Charles Auchester, Volume 2 (of 2)

with an enthusiasm fixed and deepened by every change; but I did not think so the day to which I shall defer my particular remembrances,-the day I had left Germany forever,-except in dr

hat shore we deem itself to shadow, alone contains the resolut

me forwards that dreary December evening when I landed in England last,

ero lord, and that suspension of his presence which ensued, had no more power upon me than to call out what was, indeed, demanded of me under such circumstances,-all the persistency of my nature. And if even there had been a complete and actual surrender of all her privileges by professors and pupils, I should have b

To him I ought, perhaps, to confess that I owed a good deal, but I cannot believe it,-I am fain to think I should have done as well alone; but there was that in the association and habitude of the

rely dissociated from it. Not one smile from those fair lips, not one ray from those awful eyes, had sunned the countenances of the ever-studious throng

ained him as a light of life, which in the few fleeting years of my boyhood had garnered such illustrious immortality for one scarcely past his own first youth. But in

ange country. The noblest attribute of race, the irresistible conception of the power of race, had scarcely then received a rem

nied it in the face of their rational conviction, because it was so hard to allow that to be a special privilege in which they can bear no earthly part; for all the races of the earth cannot tread down one step of that race, nor diminish in each millennium its spiritual approximation to an everlasting endurance. Or, perhaps, to do them justi

ge, for I had not been at home for three whole years, and was n

completed. I shall never forget the effect, nor has it ever left me when I travel; I cannot find it monotonous, nor anything but marvel. It was certainly evening

rd, wild insecurity seemed hovering upon the darkened distance, such a dream of hopeless achievement seemed the space to be overpassed that awful evening. As I walked along the carriage-line

of night, that I could even bear to remember how little people had told me of what steam-travelling by land would prove in my experience. It seemed to me as if I, too

wretch if I refused my single Ave at that olden shrine. I cannot quite forget, either, that none of my wildest recollections out-dazzled its near brightness as I approached; the poet

Lenhart Davy, who had walked out into the winter night expressly and entirely to meet me, and who was so completely unaged, unchanged, and unalloyed that I could but wonder at the freshness o

to the parlor by Davy, and found them all, the bloom of the firelight restoring their faces exactly as I had left them. My mother, as I told her, looked younger than myself,-which might easily be the case, as I believe I was born grown up,-and Clo was very handsome in her fashion, wearing the old pictorial raiment. My sister Lydia had lately recei

s late out of her cradle that she, too, might greet her uncle. She was a delicious child,-I have never found her equal,-and had that indescribable rarity of appearance which belongs, or we imagi

vy, perfectly heedless, brought her along with him to his chair, placed on his knee and fed her, fostered her till she fell asleep and tumbled against his shoulder, when he opened his coat-breast for her and just let her sleep on,-calling no attention to her be

enough to prepare the frosty atmosphere for the reception of the baby, I returned with Millicent and himself to their own home.

o jammed and choked up with all sorts of treasures and curiosities were the little landing-place, the tiny drawing-room, the very bed-room and a half, as Davy called my own little closet, with the little carven bed's head. Everywhere his shadow, gliding and smiling silently, though at the proper time she had plenty to say too, came Millic

e or read, making no more disturbance than a dove would have done. I believe he was half-jealous because when I took her she did not cry, but began to put her fingers

e nothing of your plans yet; I

they can be without your sanction. You know

extravaganza, then, Charles,-which

ur part, as I could not but enter with

rather awed in submitting my ideas to you when you were a

tions everywhere, and will be, in such a mixed multitude as of

story,

ight; but it has not long held even with me. How very little we can do, e

coming fresh from the severities of study;

I am not going to settle in London, Lenhart,-that is a mista

your remaining here! But with your power and your promise of success,

were wanted, and if any one cared to hear me; but I will never give up the actual hold I have on this place. As much may be done here as an

Charlie,-in

esides being resident professor, to devote myself especially to the organization of that band of which you wrote, and which in your letter you gave me to understand it is your desire t

t reconcile it with my conscience to bind you to a service so signal for my ow

After all, you cannot, with your musical electicism, prefer me to become mixed up in the horrible strug

up one of your old p

udgment I should follow to the death so gladly. Besides all the rest, which is made up of a good deal more than one can say, I could never consent, as an instrumentalist, and as holding that instrument to be part of myself, to infec

germ, a winter-seed at prese

ve myself on popular precedents, among them that most magnificent one of lionizing musical professors. No, I could not bear that, and no one would care a whit for my playing as I feel. I shoul

ear the thought of suggesting anything to anybody, lest his suggestion should unsteady any fixed idea of their own. Millicent cordially asserted that she felt there was a more interesting sphere about them than she could imagine to exist anywhere else; and perhaps she was right, for no one could sufficiently laud the extirpation of ancient prejudices by Davy's firm voice and ardent heart. I could not possibly calculate at that moment the force and extent of his sin

has worked, rejecting all but the barest remuneration, to bring all forward as he has succeeded i

to feel again all that went through me in the days when I learned of him alone. But I am

s Benette,

also lit

f her or what she has been doing.

ve been very quie

u, Charles. But she has no

ve that where

, called on Lenhart the other day at the class, and after hearing several of the pieces, asked him whether his pupil, Miss Benette, had not belonged to it once on a time. He said, Yes; and finding that th

ill remain unaltered. I do not believe such e

angel; he continued to call her angela,

ging in Ita

tter. In her letter she only spoke of ourselves, and sent us a present for baby,-such a piece of work, Charles, as you never saw. I thought she would have quite given up work by that time. The letter was a simple, exquisite expression of regard for her old master; and when Lenhart a

xpected. She had not an Italian touc

hful,-'fresher than your infant there,' he said, pointing to baby; and from her style of singing grand

quet; but those usually bestowed by the populace are most unmeaning. Her own name, however, suits her best,-it is limpid like the

f such an operatic pressure as there was this year. I hope she will do something for

be my good fortune to see her, persuade her not

entered at the same door, we approached the same room; but none could again have known it unless, as in my case, he could have pointed out the exact spot on which he had been accustomed to sit. The roof was raised, the rafters were stained that favorite sylvan tint of Davy's, the windows lightly pencilled with it upon their ground-glass arches, the walls painted the softest shade of gray, harmonizing perfectly with the purple-crimson tone of the cloth that covered seats and platform. Alas! as I surveyed t

hose voices rise, prolong themselves, lean in uncorrupted tone upon the calm motet, or rest in unagitated simplicity over a pause of Ravenscroft's old heavenly verses, made one almost leap to reduce such a host to the service of an appropriate band, and to institute orchestral worship there. I could but remind myself of certain great works, paradises of musical creation, from whose rightful interpretation we are debarred either by the inconsistency with the chosen band of the selected chorus, or by

eetlessly imposed upon me. The number I began with, receiving each singly, not at my own home, but in a hired room, was not more than eight, amateurs and neophytes either,-the amateurs esteeming themselves no less than amateurs, and something more; the neophytes chiefly connections of the choral force, and of an individual stubbornness not altogether to be appreciated at an early period. I could laugh to remember myself those awful mornings when, after a breakfast at home which I could not have touched had it been less delicately prepa

ice, I cannot divine; but they one and all made light of it, even declaring they scarcely heard that all-penetrating sound distilled down the staircase and through closed parlor doors. But I was obliged to keep in my own hand most vigorously, and sustained myself by the hope that I should one day lead off my dependants in the region now made sacred by voice and verse alone. It was my habit to give no lessons after dinner, but to pursue my own studies, sadly deficient as I was in too many respects, in the long afternoons of spring, and to walk in the lengthening evenings, more delicious in my remembrance than any of my boyish treasure-times. On class-nights I would walk to Davy's, find him in a paroxysm of anxiety just gone off, leaving Millicent to bemoan his want of appetite and to devise elegant but inexpensive suppers. I would have one good night-game with my soft-lipped niece, watch her mamma unswathe the cambric from her rosy limbs, see the white lids drop their lashes over her blue eyes' sleepfulness, listen to the breath that arose like the pulses of a flower to the air, feel her sweetness make me almost sad, and creep downstairs most noiselessly. Millicent would follow me to fetch her work-basket from the little conservatory, would talk a moment before she returned upstairs to work by the cradle-side, would steal with me to the door, look up to the stars or the moon a moment, and heave a sigh,-a sigh as from happiness too large for heart to hold; and I, having picked my path around the narrow gravel, smelling the fresh mould in the darkness, having reached the gate, would just glance round to sign adieu; and not till then would she withdraw into the warm little hall and close the door. Then off I was to the class, to see the windows a-glow f