49. CHAPTER XLIX.
There was on board our ship, among the emigrant passengers,
a rich-cheeked, chestnut-haired Italian boy, arrayed
in a faded, olive-hued velvet jacket, and tattered trowsers
rolled up to his knee. He was not above fifteen years of
age; but in the twilight pensiveness of his full morning
eyes, there seemed to sleep experiences so sad and various,
that his days must have seemed to him years. It was not
an eye like Harry's, tho' Harry's was large and womanly. It
shone with a soft and spiritual radiance, like a moist star in
a tropic sky; and spoke of humility, deep-seated thoughtfulness,
yet a careless endurance of all the ills of life.
The head was if any thing small; and heaped with
thick clusters of tendril curls, half overhanging the brows
and delicate ears, it somehow reminded you of a classic
vase, piled up with Falernian foliage.
From the knee downward, the naked leg was beautiful
to behold as any lady's arm; so soft and rounded, with infantile
ease and grace. His whole figure was free, fine, and
indolent; he was such a boy as might have ripened into
life in a Neapolitan vineyard; such a boy as gipsies steal in
infancy; such a boy as Murillo often painted, when he went
among the poor and outcast, for subjects wherewith to captivate
the eyes of rank and wealth; such a boy, as only
Andalusian beggars are, full of poetry, gushing from every
rent.
Carlo was his name; a poor and friendless son of earth,
who had no sire; and on life's ocean was swept along, as
spoon-drift in a gale.
Some months previous, he had landed in Prince's Dock,
with his hand-organ, from a Messina vessel; and had walked
the streets of Liverpool, playing the sunny airs of southern
climes, among the northern fog and drizzle. And now,
having laid by enough to pay his passage over the Atlantic,
he had again embarked, to seek his fortunes in America.
From the first, Harry took to the boy.
“Carlo,” said Harry, “how did you succeed in England?”
He was reclining upon an old sail spread on the long-boat;
and throwing back his soiled but tasseled cap, and
caressing one leg like a child, he looked up, and said in his
broken English—that seemed like mixing the potent wine
of Oporto with some delicious syrup:—said he, “Ah! I
succeed very well!—for I have tunes for the young and
the old, the gay and the sad. I have marches for military
young men, and love-airs for the ladies, and solemn sounds
for the aged. I never draw a crowd, but I know from
their faces what airs will best please them; I never stop
before a house, but I judge from its portico for what tune
they will soonest toss me some silver. And I ever play sad
airs to the merry, and merry airs to the sad; and most always
the rich best fancy the sad, and the poor the merry.”
“But do you not sometimes meet with cross and crabbed
old men,” said Harry, “who would much rather have your
room than your music?”
“Yes, sometimes,” said Carlo, playing with his foot,
“sometimes I do.”
“And then, knowing the value of quiet to unquiet men,
I suppose you never leave them under a shilling?”
“No,” continued the boy, “I love my organ as I do myself,
for it is my only friend, poor organ! it sings to me
when I am sad, and cheers me; and I never play before a
house, on purpose to be paid for leaving off, not I; would
I, poor organ?”—looking down the hatchway where it was.
“No, that I never have done, and never will do, though I
starve; for when people drive me away, I do not think my
organ is to blame, but they themselves are to blame; for
such people's musical pipes are cracked, and grown rusted,
that no more music can be breathed into their souls.”
“No, Carlo; no music like yours, perhaps,” said Harry,
with a laugh.
“Ah! there's the mistake. Though my organ is as full
of melody, as a hive is of bees; yet no organ can make
music in unmusical brests; no more than my native winds
can, when they breathe upon a harp without chords.”
Next day was a serene and delightful one; and in the
evening when the vessel was just rippling along impelled by
a gentle yet steady breeze, and the poor emigrants, relieved
from their late sufferings, were gathered on deck; Carlo
suddenly started up from his lazy reclinings; went below,
and, assisted by the emigrants, returned with his organ.
Now, music is a holy thing, and its instruments, however
humble, are to be loved and revered. Whatever has made,
or does make, or may make music, should be held sacred as
the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of Persia's horse, and the
golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod. Musical
instruments should be like the silver tongs, with which the
high-priests tended the Jewish altars—never to be touched
by a hand profane. Who would bruise the poorest reed of
Pan, though plucked from a beggar's hedge, would insult
the melodious god himself.
And there is no humble thing with music in it, not a fife,
not a negro-fiddle, that is not to be reverenced as much as
the grandest architectural organ that ever rolled its flood-tide
of harmony down a cathedral nave. For even a Jew'sharp
may be so played, as to awaken all the fairies that are
in us, and make them dance in our souls, as on a moon-lit
sward of violets.
But what subtle power is this, residing in but a bit of
steel, which might have made a tenpenny nail, that so
enters, without knocking, into our inmost beings, and shows
us all hidden things?
Not in a spirit of foolish speculation altogether, in no
merely transcendental mood, did the glorious Greek of old
fancy the human soul to be essentially a harmony. And if
we grant that theory of Paracelsus and Campanella, that
every man has four souls within him; then can we account
for those banded sounds with silver links, those quartettes of
melody, that sometimes sit and sing within us, as if our souls
were baronial halls, and our music were made by the hoarest
old harpers of Wales.
But look! here is poor Carlo's organ; and while the silent
crowd surrounds him, there he stands, looking mildly but inquiringly
about him; his right hand pulling and twitching
the ivory knobs at one end of his instrument.
Behold the organ!
Surely, if much virtue lurk in the old fiddles of Cremona,
and if their melody be in proportion to their antiquity, what
divine ravishments may we not anticipate from this venerable,
embrowned old organ, which might almost have played
the Dead March in Saul, when King Saul himself was
buried.
A fine old organ! carved into fantastic old towers, and
turrets, and belfries; its architecture seems somewhat of the
Gothic, monastic order; in front, it looks like the West-Front
of York Minster.
What sculptured arches, leading into mysterious intricacies!—what
mullioned windows, that seem as if they must
look into chapels flooded with devotional sunsets!—what
flying buttresses, and gable-ends, and niches with saints!—
But stop! 'tis a Moorish iniquity; for here, as I live, is a
Saracenic arch; which, for aught I know, may lead into
some interior Alhambra.
Ay, it does; for as Carlo now turns his hand, I hear the
gush of the Fountain of Lions, as he plays some thronged
Italian air—a mixed and liquid sea of sound, that dashes
its spray in my face.
Play on, play on, Italian boy! what though the notes be
broken, here's that within that mends them. Turn hither
your pensive, morning eyes; and while I list to the organs
twain—one yours, one mine—let me gaze fathoms down
into thy fathomless eye;—'tis good as gazing down into the
great South Sea, and seeing the dazzling rays of the dolphins
there.
Play on, play on! for to every note come trooping, now,
triumphant standards, armies marching—all the pomp of
sound. Methinks I am Xerxes, the nucleus of the martial
neigh of all the Persian studs. Like gilded damask-flies,
thick clustering on some lofty bough, my satraps swarm
around me.
But now the pageant passes, and I droop; while Carlo
taps his ivory knobs, and plays some flute-like saraband—
soft, dulcet, dropping sounds, like silver oars in bubbling
brooks. And now a clanging, martial air, as if ten thousand
brazen trumpets, forged from spurs and sword-hilts, called
North, and South, and East, to rush to West!
Again—what blasted heath is this?—what goblin sounds
of Macbeth's witches? — Beethoven's Spirit Waltz! the
muster-call of sprites and specters. Now come, hands joined,
Medusa, Hecate, she of Endor, and all the Blocksberg's,
demons dire.
Once more the ivory knobs are tapped; and long-drawn,
golden sounds are heard—some ode to Cleopatra; slowly
loom, and solemnly expand, vast, rounding orbs of beauty;
and before me float innumerable queens, deep dipped in silver
gauzes.
All this could Carlo do—make, unmake me; build me
up; to pieces take me; and join me limb to limb. He is
the architect of domes of sound, and bowers of song.
And all is done with that old organ! Reverenced, then,
be all street organs; more melody is at the beck of my
Italian boy, than lurks in squadrons of Parisian orchestras.
But look! Carlo has that to feast the eye as well as ear;
and the same wondrous magic in me, magnifies them into
grandeur; though every figure greatly needs the artist's repairing
hand, and sadly needs a dusting.
His York Minster's West-Front opens; and like the gates
of Milton's heaven, it turns on golden hinges.
What have we here? The inner palace of the Great
Mogul? Grouped and gilded columns, in confidential clusters;
fixed fountains; canopies and lounges; and lords and
dames in silk and spangles.
The organ plays a stately march; and presto! wide open
arches; and out come, two and two, with nodding plumes,
in crimson turbans, a troop of martial men; with jingling
scimeters, they pace the hall; salute, pass on, and disappear.
Now, ground and lofty tumblers; jet black Nubian slaves.
They fling themselves on poles; stand on their heads; and
downward vanish.
And now a dance and masquerade of figures, reeling from
the side-doors, among the knights and dames. Some sultan
leads a sultaness; some emperor, a queen; and jeweled
sword-hilts of carpet knights fling back the glances tossed by
coquettes of countesses.
On this, the curtain drops; and there the poor old organ
stands, begrimed, and black, and rickety.
Now, tell me, Carlo, if at street corners, for a single
penny, I may thus transport myself in dreams Elysian, who
so rich as I? Not he who owns a million.
And Carlo! ill betide the voice that ever greets thee, my
Italian boy, with aught but kindness; cursed the slave who
ever drives thy wondrous box of sights and sounds forth
from a lordling's door!
