Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians — Johannes Brahms, Part 2

* * * * * Schumann's article, "New Paths," at once determined Brahms' career.

He must either live up to the mark that had been set for him--or else run away.

I give below an extract from Robert's estimate of Brahms and his work: Ten years have passed away, as many as I formerly devoted to the publication of this paper--since I have allowed myself to commit my opinions to this soil so rich in memories.

Often in spite of an overstrained productive activity, I have felt moved to do so; many new and remarkable talents have made their appearance, and a fresh musical power seemed about to reveal itself among the many aspiring artists of the day, even if their compositions were only known to the few.

I thought to follow with interest the pathways of these elect;

there would--there must--after such a promise, suddenly appear one who should utter the highest ideal expression of the times, who should claim the mastership by no gradual development, but burst upon us fully equipped, as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter.

And he has come, this chosen youth, over whose cradle the Graces and Heroes seem to have kept watch.

His name is Johannes Brahms; he comes from Hamburg, where he has been working in quiet obscurity, instructed by an excellent, enthusiastic teacher in the most difficult principles of his art, and lately introduced to me by an honored and well-known master.

His mere outward appearance assures us that he is one of the elect.

Seated at the piano, he disclosed wondrous regions.

We were drawn into an enchanted circle.

Then came a moment of inspiration which transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices.

There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies, songs whose poetry revealed itself without the aid of words, while throughout them all ran a vein of deep song-melody, several pieces of a half-demoniacal character, but of charming form; then sonatas for piano and violin, string quartets, and each of these creations so different from the last that they appeared to flow from so many different sources.

Then, like an impetuous torrent, he seemed to unite these streams into a foaming waterfall; over the tossing waves the rainbow presently stretches its peaceful arch, while on the banks butterflies flit to and fro, and the nightingale warbles her song.

Whenever he bends his magic wand towards great works, and the powers of orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, still more wonderful glimpses of the ideal world will be revealed to us.

May the Highest Genius help him onward!

Meanwhile another genius--that of modesty--seems to dwell within him.

His comrades greet him at his first step in the world, where wounds may, perhaps, await him, but the bay and the laurel also; we welcome this valiant warrior!

Robert Schumann had been before the public as essayist, poet, pianist and composer for twenty years.

He had given himself without stint to almost every musical enterprise of Germany, and his sympathy was ever on tap for every needy and aspiring genius.

You may give your purse--he who takes it takes trash--but to give your life's blood and then hope for a renewal of life's lease, is vain.

The public man owes to himself and to his Maker the duty of reserve.

The desert and mountain are very necessary to the individual who gives himself to the public.

That any man should so bestride the narrow world like a colossus that the multitude must stop to gaze, and thousands feed upon his words, is an abnormal condition.

The only thing that can hold the balance true is solitude.

Relaxation is the first requirement of strength.

Watch the cat, the tiger or the lion asleep.

See what complete absence of intensity--what perfect relaxation!

It is all a preparation for the spring.

Schumann had not sought the mountain, nor abandoned himself to the woods in old shoes, corduroys and a flannel shirt.

Now he was paying the penalty of publicity.

Virtue had gone out of him; and in the article just quoted, there are signs that he is clutching for something.

He hails this new star and proclaims him, because in some way he feels that the ruddy, valiant and youthful Brahms is to consummate his work.

Brahms is an extension of himself.

It is a part of that longing for immortality--we perpetuate ourselves in our children and look for them to accomplish what we have been unable to do.

Johannes Brahms was the spiritual son of Robert Schumann.

In less than a year after Brahms and Schumann first met, there were ominous signs and evil portents in the air.

"Why do you play so fast, dear Johannes?

I beg of you, be moderate!"

cried Robert on one occasion.

Brahms turned, and his quick glance caught the ashy face and bloodshot eyes of a sick man.

His reply was a tear and a hand-grasp.

Soon, to Schumann, all music was going at a gallop, and in his ears forever rang the sound of A. He could hear naught else.

Tenderness, patience, and even love were of no avail.

Indeed, love is not exempt from penalty--the law of compensation never rests.

Nature forever strives for a right adjustment.

The richness and intensity of Schumann's life were bought with a price.

The first year after his marriage he composed one hundred thirty-eight songs.

Sonatas, scherzos, symphonies and ballads followed fast, and in it all his gifted wife had gloried.

But when, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Robert had, after sleepless nights, in a fit of frenzy thrown himself into the Rhine, and had been rescued, shattered, unable to recognize even his nearest friends--the loyal and devoted wife saw where she herself had erred.

Writing to Brahms she says: "I encouraged him in his work, and this fired his ambition to do and to become.

Oh!

why did I not restrain that intensity and send him away into the solitude to be a boy; to do nothing but frolic and play and bathe in the sunshine, and eat and sleep?

The life of an artist is death.

Kill ambition, my Brother!"

Activity and rest--both are needed.

The idea of the "retreat" in the Catholic Church is founded on stern, hygienic science.

Wagner's forced exile was not without its advantages, and the "retreats" of Paganini and the "retirements" of Liszt were very useful factors in the devolution of their art.

* * * * * For the malady that beset Robert Schumann, there was no cure save death;

his only rest, the grave.

When his spirit passed away in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, his devoted wife and the loyal Brahms attended him.

Owing to the insidious creeping of the disease, Schumann's affairs had got into bad shape; and it was now left to Brahms, more than all others, to smooth the way of life for the stricken wife and her fatherless brood.

The versatility and sturdy commonsense of Brahms were now in evidence.

In business affairs he was ready, decisive and systematic.

And the delicacy, tact and charming good-nature he ever showed, reveal the man as a most extraordinary figure.

Great talent is often bought at a price--how well we know this, especially with musicians!

But Brahms was sane on all subjects.

He could take care of his own affairs, lend a needed hand with others, but never meddle--smile with that half-sardonic grimace at all foolish little things, weep with the stricken when calamity came; yet above it all the little man towered, carrying himself like the giant that he was.

And yet he never made the mistake of taking himself too seriously.

"I am trying to run opposition to Michelangelo's 'Moses,'" he once called to Dietrich, as he leaned out of the window in the sunshine, and stroked his flowing beard.

In his later years many have testified to this Jovelike quality that Brahms diffused by his presence.

No one could come into his aura and fail to feel his sense of power.

Around such souls is a sacred circle--if you are allowed to come within this boundary, it is only by sufferance; within this space only the pure in heart can dwell.

* * * * * Tolstoy in "Anna Karenina" speaks of that quiet and constant light to be seen on the faces of those who are successful--those who know that their success is acknowledged by the world.

Brahms was a successful man by temperament, for success (like East Aurora) is a condition of mind.

There is no tragedy for those who do not accept tragedy; and the treatment we receive from others is only our own reflected thought.

Brahms thought well of everybody, if he thought of any one at all.

He reveled in the sunshine, and everywhere made friends of children.

"We saw Brahms on the hotel veranda at Domodossola," wrote a young woman to me in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five, "and what do you think?

--he was on all fours, with three children on his back, riding him for a horse!"

For many years Brahms used to make an annual pilgrimage to Italy, and often on these tours at fairs he would fall in with Gipsy bands.

At such times he would always stop and listen, and would lustily applaud the performance.

On one such occasion, Dietrich tells, the leader recognized Brahms, and instantly rapped for silence.

He was seen to pass the whispered word along, and then the band struck up one of Brahms' pieces, greatly to the delight of the composer.

He was a man of the people, and I am glad to know that he hated a table d'hote, smiled a smile of derision at all dress-coats, had small sympathy with pink teas, loved his friends, doted on babies, and was never so happy as when in the country walking along grass-grown lanes in the early summer morning, when the dew was on and the air was melodious with the song of birds.

He had a habit of going bareheaded, carrying his hat in his hand; and on these country walks, always with bared head, he would sing or whistle, and unconsciously in his mind the music would be taking shape that was to be written out later in the quiet of his study.

Brahms knew the world--not simply one little part of it--he knew it as thoroughly as any man can, and was interested in it all.

He knew the world of workers--the toilers and bearers of burdens.

He knew the weak and the vicious, and his heart went out to them in sympathy; for he knew his own heart and realized the narrow margin that separates the so-called "good" from the alleged "bad."

He knew that sin is only a wrong expression of life, and reacts to the terrible disadvantage of the sinner.

He was interested in mechanics--bookbinding, printing, iron-working, carpentry, and was well acquainted with all new inventions and labor-saving devices.

He knew the methods of farming, the different breeds of cattle; he knew what soil would produce best a certain crop, and understood "rotation."

He could call the wild birds by name and imitate their notes, and studied long their haunts and habits.

That excellent man and talented, George Herschel, in a letter to a friend speaks of walking with Johannes Brahms along the highway, and Brahms suddenly calling in alarm, "Look out!

look out!

you may kill it!"

It was only a tumblebug, but he shrank from putting foot on any living thing.

Brahms reverenced all life, and felt in his heart that he was brother to that bug in the dust, to the birds that chirruped in the hedgerows, and to the trees that lifted their outstretching branches to the sun.

He was deeply religious--although he never knew it.

All music is a hymn of praise, a song of thanksgiving, a chant of faith.

Music is a making manifest to our dull ears the divine harmony of the universe, and thus all music is sacred music, and all true musicians are priests, for by their ministrations we are made to realize our Oneness with the Whole.

Through music we read the Universal.

Music is the only one of the arts that can not be prostituted to a base use.

We hear of bad books, of the "Index Expurgatorius," and in every State there are laws against the publication of immoral books and indecent pictures.

We also hear of orders issued by the courts requiring certain statues to be removed or veiled, but no indictment can be brought against music.

It is the only one of the arts that is always pure.

Brahms realized this and felt the dignity of his office, holding high the standard; and yet he knew that the toilers in the fields were doing a service to humanity, just as necessary as his own.

And possibly this is why he uncovered, walking with bared head.

All is holy, all is good--it is all God's world, and all the men and women in it are His children.

* * * * * For forty-two years Brahms was the devoted friend of Clara Schumann.

She was thirteen years his senior, yet their spirits were as children together.

From the first he was to her, "Johannes," and she was "Clara" to him.

A few of their letters have been published in the "Revue des deux Mondes," and this woman, who was a great-grandmother, and had sixty years before captured a world, then in her seventy-fifth year, wrote to her "Dear Johannes" with all the gentle fervor of a girl of twenty, congratulating him on some recent success.

In reply he writes back to his "Dear Clara" in gracious banter; mentions rheumatism in his legs as an excuse for bad penmanship; hopes she is keeping up her practise;

tells of a "Steinway Grand" that some one has sent him, and regrets that she does not come to try it "four hands," as he has failed utterly to get out of it alone the melody that he knows is there.

Brahms never married--the bond between himself and Clara was too sacred to allow another to sever or share it.

And yet the relationship was so high, so frank, so openly avowed, that no breath of scandal has ever smirched it.

The purity and excellence of it all has been its own apology, as love ever should be its own excuse for being.

For about three months every year these two friends dwelt near each other.

Together they worked, composed, sang, read, wrote and roamed the woods.

"None of Madame Schumann's children is as young as she is," wrote Doctor Hanslick, when Clara was sixty and Johannes was forty-seven.

"With the hope of passing for her father, Brahms is cultivating a patriarchal beard," continues Hanslick.

In his essay on "Friendship," Emerson speaks of the folly of forcing our personal presence on the friend we love best, and of the faith that ideality brings.

Something of this thought is shown in the letters of Madame Schumann to Brahms, and in his to her.

Often for six months they would not meet, he doing his work in his own way, she doing hers, but each ever conscious of the life and love of the other--feeding on the ideal--writing or not writing, but glorying in each other's triumphs--lives linked first by the love of a third person, cemented by dire calamity, and then fused by a oneness of hope and aspiration.

Brahms' nature was too decidedly masculine, that is to say, one-sided, to exist without the love of woman; Clara Schumann, gentle, generous, motherly, plastic, needed Johannes no less than he needed her.

When Clara's spirit passed away, in May, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-six, Brahms attended her funeral at Frankfort.

Hero that he was in body and spirit, the shock unnerved him.

No rebound came--every bodily faculty seemed to have lost its buoyancy.

The doctors tried to cheer him by telling him that he had no organic ailment, and that twenty years of life and work were before him.

He knew better, and told them so.

Men do not live any longer than they wish to.

"Shall I live to see the anniversary of her death?"

asked Brahms of the doctor in March, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven.

"Oh, undoubtedly--you can live many years if you only will to," was the answer.

Three weeks later--on April Third--Max Kalbrech telegraphed to Widmann, this message, "Brahms fell asleep early this morning."

SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT MUSICIANS," BEING VOLUME FOURTEEN OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS, AND PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: The index covers the complete set of "Little | |Journeys" books.

| +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX

(_Compiled for Wm.

H.

Wise & Co. , by John T. Hoyle, Managing Editor "The Fra" Magazine.

_) Abbey, Edwin A. , birth of, vi, 305;

evolution of the art of, vi, 312;

work of, in the Boston Public Library, vi, 323;

studio of, vi, 322;

George W. Childs and, vi, 309;

Henry James on, vi, 311. Abbotsford, home of Sir Walter Scott, iv, 321. Abbott, John S. C.

, iii, 7;

his life of Napoleon, vi, 129. Abbott, Lyman, on H. W.

Beecher, vii, 378. Abildgaard, the painter, Thorwaldsen and, vi, 105. Ability, a bucolic estimate of, viii, 173. Abnegation, v, 243. Abolition, v, 205;

in New England, vii, 408. Abraham, x, 19. _Abraham_, Rembrandt's, iv, 63. Abstinence, v, 248. _Account of the English Poets_, Addison, v, 246. Achievement, the price of, v, 135. Acton, Lord, i, 60. _Adam Bede_, Eliot, i, 59; v, 148. Adams, Brooks, _The Law of Civilization and Decay_, xii, 89. Adams, John, iii, 79, 251, 239;

quoted, iii, 89. Adams, John Quincy, mother of, iii, 143;

marriage of, iii, 145;

president, iii, 146;

member of Congress, iii, 146;

death of, iii, 146;

on business, ix, 131;

on Thomas Paine, ix, 158. Adams, Maude, i, p xxvii; xii, 169. Adams, Samuel, letter of, to Arthur Lee, iii, 78;

politics of, iii, 80;

part of, in the Boston uprising, iii, 81;

member of the Calkers' Club, iii, 85;

as a member of the Congress of the Colonies, iii, 91;

characteristics of, iii, 94;

place in history of, iii, 95, 251;

typical Puritan, iii, 232;

quoted, iii, 240. Adams, Sarah Flower, v, 48. Addison, Joseph, iii, 60;

birthplace of, v, 239;

the perfect English gentleman, v, 239;

education of, v, 244;

travels of, v, 247;

under-secretary of State, v, 252;

Parliamentary experience of, v, 252;

meeting of, with Steele, v, 254;

his connection with the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_, v, 254;

referred to, v, 294;

on Plato, x, 121. Adirondack Murray, vii, 375. Adler, Felix, ix, 282;

preaching of, vii, 310. Adolescence, Dr. Charcot on, xii, 23. _Adoration of the Magi_, Botticelli, vi, 70. Adversity, uses of, i, 110. Æschines, disciple of Socrates, viii, 29. Æschylus, ii, 28. _Æsthetic England_, Walter Hamilton, xiii, 272. Affectation, v, 238. _Africa_, Petrarch, xiii, 239. Agassiz, Louis, xi, 419; xii, 407;

Darwinism and, xii, 230;

Thoreau and, viii, 417;

compared with Disraeli, v, 338. Age, of enlightenment, viii, 271;

of Herbert Spencer, viii, 354;

of Michelangelo, iv, 6;

of Rembrandt, iv, 78. _Age of Reason, The_, Thomas Paine, ix, 157, 160, 179. Agitators, personality of, vii, 409. Agnosticism, x, 342. Agnostic School, the, xii, 327. Agriculture, Humboldt on, xii, 140. _Aida_, Verdi, xiv, 294. _Aids to Reflection_, Coleridge, v, 313. Alameda smile, the, viii, 365. Alaska, population of, iv, 128. Albert memorial, i, 314. Alcibiades, Socrates and, viii, 29;

Nero compared with, viii, 71. Alcott, Bronson, viii, 403;

Emerson and, viii, 405; xi, 392;

Socrates compared with, viii, 27. Alcott, Louisa, on the death of Thoreau, viii, 428. Alden, John, iii, 135. Alden, John B. , i, p xxxv.

Alderney, island of, i, 195. Aldus, on the Bellinis, vi, 253. Alexander the Great, iii, 119; iv, 160;

Aristotle and, viii, 93;

Diogenes and, viii, 96. Alexander VI, Pope, vi, 43. Ali Baba, i, p xv; ii, p x; vii, 189. Allegri, Antonio, of Correggio, vi, 232. Allen, Grant, educator, iv, 288;

quoted, viii, 18;

on sparrows, viii, 400. _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_, Besant, i, 262. Allston, American artist, iv, 318. _Almagest, The_, Ptolemy, xii, 99. Alma-Tadema, painter, vi, 14. _Almighty, The_, Rembrandt, iv, 63. Almsgiving, xi, 15. Alsatia, reference to, iii, 281. Alschuler, Sam, ix, 283. Altgeld, John P. , x, 65, 111;

as an orator, vii, 22. Altruistic injury, law of, xi, 390. Amazons, the, iv, 9. Ambition, iii, 260; iv, 46. Ambrosian Library, Milan, vi, 52. Ambrosius, Bishop Georgius, iii, 101. _Amelia_, Fielding, iv, 302. America, art in, iv, 282;

Ary Scheffer's interest in, iv, 235;

Blue Book of, i, p vi;

famous paintings in, iv, 142;

freedom in, vi, 146;

Richard Cobden on, ix, 142;

the greatest need of, vii, 38. American institutions, Bruce on, iii, 75. American natural oil, xi, 371. American Revolution, Sons of, iii, 95. American travelers in Ireland, i, 155. American Undertakers' Association, i, 230. _Americanization of the World, The_, W. T.

Stead, vi, 341. _American Note-Book_, Dickens, viii, 297. Americans in England, ii, 95. Amiel's Journal, vi, 273. Anabasis, Xenophon, iii, 119. Ananias and Sapphira referred to, ii, 217. _Anatomy Lesson, The_, Rembrandt, iv, 59. Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher, xii, 98, 369;

pupil of Pythagoras, x, 71;

teacher of Pericles, vii, 17;

work of, i, 343. Anaximander, Greek philosopher, xii, 368. Ancestor worship, x, 19, 59. _Ancient Mariner, The_, Coleridge, v, 305. Andersen, Hans Christian, on Thorwaldsen, vi, 93. Anderson, Mary, vi, 321. _Anecdotes of Painting_, Walpole, iv, 101. _Angelus, The_, Millet, iv, 281; vi, 215. Anglican church, Voltaire on the, viii, 297. Animality, vi, 71. _Animal Kingdom, The_, Swedenborg, viii, 194. Animal magnetism, x, 342. _Annabel Lee_, Edgar Allan Poe, xiii, 256. _Anna Karenina_, Tolstoy, xiv, 351. _Ansidei_, Raphael, vi, 29. Anthony, Susan B. , ii, 52;

Dr. Buckley's opinion of, i, 135. Anti-Corn-Law League, the, ix, 147, 236. Anti-Masonic party, iii, 266. Antisthenes, the Cynic, friend of Socrates, viii, 28. Antoninus, Roman emperor, character of, viii, 120. Antony, Mark, Cleopatra and, vii, 63;

Cæsar and, vii, 54;

oration of, vii, 59;

death of, vii, 76. Antwerp, Spanish influence in, iv, 81;

Venice compared with, xiv, 224. A.

P.

A.

, the, iii, 265. Apollo referred to, i, 279. Apostle of negation, the American, v, 27. Apostle of the ugly, Beardsley, vi, 31. Apostolic succession, i, 114; v, 289. Appleton, Daniel, American publisher, ix, 58. Appreciation, vi, 238. Approbation, xiv, 81. Aquarellists, the, vi, 320. Archbold, John D. , xi, 379. Architecture, Middle Ages in, v, 14. Ariosto, Ludovico, sonnet to Gian Bellini, vi, 254. Aristides the Just, iii, 244;

friend of Socrates, viii, 28. Aristocracy, iv, 242. Aristophanes, i, 342;

on the Pythagorean philosophy, x, 73;

on Cheropho, viii, 27;

quoted, vii, 32;

of heaven, Heine's estimate of, i, 147. Aristotle, xii, 99, 224, 370;

quoted, viii, 93;

the world's first naturalist, i, 341;

on happiness, viii, 82;

Leonardo compared with, viii, 91;

influence of, viii, 109;

Kant compared with, viii, 154;

Alexander the Great and, viii, 93;

the Stagirite, viii, 86;

Plato and, viii, 88; x, 114;

the world's first scientist, xii, 265;

John Ray on, xii, 275;

Moses compared with, x, 13;

on science, xi, 386. Armour, Philip D. , father of the packing-house industry, xi, 178;

boyhood of, xi, 167;

epigrams of, xi, 183;

David Swing and, xi, 186;

Joseph Leiter and, xi, 200;

Nelson Morris and, xi, 189;

Robert Collyer and, xi, 185;

in California, xi, 174;

business ideals of, xi, 199. Armstrong, Gen. Samuel C. , founder of Hampton Institute, x, 198. Arnold, Matthew, quoted, v, 148; viii, 267;

Frederic Chopin and, xiv, 103;

Tennyson and, v, 80;

in America, x, 220;

home of, i, 218. Arnold of Brescia, x, 223. Arnold, Sir Edwin, as a lecturer, vii, 377. Arnold, Thomas, a teacher of teachers, x, 222;

education of, x, 226;

as head master of Rugby, x, 231;

Judge Lindsey compared with, x, 241;

parents of, x, 225;

the genius of, x, 234;

Thomas Jefferson compared with, x, 241. Arouet, Francois Marie, birthname of Voltaire, viii, 275. Arrested development, v, 72; vi, 175. Art, iv, 135; v, 183, 215;

definition of, i, p xl; vi, 17;

Venetian school of, vi, 255;

Wagner on, xiv, 22;

laws of, viii, 99;

for art's sake, i, 281;

roguery in, i, 241;

of the ugly, vi, 73;

of mentation, Spencer, viii, 355;

Wagner's essay on, iv, 260;

controlled by fad and fashion, iv, 220;

the Bible in, iv, 58;

the mintage of the soul, vi, 156;

evolution and, iv, 159;

the seven immortals of, vi, 244;

in the Middle Ages, vi, 17;

patriotism and, vi, 321;

sublimity and, x, 38. Artist, the, described, i, 132;

illustrator and, difference between, iv, 329;

Whistler on the, vi, 353;

personality of the true, vi, 178. Artistic conscience, the, iv, 133; vi, 177; x, 363. Artistic jealousy, vi, 176, 275. Artistic roustabouts, vi, 300. Artists, two classes of, iv, 49;

as teachers, iv, 53. Asbury, Francis, Methodist missionary, ix, 50. Asceticism, v, 105, 124, 235;

sensuality and, vi, 91. Aspasia, wife of Pericles, vii, 26;

Socrates and, vii, 32; viii, 20. Asser, father of English history, x, 139. _Assumption, The_, Titian, iv, 151, 167. Astor, John Jacob, boyhood of, xi, 205;

as a fur-trader, xi, 211;

prophecies of, xi, 213;

marriage of, xi, 214;

Thomas Jefferson and, xi, 221;

Fitz-Greene Halleck and, xi, 227. Astoria, history of, xi, 221. Astrology as a profession, xii, 184;

astronomy and, xii, 97;

Dean Swift's ridicule of, i, 149. Astronomy, Chinese, xii, 97;

the study of, xii, 176. Astuteness, John Fiske on, viii, 250. _As You Like It_, Shakespeare, v, 119. Atavism, vi, 97. Athens, i, 321; iv, 13;

climate of, viii, 28;

decline of, iii, 232. Atterbury, Bishop, reference to, i, 124. Attila, i, 238. Auburn, village of, i, 283. Audubon, the naturalist, v, 133. Augustus, age of, ix, 94;

the boast of, viii, 48. Austen, Jane, novels of, ii, 247;

family of, ii, 243;

home of, ii, 249;

friends of, ii, 254;

characters of, ii, 253;

referred to, v, 294. Austin, Hon. James T. , attorney-general of Massachusetts, vii, 407. Australia, animals of, xii, 388. Authors, favorite, vi, 244;

troubles of, v, 308. Autobiography, xiii, 313. _Autobiography_, J. S.

Mill, xiii, 153. Avon, the river, i, 301. Aztecs, the, vi, 70. Babel, tower of, iv, 115. Bacchus, Michelangelo's statue of, iv, 19. Bachelors, classification of, viii, 290;

two kinds of, xi, 325. Bach, Johann Sebastian, xiv, 137;

home life of, xiv, 155;

Michelangelo compared with, xiv, 137. Bacon, Lord, referred to, iii, 37;

Shakespeare and, vi, 47. Baedeker's description of Stratford, i, 312;

description of London, ii, 118. Baer, Karl von, xii, 371. _Ballad of Boullabaisse_, Thackeray, i, 241. Ball family, the, xi, 404. Ballou, Hosea, and Thomas Paine compared, ix, 184. Balmoral, home of Queen Victoria, iv, 324. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, formation of, xi, 247. Balzac and Madame De Berney, xiii, 282;

Napoleon and, xiii, 279;

on literary reputation, xiii, 209;

Victor Hugo on, xiii, 308;

_Contes Drolatiques_, iv, 338. Banbury Cross, i, 301. Bancroft, historian, quoted, iii, 48. Bandello and Leonardo, vi, 50. Baptists, Hook-and-Eye, v, 236. Barbarelli, Giorgio, vi, 258. Barbary pirates, the, iv, 295. Barbecue defined, vii, 247. Barbers' university, a, iii, 237. Barbizon, hills of, iv, 339;

school, the, vi, 189;

village of, iv, 278. Barnabee, Henry Clay, i, p xxvii.

Barnum and Bailey Circus, iii, 194. Barnum of Science, the, i, 163. Barnum of Theology, the, i, 163. Barnum, Phineas T. , iv, 344; xii, 383; xiv, 90, 319. Barons, age of the, xi, 306. Barrett, Elizabeth, ii, 239; v, 58. Barrie, James, xiii, 11;