Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: THORWALDSEN.]

BERTEL THORWALDSEN.

A few months ago we visited a plain old house in Copenhagen, the boyhood home of the great Danish sculptor. Here he worked with his father, a poor wood-carver, who, thinking his boy would be a more skilful workman if he learned to draw, sent him to the Free Royal Academy of Fine Arts when he was twelve years old. At the end of four years he took a prize, and the fact was mentioned in the newspapers. The next day, one of the teachers asked, "Thorwaldsen, is it your brother who has carried off the prize?"

Bertel's cheeks colored with pride as he said, "No, sir; it is I." The teacher changed his tone, and replied, "Mr. Thorwaldsen, you will go up immediately to the first rank."

Years afterward, when he had become famous, he said no praise was ever so sweet as being called "Mr." when he was poor and unknown.

Two years later, he won another prize; but he was now obliged to stay at home half the time to help support the large family. Obtaining a small gold medal from the Academy, although so modest that, after the examination, he escaped from the midst of the candidates by a private staircase, he determined to try for the large gold medal. If he could obtain this, he would receive a hundred and twenty dollars a year for three years, and study art in Italy. He at once began to give drawing-lessons, taught modelling to wealthy boys, and helped ill.u.s.trate books, working from early morning till late at night. He was rarely seen to smile, so hard was the struggle for daily bread. But he tried for the medal, and won.

What visions of fame must have come before him now, as he said good-by to his poor parents, whom, alas, he was never to see again, and, taking his little dog Hector, started for far-away Italy! When he arrived, he was so ill and homesick that several times he decided to give up art and go back. He copied diligently the works of the old masters, and tried in vain to earn a little money. He sent some small works of his own to Copenhagen; but n.o.body bought them. He made "Jason with the Golden Fleece," and, when no one ordered it, the discouraged artist broke it in pieces. The next year he modelled another Jason, a lady furnishing the means; and while everybody praised it, and Canova said, "This young Dane has produced a work in a new and grand style," it did not occur to any one to buy the statue in marble.

An artist could not live on praise alone. Anxious days came and went, and he was dest.i.tute and wretched. He must leave Rome, and go back to the wood-carving in Copenhagen; for no one wanted beautiful things, unless the maker was famous. He deferred going from week to week, till at last his humble furniture had been sold, and his trunks waited at the door. As he was leaving the house, his travelling companion said to him, "We must wait till to-morrow, from a mistake in our pa.s.sports."

A few hours later, Mr. Thomas Hope, an English banker, entered his studio, and, struck with the grandeur of his model of Jason, asked the cost in marble. "Six hundred sequins" (over twelve hundred dollars), he answered, not daring to hope for such good fortune. "That is not enough; you should ask eight," said the generous man, who at once ordered it.

And this was the turning-point in Bertel's life. How often a rich man might help a struggling artist, and save a genius to the world, as did this banker! Young Thorwaldsen now made the acquaintance of the Danish amba.s.sador to Naples, who introduced him to the family of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, where the most famous people in Rome gathered. Soon a leading countess commissioned him to cut four marble statues,--Bacchus, Ganymede, Apollo, and Venus. Two years later, he was made professor in the Royal Academy of Florence.

The Academy of Copenhagen now sent him five hundred dollars as an expression of their pride in him. How much more he needed it when he was near starving, all those nine years in Rome! The bashful student had become the genial companion and interesting talker. Louis of Bavaria, who made Munich one of the art centres of the world, was his admirer and friend. The Danish King urged him to return to Copenhagen; but, as the Quirinal was to be decorated with great magnificence, Rome could not spare him. For this, he made in three months his famous "Entry of Alexander into Babylon," and soon after his exquisite bas-reliefs, "Night" and "Morning,"--the former, a G.o.ddess carrying in her arms two children, Sleep and Death; the latter, a G.o.ddess flying through the air, scattering flowers with both hands.

In 1816, when he was forty-six, he finished his Venus, after having made _thirty_ models of the figure. He threw away the first attempt, and devoted three years to the completion of the second. Three statues were made, one of which is at Chatsworth, the elegant home of the Duke of Devonshire; and one was lost at sea. A year later, he carved his exquisite Byron, now at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was now made a member of three other famous academies. Having been absent from Denmark twenty-three years, the King urged his return for a visit, at least. The Royal Palace of Charlottenburg was prepared for his reception The students of the Academy escorted him with bands of music, cannon were fired, poems read, cantatas sung; and the King created him councillor of state.

Was the wood-carver's son proud of all these honors? No. The first person he met at the palace was the old man who had served as a model for the boys when Thorwaldsen was at school. So overcome was he as he recalled those days of toil and poverty, that he fell upon the old man's neck, and embraced him heartily.

After some of the grandest work of his life in the Frue Kirke,--Christ and the Twelve Apostles, and others,--he returned to Rome, visiting, on the way, Alexander of Russia, who, after Thorwaldsen had made his bust, presented the artist with a diamond ring.

Although a Protestant, accounted now the greatest living sculptor, he was made president of the Academy of St. Luke, a position held by Canova when he was alive, and was commissioned to build the monument of Pius VII. in St. Peters. Mendelssohn, the great composer, had become his warm friend, and used to play for him as he worked in his studio. Sir Walter Scott came to visit the artist, and as the latter could speak scarcely a word of English, the two shook hands heartily, and clapped each other on the shoulder as they parted.

When Thorwaldsen was sixty-eight years old, he left Rome to end his days among his own people. The enthusiasm on his arrival was unbounded.

The whole city waited nearly three days for his coming. Boats decked with flowers went out to meet him, and so many crowded on board his vessel that it was feared she would sink. The members of the Academy came in a body; and the crowd took the horses from the carriage, and drew it themselves through the streets to the Palace of Charlottenburg.

In the evening there was a grand torchlight procession, followed by a constant round of parties.

So beset was he with invitations to dinner, that, to save a little time for himself, he told his servant Wilkins, that he would dine with him and his wife. Wilkins, greatly confused, replied, "What would the world think if it found out that the chancellor dined with his servant?"

"The world--the world! Have I not told you a thousand times that I don't care in the least what the world thinks about these things?" Sometimes he refused even to dine with the King. Finding at last that society would give him no rest, he went to live with some friends at Nyso, seven hours by boat from Copenhagen.

Once more he visited Rome, for a year, receiving royal attentions all through Germany. Two years after, as he was sitting in the theatre, he rose to let a lady pa.s.s. She saw him bending toward the floor, and asked, "Have you dropped something?"

The great man made no answer; he was dead. The funeral was a grand expression of love and honor. His body lay in state in the Royal Palace, laurel about his brow, the coffin ornamented with floral crowns--one made by the Queen of Denmark; his chisel laid in the midst of laurel and palm, and his great works of art placed about him. Houses were draped in black, bells tolled in all the churches, women threw flowers from their windows before the forty artists who carried the coffin, and the King and Prince royal received it in person at the Frue Kirke.

Then it was borne to the large museum which Copenhagen had built to receive his work, and buried in the centre of the inner court, which had been prepared under his own hand. A low granite coping surrounds the grave, which is entirely covered with ivy, and on the side is his boyish name, Bertel (Bartholomew) Thorwaldsen.

MOZART.

The quaint old city of Salzburg, Austria, built into the mountain-side, is a Mecca for all who love music, and admire the immortal Mozart. When he was alive, his native city allowed him nearly to starve; when he was dead, she built him a beautiful monument, and preserved his home, a plain two-story, stuccoed building, for thousands of travellers to look upon sadly and tenderly.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born Jan. 27, 1756, a delicate, sensitive child, who would ask a dozen times a day whether his friends loved him, and, if answered in the negative, would burst into tears. At three, he began to show his pa.s.sion for music. He would listen intensely as his father taught his little sister, Nannerl, seven years old; would move his playthings from one room to another, to the sound of the violin; and at four, composed pieces which astonished his sire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. A. MOZART.]

Two years later, the proud father took Wolfgang and his sister on a concert tour to Vienna. So well did the boy play, that the Empress Maria Theresa held him in her arms, and kissed him heartily. One day as he was walking between two of her daughters, he slipped on the polished floor and fell. Marie Antoinette, afterward Empress of France, raised him up, whereupon he said, "You are very kind; I will marry you." The father was alarmed at this seeming audacity; but the lovely Princess playfully kissed him.

The next year he was taken to Paris, and here two sets of sonatas, the works of a boy of seven, were brought out, dedicated to Marie Antoinette. The children sat at the royal table, poems were written about them, and everywhere they excited wonder and admiration; yet so excessively modest was young Mozart, that he cried when praised too much. In London, Bach took the boy between his knees, and alternately they played his own great works and those of Handel at sight. Royalty gave them "gold snuffboxes enough to set up a shop," wrote home the father; "but in money I am poor." Wolfgang was now taken ill of inflammatory fever; but he could not give up his music. A board was laid across the bed, and on this he wrote out his thoughts in the notes.

Finally, with ardor dampened at their lack of pecuniary success, Leopold Mozart took his dear ones back to quiet Salzburg.

Here the cold archbishop, discrediting the reports of the boy's genius, shut him up alone for a week to compose an oratorio, the text furnished by himself. Mozart, only ten years old, stood the test brilliantly. The next year a second tour was taken to Vienna, to be present at the marriage of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Josepha. The bride died from smallpox shortly after their arrival: and poor Wolfgang took the disease, and was blind for nine days. When he recovered, the musicians, moved by envy and jealousy, would not be outdone by a boy of twelve, who was equally at home in German or Italian opera, and determined to hiss off the stage whatever he might compose. Sad at heart, and disappointed, again the Mozarts went back to the old home.

Two years later, after much self-sacrifice, the father took his boy to Italy for study. The first day in Pa.s.sion Week they went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous "Miserere" of Allegri, which was considered so sacred, that the musicians were forbidden to take home any part of it, or copy it out of the chapel, on pain of excommunication. Wolfgang, as soon as he reached his lodgings, wrote it out from memory; which remarkable feat for a boy of fourteen astonished all Rome. So wonderfully did he play, that the audience at Naples declared there was witchcraft in the ring which he wore on his left hand, and he was obliged to remove it. At Milan, when he was nearly fifteen, he composed the opera "Mithridate," conducting it himself, which was given twenty nights in succession to enthusiastic audiences. After this came requests for operas from Maria Theresa, Munich, and elsewhere. He was busy every moment. Overworked, he was often ill; but the need for money to meet heavy expenses made constant work a necessity. All this time he wrote beautiful letters to his mother and sister. "Kiss mamma's hand for me a thousand billion times," is the language of his loving heart. He could scarcely be said to have had any childhood; but he kept his tenderness and affection to the last of his life.

After their return to Salzburg, finding the new archbishop even less cordial than the old--the former had allowed Wolfgang the munificent salary of five dollars and a fourth yearly!--it was deemed wise to try to find a new field for employment. The father, now sixty years of age, must earn a pittance for the family by giving music-lessons, while the mother accompanied the son to Paris. The separation was a hard one for the devoted father, who could not say good-by to his idolized son, and poor Nannerl wept the whole day long. Mozart, now twenty-one, and famous, well repaid this affection by his pure character. He wrote: "I have G.o.d always before me. Whatever is according to his will is also according to mine; therefore I cannot fail to be happy and contented."

Stopping for a time at Mannheim, he attempted to gain the position of tutor to the elector's children, but was disappointed. Here he fell in love with Aloysia Weber, a pretty girl of fifteen, whose father, a prompter at the National Theatre, earned only two hundred dollars yearly for the support of his wife and six children. The girl had a fine voice; and Mozart, blinded by love, asked no higher joy than to write operas in which she might be the star. The good old father, who had spent all his life in helping his son to win fame, was nearly heart-broken when he learned of this foolish affection, and wrote him tenderly but firmly: "Off with you to Paris; get the great folks on your side; _aut Caesar, aut nihil_. From Paris, the name and fame of a man of great talent goes through the whole world."

The young man, carrying out his childish motto, "G.o.d first, and then papa," reluctantly started for Paris. Here he did not meet with great success, for scores of applicants waited for every position. His loving mother soon died, perhaps from over economy in her cold, dark lodgings; and the young musician took his lonely way back to Salzburg, begging his father's consent to his stopping at Mannheim to see the Webers. Finding that Aloysia had gone upon the stage at Munich, he hastened to see her.

She had been offered a good salary. Meantime Mozart had won no new laurels at Paris. He was small in stature, and poor; and the girl who wept at his departure a few months previously professed now scarcely to have seen his face before. The young lover, cut to the heart, yet proud, seated himself at the piano, and played,

"I leave the girl gladly who cares not for me,"

and then hastened away to Salzburg. Aloysia married a comedian, and lived a most unhappy life, gaining some fame from singing the music which Mozart wrote for her.

He remained at home for a year and a half, till called to Munich to write the opera "Idomeneo," and later to Vienna. Here, unfortunately, he met the Webers again, and, their father having died, he boarded in their house, and gave lessons to Constance, a younger sister of Aloysia. She was a plain, good-hearted girl, without much energy, but with a great appreciation of her gifted teacher. The result came naturally; he fell in love with the penniless girl, and, despite the distress of his aged father at his choice, married her when he was twenty-six and she eighteen.

Henceforward there was no hope of any thing save the direst poverty. To marry without love is a grave mistake; to marry simply for love is sometimes a mistake equally grave. He could of course do nothing now for his aged father or sister. Unsteady employment, a rapidly-increasing family, and a wife ill most of the time, made the struggle for existence ten times harder than before his marriage. Once when he had prepared to visit his father for the first time after the wedding, and had waited months for the necessary funds, he was arrested for a debt of fifteen dollars, just as he was stepping into the carriage.

The Emperor Joseph said to him one day, "Why did you not marry a rich wife?" With dignity Mozart at once replied, "Sire, I trust that my genius will always enable me to support the woman I love"; but unfortunately it did not. He wrote after his marriage: "The moment we were made one, my wife as well as myself began to weep, which touched every one, even the priest, and they all cried when they witnessed how our hearts were moved." How little they dreamed that they should weep more seriously when hunger stared their six children in the face!

From the time of his marriage till his death, nine years, says Rev. Mr.

Haweis, "his life can be compared to nothing but a torch burning out rapidly in the wind." It was a period of incessant, astonishing labor.

He dedicated six quartets to his dear friend Joseph Haydn, who said, "Mozart is the greatest composer who has ever lived"; wrote "Figaro"

when he was twenty-nine, which had the greatest popularity, "Don Giovanni" at thirty-one, and the "Flauto Magico" gratis, for the benefit of the theatre director, who was in want. The two latter creations were hailed with delight. Goethe wrote to Schiller later of "Don Giovanni,"

"That piece stands entirely alone; and Mozart's death has rendered all hope of any thing like it idle."

Whenever he appeared at the theatre, he was called upon the stage from all parts of the house; yet all this time he could not earn enough to live. He received only a hundred dollars from his "Don Giovanni," and less for the others. He gave lessons every hour he could spare, concerts in the open air, borrowed from his friends, scrimped himself, to send money to his sick wife at Baden, p.a.w.ned his silver plate to make one more unsuccessful journey to win the aid of indifferent princes, and fainted often at his tasks after midnight. Still he wrote to "the best and dearest wife of my heart," "If I only had a letter from you, all would be right," and promised her to work harder than ever to earn money.

When Constance was at home with him, if he left her in the morning before she awakened, he would leave a note for her with the words, "Good-morning, my darling wife. I shall be at home at -- o'clock precisely." Once when she had been ill for eight months, and Mozart was composing beside her as she slept, suddenly a noisy messenger entered.

Alarmed lest his wife should be disturbed, he rose hastily, when the penknife in his hand fell, and buried itself in his foot. Without a word escaping his lips, he left the room, a surgeon was called, and, though lame for some time, the wife was not told of the accident.

His compositions found few purchasers, for the people generally could not comprehend them. Publishers' shops were closed to him, unless he would write in the popular style. "Then I can make no more by my pen,"

he said bitterly, "and I had better starve and go to destruction at once." So poor had his family become, that, with no fuel in the house, he and his wife were found by a friend, waltzing to keep warm.