Volume I Part 28 (1/2)
”Darling little Star! I beg your pardon; but then, why don't you learn the piano?”
”But Charles, I cannot I was sent here to learn the violin, and I _must_ study it Aronach does not let any one study the pianoforte under hio, when he lived in another place, about thirty an?”
”No; have you?”
”Oh! every Sunday”
”You don't say so, Star! is it not delicious?”
”Charles, I like it best of all the days in the week, because he plays Such different playing froo up to the organ and see him play”
”Charles, Charles, don't; please don't,--we never do!”
”Then I shall be the first, for go I must There is precious Aronach hioes”
I did soStarwood, who did not dare to follow me; but I would not miss the opportunity I spun after Aronach so noiselessly as that he had no notion I was following, though in general he had eyes behind; and he did not perceive un Then I ht a frohich was acco; for his arms and hands and eyes and feet were all equally on service
I therefore remained, and made out more about the instruenuine organ-hand, that could stretch itself indefinitely, and yet double up so crawlingly that the fingers, as they lay, were like steated ivory; and I watched only less than I listened The choir--so full and perfect, trained to every individual-- harmonies There was a depth in these that supported their air-waving tones, as pillars solid and polished a vaulted roof, where shadoaver and nestle I found a book, and sang at intervals, but generally preferred to receive the actual i for Germany was born that Sunday in pleasurable pain
None can knoho has not felt--none feel who has not heard--the spell of those haunting services in the land of Luther! The chorale so grave and powerful, with its interpieces so light and florid, like slender fretworks on a marble shrine,--the unisonous pause, the antiphonal repose, the deep sense of worshi+p stirred by the sense of sound From that Sunday I alith Aronach, unbidden, but unforbidden; and as I learned to be very expert in stopping, I substituted very speedily the functionary who had performed the office before my advent
FOOTNOTE:
[14] There is no question but that Starwood Burney is intended for a portrait of Sterndale Bennett Mendelssohn was his friend froh it is doubtful whether Bennett ever studied with hiht out Bach's music in London He was also a pupil of the Leipsic Conservatory
CHAPTER XXVII
It cannot be supposed that I forgot my home, or that I failed to institute an immediate correspondence, which was thus checked in the bud Aronach, finding ht, after we had all retired, with my little ink-bottle on the floor andupon my knees close into my lamp, very coolly carried my sheet, pen, and ink away, and informed me that he never per except what he set theainst this restriction but for a saving discovery I made on the morrow,--that our master himself dismissed froress once a month Precious specimens, no doubt, they were, these, of hard-hearted fact! Neither e allowed to receive letters ourselves from home Only simple communications were permitted to himself; and the effect of this rule, so autocratic, was desperately painful upon lish, served up in English character; I wanted to hear more than that all ell; and as for Lenhart Davy, had not ether But it was very soon I began to realize that this judicious interdiction lent a tonic bitterness to e of lance back without a quiet tear or two; it was heavenly in its unabsolved and absolute serenity It was the oneheart too apt to burn,--a busy brain too apt to vision,--if that head and heart were ever to be raised frohts of art
I fear lory that touched them was of the moment, and too subtle to be retrieved; but it is i to my adventure-maze
For six months, that passed as swiftly as six weeks of a certain existence, ent on together--I should have said--hand-in-hand, but that my Starwood's diffident melancholy and Iskar's travestied hauteur would have held h at first I had to work al contrapuntal class, I soon left the other two behind, and Aronach taught e it would be impossible to overrate Not that he ever coent, too stern; his powers never condescended; he was never known to qualify; he was never personallyof the hermit blended e of our position was his supreme standard, insensibly our own also,--the secondary, our undisturbed seclusion
As I said, alked the sa is unifor, though it changes not, suggests to the rownroute; for as the year grew and rounded, all, as it were, aspired without changing
Meditation mellowed every circumstance till it ripened to an unalterable charm I alalked with Starwood, who still ly so pale and frail he beca Indeed, he hardly cleared it; and I should have mentioned my fears to Aronach but that he see rid of the weakling, as I dreaded he ht choose to do, he physicked him and kept hied hi drinks by day The poor little felloas very grateful, but still sad; and I was astonished that Aronach still expected him to practise, unless he was in bed, and to write, except his head ached The indefinite disorder very seldoh, and chiefly asserted itself in baby-yawns and occasional whimpers, constant weariness, and entire loss of appetite I at length discovered his age, and Iskar's also The latter had passed eleven, but was not so nearly twelve as I; the first was scarcely nine, and so sht have been only six
It struck me he would not be much older, and I had learned to love hi weakness I ventured, one day, to ask Aronach whether his father kneas ill I was answered,--
”He is not ill”