Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians — Wolfgang Mozart, Part 1

WOLFGANG MOZART

Apology: The Mozart "Little Journey" was written, and as over a month had been taken to do the task, the result was something of which I was justly proud.

It was quite unlike anything ever before written.

The printers were ready to take the work in hand, but I begged them to allow me two more days for careful revision; and as I was just starting away to give a lecture at Janesville, Wisconsin, I took the manuscript with me, intending to do the final work of revision on the train.

All went well on the journey, the lecture had been given with no special tokens of disapproval on part of the audience, and I was on board the early morning train that leaves for Chicago.

And as my mind is usually fairly clear in the early hours, I began work retouching the good manuscript.

We were nearing Beloit when I bethought me to go into the Buffet-Car for a moment.

When I returned the manuscript was not to be seen.

I looked in various seats, and under the seats, asked my neighbors, inquired of the brakeman, and then hunted up the porter and asked him if he had seen my manuscript.

He did not at first understand what I meant by the term "manuscript," but finally inquired if I referred to a pile of dirty, dog-eared sheets of paper, all marked up and down and over and crisscross, ev'ry-which-way.

I assured him that he understood the case.

He then informed me that he had "chucked the stuff," that is to say, he had tossed it out of the window, as he was cleaning up his car, just as he always did before reaching Chicago.

I made a frantic reach for the bell-cord, but was restrained.

A

sympathetic passenger came forward and explained that five miles back he had seen the sheets of my precious manuscript sailing across the prairie.

We were going at the rate of a mile a minute and the wind was blowing fiercely, so there was really no need of backing up the train to regain the lost goods.

"I hope dem scribbled papers was no 'count, boss!"

said the porter humbly, as I stood sort of dazed, gazing into vacancy.

I shook myself into partial sanity.

"Oh, they were of no value--I was looking for them so as to throw them out of the window myself," I answered.

"Brush?"

said he.

"Yes," said I. I placed the expected quarter in his dusky palm, still pondering on what I should do.

To reproduce the matter was impossible, for I have no verbal memory--something must be written, though.

I decided to leave Chicago in an hour by the Lake Shore Railroad, and have the copy ready for the Roycroft boys when I reached home.

This I did, and as I had no reference-books, maps or memoranda to guide me, the matter seems to lack synthesis.

I say seems to lack--but it really doesn't, for the facts will all be found to be as stated.

Still the form may be said to be slightly colored by the environment, so some explanation is in order--hence this apology to the Gentle Reader.

And further, if the Reader should find in these pages that, at rare intervals, I use the personal pronoun, he must bear in mind that I live in the country, and that it is the privilege and right, established by long precedent and custom of country folk, to talk about themselves and their own affairs if they are so minded.

* * * * * Chicago: Talent is usually purchased at a high price, and if the gods give you a generous supply of this, they probably will be niggardly when it comes to that.

But one thing the artist is usually long on, and that is whim.

Let us all pray to be delivered from whim--it is the poisoner of our joys, the corrupter of our peace, and Dead-Sea fruit for all those about us.

Heaven deliver us from whim!

I am told by a famous impresario, who gained some valuable experience by marrying a prima donna, and therefore should know, that whim is purely a feminine attribute.

This, though, is surely a mistake, for there have lived men, as well as women, who had such an exaggerated sense of their own worth, that they lost sight, entirely, of the rights and feelings of everybody else.

All through life they kept the stage waiting without punctilio.

These men thought dogs were made to kick, servants to rail at, the public to be first crawled to and then damned, and all rivals to be pooh-poohed, cursed or feared, as the mood might prompt.

Further than this they considered all landlords robbers, every railroad-manager a rogue, and businessmen they bunched as greedy, grasping Shylocks.

They always used the word "commercial" as an epithet.

Devotees of the histrionic art can lay just claim to having more than their share of whim, but the musical profession has no reason to be abashed, for it is a good second.

However, the actor's and the musician's art are often not far separated.

In speaking to James McNeil Whistler of a certain versatile musician, a lady once said, "I believe he also acts!"

"Madame, he does nothing else," replied Mr. Whistler.

Art is not a thing separate and apart--art is only the beautiful way of doing things.

And is it not most absurd to think, because a man has the faculty of doing a thing well, that on this account he should assume airs and declare himself exempt along the line of morals and manners?

The expression "artistic temperament" is often an apologetic term, like "literary sensitiveness," which means that the man has stuck to one task so long that he is unable to meet his brother men on a respectful equality.

The artist is the voluptuary of labor, and his fantastic tricks often seem to be only Nature's way of equalizing matters, and showing the world that he is very common clay, after all.

To be modest and gentle and kind, as we all can be, is just as much to God as to be learned and talented, and yet be a cad.

Still, instances of great talent and becoming modesty are sometimes found; and in no great musician was the balance of virtues held more gracefully than with Mozart.

He had humor.

Ah!

that is it--he knew values--had a sense of proportion, and realized that there is a time to laugh.

And a good time to laugh is when you see a mighty bundle of pretense and affectation coming down the street.

Dignity is the mask behind which we hide our ignorance; and our forced dignity is what makes the imps of comedy, who sit aloft in the sky, hold their sides in merriment when they behold us demanding obeisance because we have fallen heir to tuppence worth of talent.

* * * * * Laporte: Mozart had a sense of humor.

He knew a big thing from a little one.

When yet a child the tendency to comedy was strong upon him.

When nine years of age he once played at a private musicale where the Empress, Maria Theresa, was present.

The lad even then was a consummate violinist.

He had just played a piece that contained such a tender, mournful, minor strain that several of the ladies were in tears.

The boy seeing this, relentingly dashed off into a "barnyard symphony," where donkeys brayed, hens cackled, pigs squealed and cows mooed, all ending with a terrific cat-fight on a wood-shed roof.

This done, the boy threw his violin down, ran across the room, climbed into the lap of the Empress and throwing his arms around the neck of the good lady, kissed her a resounding smack first on one cheek, then on the other.

It was all very much like that performance of Liszt, who one day, when he was playing the piano, suddenly shouted, "Pitch everything out of the windows!"

and then proceeded to do it--on the keyboard, of course.

On the same visit to the palace, when Mozart saluted Maria Theresa in his playful way, he had the misfortune to slip and fall on the waxed floor.

Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, just budding into womanhood, ran and picked him up and rubbed his knee where it was hurt.

"You are a dear, good lady," said the boy in gratitude, "and when I grow up I am going to marry you."

Liszt never made any such promise as that.

Liszt never offered to marry anybody.

But it is too bad that Marie Antoinette did not hold the lad to his promise.

It would have probably proved a valuable factor for her in the line of longevity; and her husband's circumstances would have saved her from making that silly inquiry as to why poor people don't eat cake when they run short of bread.

These moods of merriment continued with Mozart, as they did with Liszt, all his life--not always manifesting themselves, though, in the way just described.

As a companion I would choose Mozart--generous, unaffected, kind--rather than any other musician who ever played, danced, sang or composed--excepting, well, say Brahms.

* * * * * South Bend: We take an interest in the lives of others because we always, when we think of another, imagine our relationship to him.

"Had I met Shakespeare on the stairs I would have fainted dead away," said Thackeray.

Another reason why we are interested in biography is because, to a degree, it is a repetition of our own life.

There are certain things that happen to every one, and others we think might have happened to us, and may yet.

So as we read, we unconsciously slip into the life of the other man and confuse our identity with his.

To put yourself in his place is the only way to understand and appreciate him.

It is imagination that gives us this faculty of transmigration of souls; and to have imagination is to be universal; not to have it is to be provincial.

Let me see--wouldn't you rather be a citizen of the Universe than a citizen of Peoria, Illinois, which modest town the actors always speak of as being one of the provinces?

As I read biography I always keep thinking what I would have done in certain described circumstances, and so not only am I living the other man's life, but I am comparing my nature with his.

Everything is comparative; that is the only way we realize anything--by comparing it with something else.

As you read of the great man he seems very near to you.

You reach out across the years and touch hands with him, and with him you hope, suffer, strive and enjoy: your existence is all blurred and fused with his.

And through this oneness you come to know and comprehend a character that has once existed, very much better than the people did who lived in his day and were blind to his true worth by being ensnared in cliques that were in competition with him.

* * * * * Elkhart: I intimated a few pages back that I would have liked to have Mozart for a friend and companion.

Mozart needed me no less than I need him.

"Genius needs a keeper," once said I. Zangwill, probably with himself in mind.

We all need friends--and to be your brother's keeper is very excellent if you do not cease being his friend.

And poor Mozart did so need a friend who could stand between him and the rapacious wolf that scratched and sniffed at his door as long as he lived.

I do not know why the wolf sniffed, for Mozart really never had anything worth carrying away.

He was so generous that his purse was always open, and so full of unmixed pity that the beggars passed his name along and made cabalistic marks on his gateposts.

Every seedy, needy, thirsty and ill-appreciated musician in Germany regarded him as lawful prey.

They used to say to Mozart, "I can not beg and to dig I am ashamed--so grant me a small loan, I pray thee."

Yes, Mozart needed me to plan his tours and market his wares.

I'm no genius, and although they say I was an infant terrible, I never was an infant prodigy.

At the tender age of six, Mozart was giving concerts and astonishing Europe with his subtle skill.

At a like age I could catch a horse with a nubbin, climb his back, and without a saddle or bridle drive him wherever I listed by the judicious use of a tattered hat.

Of course I took pains to mount only a horse that had arrived at years of discretion, matronly brood-mares or run-down plow-horses; but this is only proof of my practical turn of mind.

Mozart never learned how to control either horse or man by means of a tattered hat or diplomacy: music was his hobby, and it was long years after his death before the world discovered that his hobby was no hobby at all, but a genuine automobile that carried him miles and miles, clear beyond all his competitors: so far ahead that he was really out of shouting distance.

Indeed, Mozart took such an early start in life and drove his machinery so steadily, not to say so furiously, that at thirty-five all the bearings grew hot for lack of rebabbitting, and the vehicle went the way of the one-horse shay--all at once and nothing first, just as bubbles do when they burst.

At the age which Mozart died I had seen all I wanted to of business life, in fact I had made a fortune, being the only man in America who had all the money he wanted, and so just turned about and went to college.

This I firmly hold is a better way than to be sent to college and then go into trade later and forget all you ever learned at school.

I had rather go to college than be sent.

Every man should get rich, that he might know the worthlessness of riches; and every man should have a college education, just to realize how little the thing is worth.

Yes, Mozart needed a good friend whose abilities could have rounded out and made good his deficiencies.

Most certainly I could not do the things that he did, but I should have been his helper, and might, too, had not a century, one wide ocean, and a foreign language separated us.

* * * * * Waterloo: Friendship is better than love for a steady diet.

Suspicion, jealousy, prejudice and strife follow in the wake of love; and disgrace, murder and suicide lurk just around the corner from where love coos.

Love is a matter of propinquity; it makes demands, asks for proofs, requires a token.

But friendship seeks no ownership--it only hopes to serve, and it grows by giving.

Do not say, please, that this applies also to love.

Love bestows only that it may receive, and a one-sided passion turns to hate in a night, and then demands vengeance as its right and portion.

Friendship asks no rash promises, demands no foolish vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when needed.

It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to every venture.

Through our friends we are made brothers to all who live.

I think I would rather have had Mozart for a friend than to love and be loved by the greatest prima donna who ever warbled in high C. Friendship is better than love.

Friendship means calm, sweet sleep, clear brain and a strong hold on sanity.

Love I am told is only friendship, plus something else.

But that something else is a great disturber of the peace, not to say digestion.

It sometimes racks the brain until the world reels.

Love is such a tax on the emotions that this way madness lies.

Friendship never yet led to suicide.