have his lineage looked into and perpetuated without
the expense of heraldic parchment, has only to appear
in Broadway with liveried equipage!
We differ from some of our luxurious friends, by
thinking, that, as long as the spending of over five
thousand dollars a year makes a gentleman odious in
the community, liveries are a little premature. It
is a pity to be both virtuous and unpopular. The
moving about in a cloud of reminded lordship is a
luxury very consistent with high morality, but it
comes coldly between republicans and the sun—
whatever fire of heaven the offending cloud may embosom.
We wonder, indeed, at the remaining in this
country, of any persons ambitious of distinctions in
the use of which we are thus manifestly “behind the
age.” It is so easy to leave the lagging American
anno domini of aristocracy, and sail for the next century—by
the Havre packet!
That Heaven does not disdain such love of each
other as is quickened by personal admiration, is
proved by the injunctions to the children of Israel to
appear in cheerful and becoming dresses on festal days
—those days occupying rather more than a quarter of
a year. The Jews also ornamented their houses on
holydays, not as we do with evergreens (a custom we
have taken from the Druid “mistletoe, cut with the
golden knife”), but with such ornaments as would
best embellish them for the reception of friends. The
French nation is to be admired for supremacy, in this
age, in the exhibition of the kindly feelings and the
brightening of the links of relationship and friendship.
It has been stated (among statistics) that for bons-bons
alone, in Paris, on new year's day, were expended
one hundred thousand dollars! We copy the French
with great facility in this country, and (until the proposed
“annexation of Paris”) we rejoice in the prosperity
of Stuart's candy quarry in New York, and
the myriad cobwebs of affection that stick, each by
one thread, to the corner of Chambers and Greenwich
streets! If not quite a “pilgrimage to Jerusalem,”
it is a pilgrimage to our best signs and emblems of
Jerusalem usages, to go the rounds of the gift-shops
during the holydays; and no kindly Christian parent,
who wishes to throw out an anchor for his children
against the storm of political ruffianism, should neglect
to bind friendship and family by a new tie in the
holydays! We see a use in the skill at temptation
shown by such admirable taste-mongers as Tiffany
which is beyond the gratification of vanity, and far
from provocatives to “waste of money.” But this is
no head under which to write a sermon.
We have (ourselves) a preference among the half
dozen curiosity-shops of the city—a preference which
may, perhaps, be called professional—springing from
love for the memory of a departed poet. The son of
Woodworth, the warm-hearted author of the “Old
Oaken Bucket” and other immortal embodiments of
the affections, in verse, is the present proprietor of the
establishment known as Bonfanti's—(by our just mentioned
theory of the holy ministration of gifts, employed
on somewhat the same errand in life as the bard who
went before). It may not be improper to mention
here, that the last few painful years of the poet's life
were soothed with a degree of filial devotion and tenderness
which makes the Woodworths cherished
among their friends, and this is a country, thank God,
where such virtues bring prosperity in business!
| The miscellaneous works of N.P. Willis | |