Autobiographical Reminiscences with Family Letters and Notes on Music Part 18

"Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre."

There is no necessity that every man's cup should be of the same size.

The great point is, that each should be always full to the brim. A dwarf, clothed from head to foot in golden raiment, would be just as happy as a giant in similar case, once granting supreme happiness consists in being so attired. This is the ingenious comparison by which St. Francois de Sales explains how the elect are equal in happiness, even when they are unequal in glory. So apt is it and so subtle, that it may well be applied to every degree in life and every form of perfection.

It is not given to every man to be one of those majestic streams whose waters carry fertility wherever they pa.s.s. But the humblest brooklet, if it be pure and limpid, mirrors the sky as faithfully as the mightiest river, or the depths of the ocean itself.

"I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her,"

says a Hebrew prophet; and the saintly author of the "Imitation"

a.s.sures us that "Thy chamber, if thou continuest therein, groweth sweet."

"Well, well!" says somebody else, as though by way of compliment, "it can't be helped. You must pay for being famous!" It is high time the folly of such remarks as this should be exposed. It is a very doubtful advantage, in all conscience, for a man to find himself preyed upon because he is no longer obscure. It cannot be pointed out too often that the artist's _work_, not his _person_, is public property. And there can be no powerful, durable, h.o.m.ogeneous production if his work is to be incessantly mangled and cut up by interruptions. So let society lay to heart the parting counsel given by Moliere to the great Minister I have already mentioned:--

"Souffre que, dans leur art, s'avancant chaque jour, Par leurs ouvrages seuls ils te fa.s.sent la cour!"

The artist who gives himself up too much to social intercourse runs yet another risk, concerning which it may not be amiss to say a word or two.

By dint of living in the buzz of so many varied opinions, and admirations, and criticisms, and infatuations for some one or other of the fashionable art productions of the moment, he gradually comes to lose confidence in himself, in his own artistic nature, in those dictates of his personal feeling which at one time led him onward, and he ends by finding himself in a hopeless maze. The inner voice which should guide him is lost in the noise of the tempest, and he looks, and looks in vain, to the caprices of a favour that varies with the fashions for a support it is incapable of affording him. Some people say that when you hear a bell strike, you hear only one sound. That depends entirely on the metal and the founding of the bell. If those be perfect, the sound produced is a delightful series of harmonic vibrations.

But what could be more hideous than to hear all the bells in the town strike at once? When, on a thundery day, which makes us feel our breath oppressed and painful, we say "the air is heavy," we use an inappropriate word. The air really is too light. What we call weight is nothing but rarefaction; there is less air than we require to enable us to breathe freely. The same thing applies to the intellectual atmosphere. The man of learning, the artist, the poet, and many beside, each has his own special atmosphere, and must therefore breathe or choke under his own special conditions. Let us not s.n.a.t.c.h any one of them from his own life-giving element, nor stifle him under what Joseph de Maistre has so well called "the horrible weight of Nothingness."

I know, and I freely confess it, your artist is a being apart, strange, abnormal, whimsical, freakish--an oddity, in fact. Well, grant it all.

If his peculiarities cause discomfort, he suffers by them too, and much more, very often, than people think. But, after all, his shortcomings may be forgiven for the sake of what he is, and it may be that his value is owing in part to what he lacks. He must be taken as he is, or left alone. There is no other way to enable him to become all he has it in him to be.

CH. GOUNOD.

THE END