Modern Eloquence Volume Ii Part 20

The pride of England in its navy, is justly matched by that of every American in his own. [Applause.] Its record, from the days of John Paul Jones to those of Dewey and Sampson [applause and cheers], is unsurpa.s.sed in the history of the world. During these hundred glorious years, its whole personnel, from Admiral to blue-jacket, has left upon the pages of history a shining story, stainless, brilliant and undying, of honor, skill, devotion and daring that stirs the heart because inspiring and enn.o.bling. The English poet might justly say:--

"The spirit of our fathers Shall start from every wave; For the deck it was their field of fame, And ocean was their grave."

And the American can as justly reply:--

"Know that thy highest dwells at home, there art And loyal inspiration spring; If thou would'st touch the universal heart, Of thine own country sing."

Remembering its glorious past, its happy, peaceful, prosperous present--for it is the happiest land the sun shines upon--and the auspicious omens for the bright opening future, I ask you to pledge with me its representative head, the Commander-in-Chief of its Army and Navy, the President of the United States. [Toast drunk standing.]

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

SCIENCE AND ART

[Speech of Thomas H. Huxley at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 5, 1883. Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy, said in introducing him: "With science I couple the name under which we know one of the most fearless, keen and lucid intellects which have ever in this country grappled with the problems of natural science and set them solved before us, the name of Professor Huxley [cheers], a name known far and wide wherever the pregnant science of biology is studied, and through the vehicle of other tongues besides that strong and trenchant English with which he is wont to strike his thoughts so vigorously home."]

SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:--I beg leave to thank you for the extremely kind and appreciative manner in which you have received the toast of Science. It is the more grateful to me to hear that toast proposed in an a.s.sembly of this kind, because I have noticed of late years a great and growing tendency among those who were once jestingly said to have been born in a pre-scientific age to look upon science as an invading and aggressive force, which if it had its own way would oust from the universe all other pursuits. I think there are many persons who look upon this new birth of our times as a sort of monster rising out of the sea of modern thought with the purpose of devouring the Andromeda of art. And now and then a Perseus, equipped with the shoes of swiftness of the ready writer, with the cap of invisibility of the editorial article, and it may be with the Medusa-head of vituperation, shows himself ready to try conclusions with the scientific dragon. Sir, I hope that Perseus will think better of it [laughter]; first, for his own sake, because the creature is hard of head, strong of jaw, and for some time past has shown a great capacity for going over and through whatever comes in his way; and secondly, for the sake of justice, for I a.s.sure you, of my own personal knowledge that if left alone, the creature is a very debonair and gentle monster. [Laughter.] As for the Andromeda of art, he has the tenderest respect for that lady, and desires nothing more than to see her happily settled and annually producing a flock of such charming children as those we see about us. [Cheers.]

But putting parables aside, I am unable to understand how anyone with a knowledge of mankind can imagine that the growth of science can threaten the development of art in any of its forms. If I understand the matter at all, science and art are the obverse and reverse of Nature's medal, the one expressing the eternal order of things, in terms of feeling, the other in terms of thought. When men no longer love nor hate; when suffering causes no pity, and the tale of great deeds ceases to thrill, when the lily of the field shall seem no longer more beautifully arrayed than Solomon in all his glory, and the awe has vanished from the snow-capped peak and deep ravine, then indeed science may have the world to itself, but it will not be because the monster has devoured art, but because one side of human nature is dead, and because men have lost the half of their ancient and present attributes. [Cheers.]

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL

THE MUSIC OF WAGNER

[Speech of Robert G. Ingersoll at the banquet given in New York City, April 2, 1891, by the Liederkranz Society to Edmund C. Stanton, director of German Opera in New York, and Anton Seidl, orchestral conductor. William Steinway presided, and called upon Robert Ingersoll to speak to the toast, "Music, n.o.blest of the Arts."]

MR. TOAST-MASTER:--It is probable that I was selected to speak about music, because, not knowing one note from another, I have no prejudice on the subject. All I can say is, that I know what I like, and, to tell the truth, I like every kind, enjoy it all, from the hand-organ to the orchestra.

Knowing nothing of the science of music, I am not always looking for defects, or listening for discords. As the young robin cheerfully swallows whatever comes, I hear with gladness all that is played.

Music has been, I suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law of evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of theology, has been and is under this law.

Music may be divided into three kinds: First, the music of simple time, without any particular emphasis--and this may be called the music of the heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is the eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in accordance with our feelings, with our emotions--and this may be called the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. This may be called the music of the head,--the music of the brain.

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the waves is the sea--above the clouds is the sky.

_ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL Photogravure after a photograph from life_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears and pa.s.sions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.

Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.

Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine--the climate--of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.

I am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvellous mingling of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all pa.s.sions, and Death is its shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love gets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture from the darkness of Death. Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.

The old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling, through time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. Most of the old operas consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. There should be no unmeaning music. It is as though a writer should suddenly leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a repet.i.tion of one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if," "if,"

varying the repet.i.tion of these words, but without meaning,--and then resume the subject of his article.

I am not saying that great music was not produced before Wagner but I am simply endeavoring to show the steps that have been taken. It was necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the greatest might be produced. The same is true of the drama. Thousands and thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions prepared the way for the supreme composer.

When I read Shakespeare, I am astonished that he has expressed so much with common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when I hear Wagner, I exclaim: Is it possible that all this is done with common air?

In Wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the infinite.

The melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer clouds, and weird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought by fitful winds, and others moan like waves on desolate sh.o.r.es, and mingled with these, are shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and ripples of laughter, and the wondrous voices of eternal love.

Wagner is the Shakespeare of Music.

The funeral march for Siegfried is the funeral music for all the dead.

Should all the G.o.ds die, this music would be perfectly appropriate. It is elemental, universal, eternal.

The love-music in Tristan and Isolde is, like Romeo and Juliet an expression of the human heart for all time. So the love-duet in "The Flying Dutchman" has in it the consecration, the infinite self-denial, of love. The whole heart is given; every note has wings, and rises and poises like an eagle in the heaven of sound.

When I listen to the music of Wagner, I see pictures, forms, glimpses of the perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast, the glance of an eye. I am in the midst of great galleries. Before me are pa.s.sing the endless panoramas. I see vast landscapes with valleys of verdure and vine with soaring crags, snow-crowned. I am on the wide seas, where countless billows burst into the whitecaps of joy. I am in the depths of caverns roofed with mighty crags, while through some rent I see the eternal stars. In a moment the music becomes a river of melody, flowing through some wondrous land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the mighty cataract is changed to seven-hued foam.

Great music is always sad, because it tells us of the perfect; and such is the difference between what we are and that which music suggests, that even in the vase of joy we find some tears.

The music of Wagner has color, and when I hear the violins, the morning seems to slowly come. A horn puts a star above the horizon. The night, in the purple hum of the ba.s.s, wanders away like some enormous bee across wide fields of dead clover. The light grows whiter as the violins increase. Colors come from other instruments, and then the full orchestra floods the world with day.

Wagner seems not only to have given us new tones, new combinations, but the moment the orchestra begins to play his music, all the instruments are transfigured. They seem to utter the sounds that they have been longing to utter. The horns run riot; the drums and cymbals join in the general joy; the old ba.s.s viols are alive with pa.s.sion; the 'cellos throb with love; the violins are seized with a divine fury, and the notes rush out as eager for the air as pardoned prisoners for the roads and fields.

The music of Wagner is filled with landscapes. There are some strains, like midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like islands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. His music satisfies the heart and brain. It is not only for memory; not only for the present, but for prophecy.

Wagner was a sculptor, a painter in sound. When he died, the greatest fountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. His music will instruct and refine forever.

All that I know about the operas of Wagner I have learned from Anton Seidl. I believe that he is the n.o.blest, tenderest and most artistic interpreter of the great composer that has ever lived.

SIR HENRY IRVING

LOOKING FORWARD

[Speech of Henry Irving[10] at a banquet given in his honor, London, July 4, 1883, in view of his impending departure for a professional tour of America. The Lord Chief Justice of England, John Duke Coleridge, occupied the chair.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _MENU CARD Photogravure after a design by Thompson Willing_