Part 34

I’ve heard full oft, in foreign lands, The grand orchestral strain, Where music’s ancient masters live, Revealed on earth again:

Where breathing, solemn instruments, In swaying clouds of sound, Bore up the yearning, trancéd soul, Like silver wings around;--

I’ve heard in old St. Peter’s dome, When clouds of incense rise, Most ravishing the choral swell Mount upward to the skies.

And well I feel the magic power, When skilled and cultured art Its cunning webs of sweetness weaves Around the captured heart.

But yet, dear friend, though rudely sung, That old psalm-tune hath still A pulse of power beyond them all My inmost soul to thrill.

Those tones, that halting sound to you, Are not the tones I hear; But voices of the loved and lost Then meet my longing ear.

I hear my angel mother’s voice,-- Those were the words she sung; I hear my brother’s ringing tones, As once on earth they rung;

And friends that walk in white above Come round me like a cloud, And far above those earthly notes Their singing sounds aloud.

There may be discord, as you say; Those voices poorly ring; But there’s no discord in the strain Those upper spirits sing.

For they who sing are of the blest, The calm and glorified, Whose hours are one eternal rest On heaven’s sweet floating tide.

Their life is music and accord; Their souls and hearts keep time In one sweet concert with the Lord,-- One concert vast, sublime.

And through the hymns they sang on earth Sometimes a sweetness falls, On those they loved and left below, And softly homeward calls.

Bells from our own dear fatherland, Borne trembling o’er the sea-- The narrow sea that they have crossed, The shores where we shall be.

O sing, sing on! beloved souls; Sing cares and griefs to rest; Sing, till entranced we arise To join you ’mid the blest.

* * * * *

O, thus forever sing to me! O, thus forever! The green bright grass of childhood bring to me Flowing like an emerald river, And the bright blue skies above! O, sing them back as fresh as ever, Into the bosom of my love,-- The sunshine and the merriment, The unsought, evergreen content, Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time!

J. R. LOWELL

THE LOST BOOKS OF LIVY.

My dear friend, Dubois d’Erville, whose talents might have rendered him remarkable in any walk of literature, allowed the whole of his faculties to be absorbed in days, nights, years of research, upon one special point of literary interest. At school, he had become imbued with a love for classic authors, which, with regard to his favorite Livy, kindled into a passion. He sought eagerly for accounts of discoveries of lost works in palimpsest manuscripts. Finally, he relinquished all other objects of pursuit, and spent many years traversing Europe and Asia, visiting the public libraries and old monasteries, in search of ancient manuscripts. After a long time, when he was forgotten by family, friends, and acquaintances, he returned to Paris. Little was known of his wanderings; but there was a rumor that he formed a romantic marriage, and that his devoted wife had travelled with him among the monasteries of Asia Minor, encountering many hardships and dangers. No one but himself knew where she died.

When he returned to Paris, he brought with him an only child, a girl of nineteen. She had memorable beauty, and great intelligence; but these were less noticed than her simple manners, and tender devotion to her father, whom she almost adored. He took a suite of apartments in the third story of a house, which, before the Revolution, had been the hotel of a nobleman, and surrounded by extensive gardens. It was in the old and solitary Rue Cassette. The gardens had been let out to cow-keepers; but within the enclosure of the house remained some noble trees and flowering shrubs. These apartments had been selected by his daughter Marcelline, on account of the graceful branches of the old lime-trees, which reached close to the windows, and furnished a pleasant shade in summer, when birds chirped gayly among the green foliage. Even in winter, a robin would sometimes sing snatches of song, among the naked branches, as if in return for the crumbs which his pretty patroness never failed to place on the window-sill.

Beyond Marcelline’s chamber was a little sitting-room, and then came a rather large apartment, where Dubois pursued his studies, surrounded with piles of old vellum, and dusty and worm-eaten manuscripts of all descriptions. The floor was thus littered in all directions, except in a small semicircle near one of the windows, where an open space was preserved for a few chairs and a table.

They had but one servant, an old woman, who had been cook in Dubois’s family in the days of his boyhood, and whom he accidentally met when he returned to Paris. Old Madeleine formed a pleasant link between the present and the past. Often, when she passed through his study, he would remind her of some prank he had played in early days, and ask her if she remembered it, with such a frank, good-natured smile, that the old servant would smile too; though there was always a tinge of melancholy in her recollections of his boyish roguery. Often, when she left the room, she would shake her head, and mutter to herself, “Ah, young Monsieur Armand was so good, so kind, so gentle! Only to think that he should leave all his family and friends, and pass his life nobody knows where! Ah! it is very mysterious. And the bright, curly hair, that I used to pat with such fondness, to think that I should never see him again, till all that is left of it is a few silver locks about his temples!” She tried to gain from Marcelline some particulars about her mother; but the young girl had only a vague recollection of a form that used to press her to her heart, during journeys through strange countries, and who had long disappeared. She remembered something of a time when her father’s tall, upright figure suddenly bent under the weight of some great sorrow, from which it never rose erect again. Then, when she grew older, they lived for years in Italian cities, where there were great libraries; whence they came to Paris.

Nothing could be more delightful than the affectionate congeniality between father and daughter. Their favorite pursuits, though different, had a kind of affinity which rendered their quiet existence very pleasant. Marcelline had a taste for painting; and her father’s mania for old manuscripts furnished her with many opportunities for examining the exquisite miniatures and ornamental illuminations, with which monkish manuscripts were frequently enriched. When new manuscripts arrived, which they did almost daily, her first impulse was to examine whether they contained any illuminations worthy of note; and if so, to copy them with the utmost care and accuracy. She had thus formed a very beautiful collection, in which she felt an interest almost as enthusiastic as that of her father in his long pursuit of a treasure, which, like the horizon, seemed always in sight, but was never reached.

In the midst of the charming, harmonious routine of this little household, slight contentions would sometimes arise; but they were sure to end, like the quarrels of lovers, in a renewal of love. Sometimes a manuscript arrived which contained exquisite illuminations; but Dubois, thinking it might be a palimpsest, regarded the ornaments as so many abominations, concealing some treasure of classic literature. So the mediæval romance, with its matchless miniatures, and intricate borderings, glowing with gilding, purple, and crimson, would soon disappear beneath the sponge, soap, and acids of the indefatigable seeker after The Lost Books of Livy. These occasions were sad trials for Marcelline. She would beg for a week’s delay, just to copy the most beautiful of the illuminations. But if Dubois thought he could perceive traces of erasure under the gorgeous ornaments, he was as impatient as a miner who fancies he sees indications of a vein of gold. When Marcelline saw the sponge trembling in his hand, so eager to commence the work of obliteration, she would turn away with a painful sense of what seemed to her a cruel desecration. She felt that the sacrifice was due to the cause in which her father had enlisted all the energies of his life; but the ruthless destruction of all those quaint and delicately beautiful works of art caused her a pang she could not quite conceal. In spite of herself, a tear would glisten in her eye; and the moment her father perceived it, his resolution melted. He would place the manuscript in her hand, and say, “There, there, my child! a whole week if you want it; and then bring it to me, if you have quite done with it.” Then she would reply, “No, no, dear father. Your object is too important to be hindered by the whims of a foolish girl.” He would press it upon her, and she would refuse it; and as the combat of love went on, the old man’s eyes would fill with tears. Then Marcelline would give way, and take the proffered manuscript; and Dubois, with all the attentive politeness of a young lover, would arrange her desk, and her pieces of new vellum, and place the volume in a good light. Not till he had seen her fairly at work at her charming task, could he tear himself away; and then not without pressing her hand, and nodding to her, as though they were going to part for some long period. She would nod too; and then they both nodded together, smiling at their own affectionate folly, with tears glistening in their eyes. Then Dubois would go to his study, and among his heaps of manuscripts, bound and unbound, rolled or folded, he would soon be immersed in the intricacies of his old pursuit.

After a while, the even current of their happy life became varied by the visits of a third person. When old Madeleine came to live with them, Dubois often questioned her concerning the relatives and friends he had known in his boyhood. Her answer was, invariably, “Dead.” It seemed as if all the old he inquired for were dead, and all the young either dead or scattered. During one of these conversations, he said, “What has become of Uncle Debaye, who used to prophesy that I should be a member of the Academy, and one of the illustrious men of France? Ah, he was a pleasant specimen of the old bachelor and the bon vivant! Where is he?” “He is dead, too,” replied Madeleine; “but he did not remain an old bachelor and a bon vivant. He married, some two and twenty years ago, and gave up his old luxurious habits for the sake of supporting his pretty young wife. He even left off cigars and snuff, to supply her with little luxuries. She is dead, too. But they had a very pretty child, little Hyppolite, who is a young man now.” “Then it seems that I have one relative remaining,” said Dubois; “but I suppose he has gone off to America, or Australia, or somewhere.” “No, Monsieur,” rejoined Madeleine, “he is in Paris. He got a situation out by the Barrière du Trone, where he has two thousand francs a year, and apartments in the factory to live in besides. I often meet him on a Sunday, in the gardens of the Luxembourg, and many a forty sous has he given me.”

Dubois was pleased to find that he had one relative left, and Madeleine was commissioned to tell him that his father’s brother-in-law, his uncle by marriage, had returned to Paris, and would be glad to see him. The young man came soon after, and father and daughter were both pleased with their new-found kinsman. He was not very intellectual or learned; but he was lively, good-natured, and good-looking. He brought the living, moving world of the present into those secluded apartments, so entirely consecrated to the works and thoughts of ages long past. His free-and-easy conversation, without a single phrase smacking of libraries, or art-galleries, or any kind of learning, seemed a bright sparkling stream of young careless life. His uncle listened willingly to his gossiping anecdotes, told with a certain appreciation of the comic, in a clear, ringing voice, and with good-natured laughter. Hyppolite became a very welcome visitor; and, after a while, if he did not appear on the days when he was regularly expected, a shadow of disappointment was cast over the little household in the Rue Cassette.

Thus things went on for some time. Marcelline daily added to her collection of exquisite fac-similes, and her father labored diligently in the cause to which he had devoted his life. He did not obtain the result he so ardently desired; but his perseverance was not without reward. On two occasions he discovered works of great importance, in a literary point of view, covered over with a mass of old law transactions; and the sums he obtained for them enabled him greatly to increase his stock of manuscripts. He soon became so well known to all who dealt in such articles, that every new importation was offered to him, before it was shown elsewhere.

Meanwhile Marcelline received increasing pleasure from the visits of Hyppolite. She began to suspect that the trivial chat uttered in that fresh young voice, with occasional peals of ringing laughter, possessed for her a greater charm than the noble words of her father, always teeming with knowledge and interest of various kinds. She shrunk from admitting this to herself. She would not believe it, but she had an uneasy suspicion of it. As for Hyppolite, his walk of two or three miles, to visit his new-found relatives, became his greatest pleasure. He found innumerable opportunities of making the Rue Cassette the shortest cut to one or other of the distant quarters of Paris, where the business of his employers carried him, though in fact it was often miles out of his way. To gratify Marcelline’s peculiar taste, he frequently brought her ornaments cut from the pages of old illuminated manuscripts. When asked where he obtained them, he would merely laugh, and say he would bring some more soon. Dubois began to remonstrate against the barbarism of mutilating manuscripts in that way; but Hyppolite would point to the piles of manuscripts from which he had washed both ornaments and writing, and would put on such a comic look, and laugh so merrily, that his uncle could not help laughing, too.