The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 27
When we found ourselves after dinner in the parlor, Hulmar offered me my choice between some concert-music,—a great performance was going on, it appears, in some distant city,—or to hear a song from Reva. I had more than once heard her voice praised, but had not, as yet, found an opportunity of hearing it.
She sat down to an instrument constructed on the same principle as that of Ulmene, but differently arranged. In this,—the instrument chiefly used by those who mainly desired it as an accompaniment to the voice,—the keys were somewhat smaller in diameter than those of a concertina, and were slightly hollowed at the top.
These keys were arranged in groups of seven. Close around a central key, that which gave the simple note, were six others, not giving single notes, but the six most usual chords to that central note. The key-board was arranged for several octaves of the chromatic scale, each note being tuned true. A simple adjustment enabled. the player, before beginning, to set the instrument to any desired tone as key-note.
By means of a sort of pointed thimble worn on the forefinger, the player produced the desired note or chord by the slightest pressure into the cup-shaped key, while the strength of the tone was regulated by a lever under the control of the left hand. The use of this instrument was so simple, that any person with an ear could learn to play a melody with accompaniment much more easily than now to pick out the same tune on a piano.
What many will regard as the chief excellence of this instrument was the fact, that it could, if desired, be played so softly that a person a few yards off might be unaware that the instrument was in action. Little Esua had such an instrument at home. Happening to enter the room where she was practising, I was unaware, till I came close to her, that she was playing.
With a few directions from Esna, I speedily mastered the principle of the instrument. An hour's practice enabled me to astonish Ialma, when she came in, by playing over to her some fragments of music in a style utterly strange to her ear. She called in Ulmene, who also became highly interested on hearing those snatches of longforgotten melody.
Reva had probably heard from Ialma of these performances of mine; for, when she had given us several of her father's favorite songs, she wished to hear from me some of the ancient music, as she called it. As her father joined earnestly in the request. I had no alternative but to comply. I did so on condition, however, that Reva should play the accompaniment. This she was readily able to do after hearing me play over the melody.
Warned by my experience with Ialma and Ulmene, I attempted nothing ambitious. It had been the simplest melodies that had pleased the most, such as "John Anderson," and "Logie o' Buchan," among Scotch airs, "Der Wirthin Töchterlein," and "Steh' ich in finster Mitternacht," among the German. First, accompanied by Reva, I gave the song in the original words, then rendered it into the prevailing language. This latter task was comparatively easy, on account of the great abundance of sonorous monosyllables. I certainly had no reason to complain of lack of interest on the part of my audience. To them it was an experience much as if some one could reproduce for us the long-lost melodies of Arcadia, or the simple strains in which the Aryan shepherd once wooed his Highland maid.
When, after a while, Reva reminded me that I had not as yet given any thing distinctively American, I found myself in some embarrassment. Payne's beautiful lyric naturally first occurred to my mind. But it might have been written by an Englishman. It is, in fact, known and loved by thousands in the "Old Country," who have no suspicion that it is not of native origin. For the first time it dawned upon me, that in the "Minstrel Melodies" of the last generation is our nearest approach to a distinctive national music.
I did not happen to know a single song in its entirety, so was obliged to content my hearers with a verse or two, partly improvised, of "Nelly Gray," and "Susanna, don't you cry." Somewhat to my surprise, these songs. excited even more interest than the previous ones. The last melody became a favorite with Reva, and with words by her, set to an arrangement by Ulmene, was within a month known in every household through the world. In those days, any thing worth knowing was spread over the world in an incredibly short time.
These songs naturally led to a discussion of the slave-system, and the struggle that led to its extinction on this continent. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," I found, was one of the few books that had retained its popularity through the long succession of ages. Version after version had appeared, rendered necessary by the progressive changes in the language. The last, which had appeared about fifteen centuries before the period of which we are speaking, was regarded as one of the choice classics of the language.
A chance reference to the "Hero of Ossawatomie" recalled to my mind the wild, simple melody associated with his name,—a melody that even now, to those who lived through that era of blood and strife, seems ever associated with the tramp of armed hosts and the boom of distant cannon. At least, so it is to me.
I was too young to take part in, or even to have an intelligent understanding of, the great struggle at the time. But one of my earliest recollections is, of standing at a window with my mother to see my uncle's regiment march past on its way to the front, to take part in the last desperate struggle round Richmond. It seems as if but yesterday. How noble looked the bronzed and bearded leader who rode at the head of the column! How different from the pale and helpless form brought back two months later!
He looked up to our window. Sister though she was, it was not to my mother alone, or chiefly, that was waved that mute gesture of farewell. Just then the band struck up; and the whole column, as with one impulse, burst into that quaint expression of the belief in the superiority of mind over matter, of confidence that a great principle does not perish, however it may fare with its first assertors:—
But his soul goes marching on."
Thus they marched past, keeping step to words and tune, many never to return. We watched them in silence, till the last had passed out of sight, and the sounds grew faint in the distance. I, to whom the whole had been a splendid pageant, in which "uncle Thad" was the chief performer, looked on in mute astonishment when the women fell sobbing into each other's arms after we had retired from the window. What had they to cry for? I understood a little better two months later.
It may have been my vivid recollection of this scene that lent some fire to my rendering of the march, for song it can scarcely be called: at all events, both my auditors joined in the entreaty that I should give one verse in the very words employed by the men who had so freely given their lives in that struggle, the epoch-making character of which was most fully appreciated in after-ages. Seeing their interest, in order to give them a glimpse of the events of that stirring time. I described the scene above mentioned, speaking, at first, of the youthful spectator in the third person. But, carried along by the tide of swiftly recurring memories. I must have reverted unconsciously to the first person; for Reva, who had listened with kindling eye, suddenly exclaimed,—
"You speak as if you had seen that yourself!"
"Perhaps,"—began Hulmar, but checked himself, and turned the subject by requesting Reva to endeavor to improvise a march with that tune as theme. Beginning by simply repeating the melody with slight variations, she proceeded to introduce chords in imitation of the "tramp, tramp" I had described to her, intermingled with the sound of distant firing.
Had I the power to reproduce this grand improvisation, the republic would possess a national march unsurpassed for majesty, and Rouget de l'Isle would have a rival in fame. Hulmar himself, accustomed as he was to his daughter's playing, was astonished, as he subsequently acknowledged. Inspired by what she had just heard, she poured out in tone the emotions the grand theme aroused within her. Towards the end, the triumphant strain gradually died away to an almost inaudible minor movement, suggestive of the shadow cast by even the justest and most triumphant war.
We were sitting in silence, Reva still facing the instrument, when, through the open window, Ialma and Utis stepped in from the veranda.
"I wish Ulmene had heard that," said Ialna. "You never played like that before."
She then proceeded to explain, that, finding Utis was coming, she had taken the opportunity to come to stay over night with Reva, for whom she had several messages from her brother.
"I was just wishing you were here," said Reva. "I have so much to tell you."
Utis and I did not remain long after this, as it was already late. It may be imagined, that I was far from unhappy on hearing Reva's expression of surprise on discovering how much time had elapsed since we had risen from table. On hearing this naïve remark from her prospective sister, Ialma looked at me, and said I looked tired. Though her eyes sparkled with suppressed amusement, she ventured no other remark, except that she would take good care of my curricle, which, it had been arranged, she was to bring over in the morning.
This being the first time I journeyed by night in a curricle, I saw in operation for the first time the electric lamp with which it is provided. While leaving as in shadow, the lamp cast a long lane of light before us, for fully a quarter of a mile. We did not, however, travel quite so fast as by day; so that the distance I had traversed in half an hour in the morning took us nearly three-quarters.