Elizabeth Sara Sheppard

“ I did not know that."
"Can such a one live and not suffer? A nature which is all love,—-an imagination all music?"
"I thought that he looked delicate, but very happy,—-happy as a child or an angel. I have seen your smile turn bitter, sir,—-pardon,—-but never his. I am sure, if it matters to him that I should accede, I will do so, and I cannot thank you enough for telling me."
"Miss Benette, if you are destined to do anything great for music, it may be in one way as well as in another; that is, if you befriend the greatest musician, it is as much as if you befriended music. ”

“ One double garland, a harp in a circle,—the symbol of immortal harmony,—wrought out of snowy roses and azure ribbons, hung exactly above the table; but the table was itself covered with snowy damask, fold upon fluted fold, so that nothing, whatever lay beneath it, could be given to the gaze.
Through the antechamber to the decorated hall we passed, and then a lapse of music half restored me to myself,—only half, despite the overture of his, with choral relief, with intersong, that I had never heard before, and that he had written only for us: despite his presence, his conducting charm. ”

“ Calm as deep, clear as still, they were yet not passionless; though they clung and moulded themselves strictly to the passion of the music, lent not a pulse of their own; nor disturbed it the rapt serenity of her singing to gaze upon her angel-face. No child could have seemed less sensitive to the surrounding throng, nor have confided more implicitly in the father of its heart, than she leaned upon Seraphael's power.
I made this observation afterwards, when I had time to think; at present I could only feel, and feeling know, that the intellect is but the servant of the soul. ”

“ 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, we went also to Switzerland; and when I saw the 'Mer de Glace,' I thought it was like that music. Now we are in a villa all marble, not white, but a soft, pale-gray 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 same, without clouds, and yet as dark as our sky at night ”

“ Music, Miss Benette, it appears to me, so long as it preserves its purity, may consecrate all the forms of art by raising them into its own atmosphere,—govern them as the soul the body. But where music is itself degraded, its very type defaced, its worship rendered ridiculous, its nature mere name, by its own master the rest falls. I know not much about it, but I know how little the drama depends on music in this country, and how completely, in the first place, one must lend one's self to its meanest effect in order to fulfil the purpose of the writer. ”

“ I waited until the bier, bare of its gentle burden, stood lonely by the grave. I waited until the wreaths, flung in, covered the treasure with their kisses that was a jewel for earth to hide. I saw the torches thrown into the abyss, quenched by the kisses of the flowers, even as the earthly joy, the beauty, had been quenched in that abyss of light which to us is only darkness. I watched the black shadows draw closer round the grave; one suffocating cry arose, as if all hearts were broken in that spasm, or as if Music herself had given up the ghost. But Music never dies. ”

“ Maria's voice was trembling in my brain, a ghostly music. As Laura answered, the ghostly music passed, even as a wind shaken and scattered upon the sea. It was earth again, as vague, scarcely less lonely!
"A worldly man would mock. You do not a much wiser thing, but you do it for the best. I will try to hide it forever, for there is, indeed, no hope."
Half imploring, this was hardly a question; yet I answered,—
"I do believe none."
"You are cold, not cruel. I would rather know the truth. Yes! ”

“ It was Miss Lawrence who carried to Laura the news of Seraphael's death,—herself heart-broken, who bound up that bleeding heart. It is Miss Lawrence whose secretive and peculiar generosity so permeates the heart of music in London that no true musician is actually ever poor. It is Miss Lawrence who, disdaining subscription-lists, steps unseen through every embarrassment where those languish who are too proud or too humble to complain, and leaves that behind her which re-assures and re-establishes by the magic of charity strewn from her artist-hand. ”

“ Next Starwood was a brilliant little girl with long hair, much less than he, nursing a great doll exquisitely dressed; and again, nearest the doll and the doll's mamma, I perceived a lady and a pair of gentlemen, each of whom, as to size, would have made two Seraphaels. They were all very attentive, apparently, except the Chevalier; and though he was still by fits, I knew he was not attending, from the wandering, wistful gaze, now in the roof, now out at the windows, now downcast, shadowy, and anon flinging its own brightness over my soul, like a sunbeam astray from the heavens of Paradise. ”

“ Entering, still hushed and awful, the centre of the nave, we caught sight of the transept already crowded with hungering, thirsting faces; still they too, and all there hushed and awful. The vision of the choir itself, as it is still preserved to me, is as a picture of heaven to infancy. What more like one's idea of heaven than that height, that aspiring form,—the arches whose sun-kissed summits glowed in distance, whose vista stretched its boundaries from the light of rainbows at one end, on the other to the organ, music's archetype? ”

“ I said, sitting down at the foot of a cross that was hung with faded garlands, "why don't you sit in the shade? It is a very warm day."
"So it is very warm, and that is what I like; I am never warm enough here, and Florimond, too, loves the sun. I could not sit under a tree this day, everything is so bright; but nothing can be as bright as I wish it. Carl, I was going to tell Florimond, and I will tell you, that I feel as if I were too glad to bear what is before me. I did not think so until it came so very near. I am afraid when I stand up my heart will fail."
"Are you frightened, Maria?" ”

“ It is a fine idea of resurrection, when you take out the sleeping music and make it live. I know what you mean about violets,—their perfume is like the tones of your instrument, and one can separate it from all other scents in the spring, as those tones from all other tones of the orchestra."
"I have a tender thought for violets,—a very sad one, Miss Benette; but still sweet now that what I remember has happened a long while ago."
"That is the best of sorrow,—all passes off with time but that which is not bitter, though we can hardly call it sweet. ”

“ I believe Miss Lemark, as she is known still to me, or even Laura, might have had many homes if she had chosen,—homes where she could not but have felt at home. Clara was even importunate that she should live with her in Germany; Miss Lawrence was excessively indignant at being refused herself; and there have been worthy gentlemen, shades not to be invoked or recognized, who would have been very thankful to be allowed to dream of that pale brow veiled, those clear eyes downcast, those tapering fingers twined in theirs. But Laura, like myself, will never marry. ”

“ Carl, all that I know I get from my heart. I am really excessively ignorant, and can teach and tell of nothing in the world but love. That is my life and my faith; and when my heart is bathing in 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 my joy, and as if it must be more than every other knowledge to make me feel so. And when I sing, it is the same,—the music wraps up the love ”

“ The lights and shades of scenery cease to have any meaning in themselves, but again are drawn upwards into the concentrated performing souls, and so again pass upwards into the compass of that tonal paradise. But let the music be degraded or weak, and down it will pull performers, performance, and intention, crush the ideal, as persons without music crush our ideal,—have you not felt? All dramatic music is not thus weak and bad, but much that they use most is vague as well as void. ”

“ Music is the soul of the drama, for the highest drama is the opera,—the highest possible is the soul, of course; and so the music should be above the other forms, and they the ministers. But most people put the music at the bottom, and think of it last in this drama. If the music be high, all rise to it; and the higher it is, the higher will all rise. So, the dramatic personification passes naturally into that spiritual height, as the forms of those we love, and their fleeting actions fraught with grace, dissolve into our strong perception of the soul we in them love and long for. ”

“ All rose and shouted with an enthusiasm, when elicited from English hearts perhaps more real and touching than any other; a quickening change, like sudden summer, swept the room; the music became infinitely at home there; we all felt as if, watching over the dead, we had seen the dead alive again; the "old familiar strains" untired us, and none either wearied among the listeners. I could not, in the trances of my own playing, forbear to worship the gentle knowledge that had led the hierarch to that humble shrine, to consecrate and ennoble it forever. ”

“ Dear little Carl,—for I must call you little, you are so much less than I,—do you really think I would marry, loving music as I do, unless I really loved that which I was to marry more than music?"
So thrilling were her tones in these simple words, of such intensity her deep glance, with its fringe all quivering now, that I was alienated at once from her,—the child from the woman; yet could like a child have wept too, when she bent her head and sobbed. "Could anything be more beautiful?" ”

“ I have none of my blood, and I can expect no one else to love me. I do not care to be loved, even; but every one must grow to something. You know Clara? I see you do; you always felt for her as you could not help. No one could feel for her as she deserves. I wish I could die for Clara, and now I cannot die even for myself, for I feel, oh! I feel that to die is not to die,—that music made me feel it ”

“ No, Davy. I feel we can do more acting together than either separately, for the cause we love best and desire to serve. You know me well, and that, whatever I have learned in my life abroad, no taste is so dear to me as yours,—no judgment I should follow to the death so gladly. Besides all the rest, which is made up of a good deal more than one can say, I could never consent, as an instrumentalist, and as holding that instrument to be part of myself, to infect my style with whims and fashions which alone would render it generally acceptable. ”

“ But shall I hear it, Maria?" 152
"You will play for me, Carl,—and Florimond. Oh! I must not remember that. And the Chevalier, Carl,—he even entreated, the proud soul, the divinely missioned, entreated me to perpetuate the work. I can write now without fear; he has made me free. I feared myself before; now I only fear him."
"Maria, what of Anastase? Does he know, and what does he think?"
"Do not ask me, Carl, for I cannot tell you what he did. He was foolish, and so was I; but it was for joy on both our parts."
"You cried then! There is nothing to be ashamed of." ”

“ As they are, they can only be read where all things tell, where nothing that has happened shall be in vain, where mystery is eternal light. How strangely I recall the smothered sound, the long-repressed shout of rapture, that soared and pierced through the fallen and folded curtain,—the eminent oblivion of everything but him for whom it was uttered, or rather kept back. For the music bewitched them still, and they could no more realize their position in front, even among the garlanded tiers, than we behind, stumbling into regions of lampless chaos. ”

“ It is not in my power to describe my own sensations on my first introduction to Seraphael's orchestral definite creation. Enough to say that I felt all music besides, albeit precious, albeit inestimable, to have been but affecting the best and highest portion of myself, but as exciting to loftier aspirations my constant soul; but that his creation did indeed not only first affect me beyond all analysis of feeling, but cause upon me, and through me, a change to pass,—did first recreate, expurge of all earthly; and then inspire, surcharged with heavenly hope and holiest ecstasy. ”

“ She was placed before an immense easel to the right of a large-paned window, where the best London day streamed above the lower dimness. An immense sheet of canvas was turned away from us upon the easel; but in a moment she had placed it before us, and fell back in the same moment, a little from me.
Nor shall I ever forget that moment's issue. I forgot it was a picture, and all I could feel was a trance-like presence brought unto me in a day-dream of immutable satisfaction. On either side, the clouds, light golden and lucid crimson, passed into a central sphere of the perfect blue. ”

“ The shower ceased amidst the sunlight, but still the sunlight served to fling a more peculiar meaning upon the rain-drops,—an iris lustre beamed around her eyes. I can but recall that ineffable expression, the April playing over the oriental mould.
"I might have known you would have spoken so, Fräulein Cerinthia," I responded, at last roused to preternatural comprehension by her words; "but so few people think in that way about those things."
"You are right, and agree with me, or at least you will one day. But for that, all would be music here; we should have it all our own way." ”

“ All beauty is the gauge of immortality; and as I wondered at her utter loveliness, I became calm as immortality only permits and sanctions when on it our thoughts repose, for it our affections languish. Her arms still rested behind and before the strings as she tuned them; still her hair swept that cloud upon the softness of her cheek, toned the melancholy arch of her brow: but the deep rose-hues of her now drooping mantle, and the Italian azure of her robe, did not retrieve the fancy to any earthly apparition. ”

“ Fleeting from cheek to brow, the rosy lightnings, his very heart's flushes, were as the mantling of a sudden glory.
But of his restless and radiant eyes I could not bear the stressful brightness, it dimmed my sight; whether dazzled or dissolved, I know not. And yet,—will it be believed?—affectionate, earnest, and devoted as was the 70 demeanor of those about me, no countenance glistened except my own in that atmosphere of bliss. Perhaps I misjudge; but it appears to me that pure Genius is as unrecognizable in human form as was pure Divinity. ”

“ The next day the Chevalier came over to Cecilia, and slept that night in the village. The tremendous consequence of the next twenty-four hours might almost have erased, as a rolling sea, all identical remembrance; and, indeed, it has sufficed to leave behind it what is as but a picture once discerned, and then forever darkened,—the cool, early romance of the wreaths and garlands (for we all rose at dawn to decorate the entrance, the corridors, the hall, the reception-room) , the masses of May-bloom and lilies that arrived with the sun; the wild beauty overhanging everything ”

“ I perceived now the turn they were taking; so I said, "And do miracles in the name of music too, sir, can't they?—like Marc Iskar, who, I know, is not a true artist, for all that."
Anastase raised his brows. "True artists avoid personalities: that is the reason why we should use our hands instead of our tongues. Play a false artist down by the interpretation of true music; but never cavil, out of music, about what is false and true."
"Florimond, that is worthy to be your creed! You have mastery; we are only children." ”

“ Here, besides, there were plenty of persons weary with mediocre impressions, and the effect upon them was as the fresh sea-breeze to the weakling, or the sight of green fields after trackless deserts. I never, never can have enough,—is my feeling when that exalted music overbrims my heart; sensation is trebled; the soul sees double; it is as if, brooding on the waste of harmony, the spirit met its shadow, like the swan, and embraced it as itself. I do not know how the composition went, I was so lost in the author's brightness face to face ”

“ The luminous essence from the large white points seemed rained upon that forehead and upon the deep tints of the god-like locks; they turned all clear upon their orbed clusters, they melted into the radiant halo which flooded, yet as with a glory one could not penetrate, the impenetrable elevation of the lineaments.
I dared only gaze; had I spoken, I should have wept, and I would not disturb the image by my tears. I soon perceived how awfully the paintress had possessed herself of the inspiration, the melancholy, and the joy. The crown, indeed, was grounded upon rest, and of unbroken splendor ”

“ I sometimes think when women try to rise too high, either in their deeds or their desires, that the spirit which bade them so rise sinks back again beneath the weakness of their earthly constitution and never appeals again; or else that the spirit, being too strong, does away with the mortal altogether,—they die, or rather they live again."
"Do you ever talk in this strange manner to Anastase, Maria,—I mean, do you tell him you love him better than music?" ”

“ Auchester, I am not faithless; I love music more and more; it is the form of my religion; I dare to call it altogether holy,—I am sure, indeed, it must be so, or it would have been trodden long ago into nothing with the evil they have heaped over it to hide it, and the mistakes they have made about it. I act and I sing, because that is what I can do best; but my idea of music goes with yours, and therefore I am not excited as I should be, if I were filling up a place such as that which you fill ”