Volume II Part 15 (1/2)
”Carl, all that I know I get fronorant, and can teach and tell of nothing in the world but love
That isin the love that is my own on earth, all earth seems to sink beneath my feet, and I tremble as if raised to heaven I feel as if God were behind e to , it is the same,--the music wraps up the love; I feel it more and more”
”But, Maria, you are so awfully musical”
”Carl, till I knew Flori I practised, it is true, and was very sick of failures; but _then_ , and I found what it was meant for,--therefore I cannot be so musical as you are And I revere you for it, Carl, and prophesy of you such performances that you can never excel them, however much you excel”
”Why, Maria, hoe used to talk about ether!”
”I did not know you so well then, Carl; but do you suppose that music, in one sense, is not all to h, either in their deeds or their desires, that the spirit which bade theain beneath the weakness of their earthly constitution and never appeals again; or else that the spirit, being too strong, does aith the ain”
”Do you ever talk in this strange manner to Anastase, Maria,--I mean, do you tell him you love him better than music?”
”He knows of hiine how I love him, Carl, when I tell you he loves music better than me, and yet I would have it so, chiefly for one reason”
”What is that?”
”That if I a to live for until we e truth that I was unappalled and scarcely touched by these pathetic hints of hers; in fact, looking at her then, it was as impossible to associate with her radiant beauty any idea of death as for any but the most tasteless moralist to attach it to a nen rose-floith stainless petals It was a day also of the estion to my mind was that neither the day nor she--neither the brilliant vault above, nor those transparent eyes--could ever ”change or pass” I was occupied besides in reflecting upon the ht never to have been separated, even _thought_ of, apart I did not know then how far she was right in her mystical assertion that the premature fulness of the brain est unbroken rest
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The description of the fairy music contained in this chapter evidently refers to the opera of ”The Te in 1846-47 The coreed to write an opera on this subject for Mr Luer of Her Majesty's Theatre in London, the principal _role_ to be given to Jenny Lind
After considerable negotiation, M Scribe, the eminent French adapter, furnished a libretto, and Mr Lu distribution of parts: Prospero, Signor Lablache; Caliban, Herr Staudigl; Fernando, Signor Gardoni; Miranda, Madened Mendelssohn, however, was dissatisfied with the libretto, which es in the character of the story and marred the artistic effects intended by Shakspeare; but M Scribe would not listen to his protests, and thus the h
Mendelssohn then turned his attention to the legend of the Loreley as the subject of an opera, but died shortly afterward, leaving it in a fragmentary condition, wherefore Mr Lu-promised ”Tempest” It proved a failure, however Thus a three-fold fatality attended the ”Tempest” episode in the friendly relations of Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind The reader who otiations will find a very complete record of them in the second volume of the Life of Jenny Lind by Mr Rockstro and Canon Holland, recently published, and there for the first tiiven to the public from official sources
CHAPTER VI
I left her at her house and returned to Cecilia, feeling very lonely, and as if I ought to be very miserable, but I could not continue it; for I was, instead of recalling her words, in aconversation The sae as Maria, with no less power in her heavenly ether, and watched the strange calm distance of those unclouded eyes next the transparent fervors of Maria's soul,--that soul in its self-betrayal so wildly beautiful, so undone with its own emotion Clara I reme her crystal intellect; and even then it appeared tostillness than in anything but the music that claimed and owned her But Maria had seemed on fire as she had spoken, and even when she spoke not, she passed into the very heart by syht how soon, in that respect, her change would coain until that change Over this leaf of lance, for it would be as a sheet of light unrelieved by any shade or pencilling; suffice it to say that day by day, in olden dream, at dream-like afternoon, I studied and soared I was--after the Chevalier had left, and the exciteain, and in much the same state as when I lived with Aronach; certainly I did not expand, as Maria ht have said The advent of the Chevalier, which was as a king's visit, being delayed until the spring, I had left off hoping he , and my initiation--”by trance”--went on apace; I was utterly undisturbed
At Christmas we had a concert,--a concert worthy of the name; and with all the Christmas heartedness of Gerreens and streamers Besides, that overture, the ”Mer de Glace,” which, even under an inferior conductor, would make its as one of our interpretations; and it appeared to have some effect upon the whole crew that was not veryparty, but that all the instruerate the ice- it in the frosty air, upon the frost-spelled water I was to have gone to England this year, as arranged; but the old-fashi+oned frureat stores of snoith great raving winds, andthe water,--besides, it was agreed that as Millicent and Davy had seen et on very well as I was until June
It was not such a disappointone to London, and that I could not have seen her She wasto Davy; but I could not get out all I wanted, for I did not like to ask for it There was so from all excitement; and it is difficult forbut the dreae, for fiction often strikes us as more real than fact
I had a small letter from Starwood about this time
”Dearest Carl,” he wrote, as he always spoke to lish, ”I wish you could see the Chevalier noell he looks, and how he enjoys this beautiful country We have been to see all the pictures and the palaces, and all the theatres; we have heard all the cathedral services, and climbed over all the mountains,--for, Carl, ent also to Switzerland; and when I saw the 'Mer de Glace,' I thought it was like that music _Noe are in a villa all ray color, and there are orange-trees upon the grass All about are green hills, and behind them hills of blue, and the sky here is like no other sky, for it is always the saht; but yet at the same time it is day, and the sun is very clear Thein the air that makes me alant to cry It is melancholy, and a very quiet country,--it seems quite dead after Germany; but then we do live away fro continually, except when he is out, and the Herr Aronach is very good,--does not notice hts are upon the Chevalier, I think, and no wonder Carl, I a Italian,” etc There was more in the little letter; but from such a babe I could not expect the information I wanted Maria and her suite--as I always called her brother Joseph and the little Josephine--had left Cecilia for Christmas Day, which they were to spend with soues off, and a friend, too, of Anastase, who, indeed, accoh I had received many invitations, I had accepted none, and I went over to the old place where I had lived with Aronach, to see the illuminations in every house It was a chilly, elfin tiels in the church next day
Tobefore Josephine and her brother, and even without Anastase He, it appeared, had gone to Paris to hear a new opera, and also to play at several places on the road It was only five days after Christmas that she came and fetched , to her own home When she appeared, rolled in furs, I was fain to suppose her another than herself, produced by the oldest of all old gentlemen for my edification, and I screa, or I had not heard her She would not speak toonly to invite htened over with snow, she scarcely spoke more; but arrived on that floor I was so fond of, and screened by the winter hangings from the air, while the soft warmth of the stove bade all idea of winter ether upon the sofa to talk I inquired why she had returned so soon
”Carl,” she said, s oververy much, I think, or else I have becos any longer”
”What things, Maria,--furthat you can tread upon it?”