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Beside Still Waters, a fiction by Arthur C. Benson |
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Chapter 33. Music--Church Music--Musicians... |
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_ Chapter XXXIII. Music--Church Music--Musicians--The Organ--False Asceticism
And yet, if one analysed it, what a totally inexplicable pleasure it was. Part of it, the orderly and rhythmical beat of metre, such as comes from striking the fingers on the table, or tapping the foot upon the floor; how deep lay the instinct to bring into strict sequence, where it was possible, the mechanical movements of nature, the creaking of the boughs of trees, the drip of water from a fountain-lip, the beat of rolling wheels, the recurrent song of the thrush on the high tree; and then there came in the finer sense of intricate vibration. The lower notes of great organ-pipes had little indeed but a harsh roar, that throbbed in the leaded casements of the church; but climbing upwards they took shape in the delicate noises, the sounds and sweet airs of which Prospero's magic isle was full. And yet the rapture of it was inexpressible in words. Sometimes those airy flights of notes seemed to stimulate in some incomprehensible way the deepest emotions of the human spirit; not indeed the intellectual and moral emotions, but the primal and elemental desires and woes of the heart. Hugh could hardly say in what region of the soul this all took place. It seemed indeed the purest of all emotions, for the mind lost itself in a delight which hardly even seemed to be sensuous at all, because, in the case of other arts, one was conscious of pleasure, conscious of perception, of mingling identity with the thing seen or perceived; but in music one was rapt almost out of mortality, in a kind of bodiless joy. One of Hugh's causes of dissatisfaction with the education he had received was that, though he had a considerable musical gift, he had never been taught to play any musical instrument. Partly indolence and partly lack of opportunity had prevented him from attaining any measure of skill by his own exertions, though he had once worked a little, very fitfully, at the theory of music, and had obtained just enough knowledge of the composition of chords to give him an intelligent pleasure in disentangling the elements of simple progressions. Another trifling physical characteristic had prevented his hearing as much music as he would have wished. The presence of a crowd, the heat and glare of concert-rooms, the uncomfortable proximity of unsympathetic or possibly even loquacious persons, combined with a dislike of fixed engagements outside of the pressure of official hours of work, had kept him, very foolishly, from musical performances. Thus almost the only music with which he had a solid acquaintance was ecclesiastical music; he had been accustomed as a boy to frequent the cathedral services in the town where he was at school; and in London he constantly went on Sundays to St. Paul's or Westminster. It was no doubt the stately _mise-en-scene_ of these splendid buildings that affected Hugh as much even as the music itself, though the music was like the soul's voice speaking gently from beautiful lips. Hugh always, if he could, approached St. Paul's by a narrow lane among tall houses, that came out opposite the north transept. At a certain place the grey dome became visible, strangely foreshortened, like a bleak mountain-head, and then there appeared, framed by the house-fronts, the sculptured figure of the ancient lawgiver, with a gesture at once vehement and dignified, that crowned the top of the pediment. Then followed the hush of the mighty church, the dumb falling of many foot-falls upon the floor, the great space of the dome, in which the mist seemed to float, the liberal curves, the firm proportions of arch and pillar; the fallen daylight seemed to swim and filter down, stained with the tincture of dim hues; the sounds of the busy city came faintly there, a rich murmur of life; then the soft hum of the solemn bell was heard, in its vaulted cupola; and then the organ awoke, climbing from the depth of the bourdon; the movement of priestly figures, the sweet order of the scene, the sense of high solemnity, made a shrine for the holy spirit of beauty to utter its silvery voice. In Westminster it was different; the richer darkness, the soaring arches, the closer span, the incredible treasure of association and memory made it a more mysterious place, but the sound lacked the smothered remoteness that gave such a strange, repressed economy to the music of St. Paul's. At Westminster it was more cheerful, more tangible, more material. But the tranquillising, the inspiring effect upon the spirit was the same. Perhaps it was not technical religion of which Hugh was in search. But it was the religion which was as high above doctrine and creed and theology as the stars were above the clouds. The high and holy spirit inhabiting eternity seemed to emerge from the metaphysic, the science of religion, from argument and strife and dogma, as the moon wades, clear and cold, out of the rack of dusky vapours. Such a voice, as that gentle, tender, melancholy, and still joyful voice, that speaks in the 119th Psalm, telling of misunderstanding and persecution, and yet dwelling in a further region of peace, came speeding into the very labyrinth of Hugh's troubled heart. "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; O seek thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments." It was not inspiration, not a high-hearted energy, that music brought with it; it was rather a reconciliation of all that hurt or jarred the soul, an earnest of intended peace. But, after all, this was not music pure and simple; it was music set in a rich frame of both sensuous and spiritual emotions. Hugh realised that music had never played a large part in his life, but had been one of many artistic emotions that had spoken to him in divers manners. There was one fact about music which lessened its effect upon Hugh, and that was the fact that it seemed to depend more than other arts upon what one brought to it. In certain moods, particularly melancholy moods, when the spirit was fevered by dissatisfaction or sorrow, its appeal was irresistible; it came flying out of the silence, like an angel bearing a vial of fragrant blessings. It came flooding in, like the cool brine over scorched sands, smoothing, refreshing, purifying. There seemed something direct, authentic, and divine about the message of music in such moods; there seemed no interfusion of human personality to distract, because the medium was more pure. Sometimes, for weeks together at Cambridge, Hugh would go without hearing any music at all, until an almost physical thirst would fall upon him. In such an arid mood, he would find himself tyrannously affected by any chance fragment of music wafted past him; he would go to some cheerful party, where, after the meal was over, a piano would be opened, and a simple song sung or a short piece played. This would come like a draught of water to a weary traveller, bearing Hugh away out of his surroundings, away from gossip and lively talk, into a remote and sheltered place; it was like opening a casement from a familiar and lighted room, and leaning out over a dim land, where the sunset was slowly dying across the rim of the tired world. Hugh always found it easy to make friends with musicians. They generally seemed to him to be almost a race apart; their art seemed to withdraw them in a curious way from the world, and to absorb into itself the intellectual vigour which was as a rule, with ordinary men, distributed over a variety of interests. He knew some musicians who were men of wide cultivation, but they were very much the exception; as a rule, they seemed to Hugh to be a simple and almost childlike species, fond of laughter and elementary jests, with emotions rather superficial than deep, and not regarding life from the ordinary standpoint at all. The reason lay, Hugh believed, in the nature of the medium in which they worked; the writer and the artist were brought into direct contact with humanity; it was their business to interpret life, to investigate emotion; but the musician was engaged with an art that was almost mathematical in its purity and isolation; he worked under the strictest law, and though it required a severe and strong intellectual grip, it was not a process which had any connection with emotions or with life. But Hugh always felt himself to be inside the charmed circle, and though he knew but little of the art, musical talk always had a deep interest for him, and he seemed to divine and understand more than he could explain or express. But still it was true that music had played no part in his intellectual development; he had never approached it on that side; it had merely ministered to him at intervals a species of emotional stimulus; it had seemed to him to speak a language, dim and unintelligible, but the purport of which he interpreted to be somehow high and solemn. There seemed indeed to be nothing in the world that spoke in such mysterious terms of an august destiny awaiting the soul. The origin, the very elements of the joy of music were so absolutely inexplicable. There seemed to be no assignable cause for the fact that the mixture of rhythmical progress and natural vibration should have such a singular and magical power over the human soul, and affect it with such indescribable emotion. He had sometimes seen, half with amusement, half with a far deeper interest, the physical effect which the music of some itinerant piano-organ would produce upon street children; they seemed affected by some curious intoxication; their gestures, their smiles, their self-conscious glances, their dancing movements, so unnatural in a sense, and yet so instinctive, made the process appear almost magical in its effects. Though it did not affect him so personally, it seemed to have a similarly intoxicating effect on Hugh's own mind. Even if the particular piece that he was listening to had no appeal to his spirit, even if it were only a series of lively cascades of tripping notes, his thoughts, he found, took on an excited, an irrepressible tinge. But if on the other hand the time and the mood were favourable, if the piece were solemn or mournful, or of a melting sweetness, it seemed for a moment to bring a sense of true values into life, to make him feel, by a silent inspiration, the rightness and the perfection of the scheme of the world. One evening a friend of Hugh's, who was organist of one of the important college chapels, took him and a couple of friends into the building. It had been a breathlessly hot summer day, but the air inside had a coolness and a peace which revived the languid frame. It was nearly dark, but the great windows smouldered with deep fiery stains, and showed here and there a pale face, or the outline of a mysterious form, or an intricacy of twined tabernacle-work. Only a taper or two were lit in the shadowy choir; and a light in the organ-loft sent strange shadows, a waving hand or a gigantic arm, across the roof, while the quiet movements of the player were heard from time to time, the passage of his feet across the gallery, or the rustling of the leaves of a book. Hugh and his friends seated themselves in the stalls; and then for an hour the great organ uttered its voice--now a soft and delicate strain, a lonely flute or a languid reed outlining itself upon the movement of the accompaniment; or at intervals the symphony worked up to a triumphant outburst, the trumpets crashing upon the air, and a sudden thunder outrolling; the great pedals seeming to move, like men walking in darkness, treading warily and firmly; until the whole ended with a soft slow movement of perfect simplicity and tender sweetness, like the happy dying of a very old and honourable person, who has drunk his fill of life and blessings, and closes his eyes for very weariness and gladness, upon labour and praise alike. The only shadow of this beautiful hour was that in this rapt space of tranquil reflection one seemed to have harmonised and explained life, joy and disaster alike, to have wound up a clue, to have brought it all to a peaceful and perfect climax of silence, like a tale that is told; and then it was necessary to go out to the world again with all its bitterness, its weariness, its dissatisfaction--till one almost wondered whether it was wise or brave to have chased and captured this strange phantom of imagined peace. Yes, it was wise sometimes, Hugh felt sure! to have refused it would have been like refusing to drink from a cool and bubbling wayside spring, as one fared on a hot noon over the shimmering mountain-side--refused, in a spirit of false austerity, for fear that one would thirst again through the dreary leagues ahead. As long as one remembered that it was but an imagined peace, that one had not attained it, it was yet well to remember that the peace was real, that it existed somewhere, even though it was still shut within the heart of God. However slow the present progress, however long the road, it was possible to look forward in hope, to know that one would move more blithely and firmly when the time should come for the desired peace to be given one more abundantly; it helped one, as one stumbled and lingered, to look a little further on, and to say, "I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou hast set my heart at liberty." _ |
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