There came over her face an expression which I never saw before; one of peace ineffable--the peace that pa.s.seth understanding. Ah me! I seemed to draw her to myself. For she rose and walked toward me. And a great calm came over my own soul. My Cremona spoke of peace--soft, sweet, and deep; the profound peace that dwelleth in the soul which has its hope in fruition. The tone widened into sweet modulation--sweet beyond all expression.
She was so close that she almost touched me. Her eyes were still fixed on mine. Tears were there, but not tears of sorrow. Her face was so close to mine that my strength left me. My arms dropped downward. The music was over.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "I DID NOT MAKE ANY REPLY, BUT TOOK MY CREMONA, AND SOUGHT TO LIFT UP ALL MY SOUL TO A LEVEL WITH HERS."]
She held out her hand to me. I caught it in both of mine, and wet it with my tears.
"Paolo," said she, in a voice of musical tone; "Paolo, you are already one of us. You speak our language.
"You have taught me something which flows from love--duty. Yes, we will labor together; and they who live on high will learn even in their radiant home to envy us poor mortals."
I said not a word, but knelt; and holding her hand still, I looked up at her in grateful adoration.
November 28.--For the last three months I have lived in heaven. She is changed. Music has reconciled her to exile. She has found one who speaks, though weakly, the language of that home.
We hold together through this divine medium a lofty spirited intercourse. I learn from her of that starry world in which for a brief time she was permitted to dwell. Her seraphic thoughts have become communicated to me. I have made them my own, and all my spirit has risen to a higher alt.i.tude.
So I have at last received that revelation for which I longed, and the divine thoughts with which she has inspired me I will make known to the world. How? Description is inadequate, but it is enough to say that I have decided upon an Opera as the best mode of making known these ideas.
I have reported to one of those cla.s.sical themes which, though as old as civilization, are yet ever new, because they are truth.
My Opera is on the theme of Prometheus. It refers to Prometheus Delivered. My idea is derived from her. Prometheus represents Divine Love--since he is the G.o.d who suffers unendurable agonies through his love for man. Zeus represents the old austere G.o.d of the sects and creeds--the gloomy G.o.d of Vengeance--the stern--the inexorable--the cruel.
Love endures through the ages, but at last triumphs. The chief agent in his triumph is Athene. She represents Wisdom, which, by its life and increase, at last dethrones the G.o.d of Vengeance and enthrones the G.o.d of Love.
For so the world goes on; and thus it shall be that Human Understanding, which I have personified under Athene, will at last exalt Divine Love over all, and cast aside its olden adoration of Divine Vengeance.
I am trying to give to my Opera the severe simplicity of the cla.s.sical form, yet at the same time to pervade it all with the warm atmosphere of love in its widest sense. It opens with a chorus of seraphim. Prometheus laments; but the chief part is that of Athene. On that I have exhausted myself.
But where can I get a voice that can adequately render my thoughts--_our_ thoughts? Where is Bice? She alone has this voice; she alone has the power of catching and absorbing into her own mind the ideas which I form; and with it all, she alone could express them.
I would wander over the earth to find her. But perhaps she is in a luxurious home, where her a.s.sociates would not listen to such a proposal.
Patience! perhaps Bice may at last bring her marvelous voice to my aid.
December 15.--Every day our communion has grown more exalted. She breathes upon me the atmosphere of that radiant world, and fills my soul with rapture. I live in a sublime enthusiasm. We hold intercourse by means of music. We stand upon a higher plane than that of common men. She has raised me there, and has made me to be a partaker in her thoughts.
Now I begin to understand something of the radiant world to which she was once for a brief time borne. I know her lost joys; I share in her longings. In me, as in her, there is a deep, unquenchable thirst after those glories that are present there. All here seems poor and mean. No material pleasure can for a moment allure.
I live in a frenzy. My soul is on fire. Music is my sole thought and utterance. Colonel Despard thinks that I am mad. My friends here pity me. I smile within myself when I think of pity being given by them to me. Kindly souls! could they but have one faint idea of the unspeakable joys to which I have attained!
My Cremona is my voice. It expresses all things for me. Ah, sweet companion of my soul"s flight! my Guide, my Guardian Angel, my Inspirer!
had ever before two mortals while on earth a lot like ours? Who else besides us in this life ever learned the joys of pure spiritual communion? We rise on high together. Our souls are borne up in company.
When we hold commune we cease to be mortals.
My Opera is finished. The radiancy of that Divine Love which has inundated all the being of Edith has been imparted to me in some measure sufficient to enable me to breathe forth to human ears tones which have been caught from immortal voices. She has given me ideas. I have made them audible and intelligible to men.
I have had one performance of my work, or rather our work, for it is all hers. Hers are the thoughts, mine is only the expression.
I sought out a place of solitude in which I might perform undisturbed and without interruption the theme which I have tried to unfold.
Opposite my house is a wild, rocky sh.o.r.e covered with the primeval woods. Here in one place there rises a barren rock, perfectly bare of verdure, which is called Mount Misery. I chose his place as the spot where I might give my rehearsal.
She was the audience--I was the orchestra--we two were alone.
Mount Misery is one barren rock without a blade of gra.s.s on all its dark iron-like surface. Around it is a vast acc.u.mulation of granite boulders and vast rocky ledges. The trees are stunted, the very ferns can scarcely find a place to grow.
It was night. There was not a cloud in the sky. The moon shone with marvelous l.u.s.tre.
Down in front of us lay the long arm of the sea that ran up between us and the city. On the opposite side were woods, and beyond them rose the citadel, on the other side of which the city lay nestling at its base like those Rhenish towns which lie at the foot of feudal castles.
On the left hand all was a wilderness; on the right, close by, was a small lake, which seemed like a sheet of silver in the moon"s rays.
Farther on lay the ocean, stretching in its boundless extent away to the horizon. There lay islands and sand-banks with light-houses.
There, under the moon, lay a broad path of golden light--molten gold--unruffled--undisturbed in that dead calm.
My Opera begins with an Alleluia Chorus. I have borrowed words from the Angel Song at the opening of "Faust" for my score. But the music has an expression of its own, and the words are feeble; and the only comfort is, that these words will be lost in the triumph strain of the tones that accompany them.
She was with me, exulting where I was exultant, sad where I was sorrowful; still with her air of Guide and Teacher. She is my Egeria.
She is my Inspiring Muse. I invoke her when I sing.
But my song carried her away. Her own thoughts expressed by my utterance were returned to her, and she yielded herself up altogether to their power.
Ah me! there is one language common to all on earth, and to all in heaven, and that is music.
I exulted then on that bare, blasted rock. I triumphed. She joined me in it all. We exulted together. We triumphed. We mourned, we rejoiced, we despaired, we hoped, we sung alleluias in our hearts. The very winds were still. The very moon seemed to stay her course. All nature was hushed.
She stood before me, white, slender, aerial, like a spirit from on high, as pure, as holy, as stainless. Her soul and mine were blended. We moved to one common impulse. We obeyed one common motive.
What is this? Is it love? Yes; but not as men call love. Ours is heavenly love, ardent, but yet spiritual; intense, but without pa.s.sion; a burning love like that of the cherubim; all-consuming, all-engrossing, and enduring for evermore.
Have I ever told her my admiration? Yes; but not in words. I have told her so in music, in every tone, in every strain. She knows that I am hers. She is my divinity, my muse, my better genius--the n.o.bler half of my soul.
I have laid all my spirit at her feet, as one prostrates himself before a divinity. She has accepted that adoration and has been pleased.
We are blended. We are one, but not after an earthly fashion, for never yet have I even touched her hand in love. It is our spirits, our real selves--not our merely visible selves--that love; yet that love is so intense that I would die for evermore if my death could make her life more sweet.
She has heard all this from my Cremona.
Here, as we stood under the moon, I thought her a spirit with a mortal lover. I recognized the full meaning of the sublime legend of Numa and Egeria. The mortal aspires in purity of heart, and the immortal comes down and a.s.sists and responds to his aspirations.
Our souls vibrated in unison to the expression of heavenly thoughts. We threw ourselves into the rapture of the hour. We trembled, we thrilled, till at last frail mortal nature could scarcely endure the intensity of that perfect joy.
So we came to the end. The end is a chorus of angels. They sing the divinest of songs that is written in Holy Revelation. All the glory of that song reaches its climax in the last strain:
"And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!"
We wept together. But we dried our tears and went home, musing on that "tearless eternity" which lies before us.
Morning is dawning as I write, and all the feeling of my soul can be expressed in one word, the sublimest of all words, which is intelligible to many of different languages and different races. I will end with this: