nature, and kept his mind clear and free from all the
idle gossip of the rabble. He went his way alone, and
played court fool to no titled and alleged nobility. The
democracy of the man is not our least excuse for honor-
ing him. He was one with the plain people of earth, and
the only aristocracy he acknowledged was the aristoc-
racy of intellect.
In the work done after his fortieth year there is greater
freedom, an ease and an increased strength, with a
daring quality which uplifts and gives you courage. The
tragic interest and intense emotionalism are gone, and
you behold a resignation and the success that wins by
yielding. The man is no longer at war with destiny.
There is no struggle.
We pay for everything we receive nay, all things can
be obtained if we but pay the price. One of the very few
Emancipated Men in America bought redemption from
the bondage of selfish ambition at a terrible price. Years
and years ago he was in the Rocky Mountains, rough,
uneducated, heedless of all that makes for righteousness.
This man was caught in a snowstorm, on the mountain-
side. He lost his way, became dazed with cold and fell
exhausted in the snow. When found by his companions
the next day, death had nearly claimed him. But skilful
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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
help brought him back to life, yet the frost had killed
the circulation in his feet. Both legs were amputated
just below the knees.
This changed the current of the man's life. Footraces,
boxing-matches and hunting of big game were out of the
question. The man turned to books and art and ques-
tions of science and sociology.
Thirty summers have come and gone. This gentle,
sympathetic and loving man now walks with a cane,
and few know of his disability and of his artificial feet.
Speaking of his spiritual rebirth, this man of splendid
intellect said to me, with a smile, "It cost me my feet,
but it was worth the price."
I shed no maudlin tears over the misfortunes of Bee-
thoven. He was what he was because of what he endured.
He grew strong by bearing burdens. All things are
equalized. By the Cross is the world redeemed. God be
praised, it is all good!
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GEORGE HANDEL
When generations have been melted into tears, or
raised to religious fervor when courses of sermons have
been preached, volumes of criticisms been written, and
thousands of afflicted and poor people supported by the
oratorio of " The Messiah " it becomes exceedingly
difficult to say anything new. Yet no notice of Handel,
however sketchy, should be written without some spe-
cial tribute of reverence to this sublime treatment of a
sublime subject. Bach, Graun, Beethoven, Spohr,
Rossini and Mendelssohn have all composed on the
same theme. But no one in completeness, in range of
effect, in elevation and variety of conception, has ever
approached Handel's music upon this one subject.
Reo. H. R. Haweis
HANDEL
GEORGE HANDEL
ID you meet Michelangelo while you
were in Rome ? " asked a good Roy-
croft girl of me the other day.
" No, my dear, no," I answered,
and then I gulped hard to keep back
some very foolish tears. " No, I did
not meet Michelangelo," I said, " I
expected to, and was always looking
for him ; but these eyes never looked into his, for he died
just three hundred years before I was born." But how
natural was this question from this bright, country
girl ! She had been examining a lot of photographs of the
Sistine Chapel, and had seen pictures of " II Penseroso,"
the " Night " and " Morning," the " Moses "; and then
she had seen on my desk a bronze cast of the hand of the
" David " that imperial hand with the gently curved
wrist S& 33
These things lured her the splendid strength and sug-
gestion of power in it all, had caught her fancy, and the
heroic spirit of the Master seemed very near to her. It
all meant pulsating life and hope that was deathless;
and the thought that the man who did the work had
turned to dust three centuries ago, never occurred to
this naive, budding soul.
"Did you see Michelangelo while you were in Rome? "
No, dear girl, no. But I saw Saint Peter's that he
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GEORGE HANDEL
planned, and I saw the result of his efforts things
worked out and materialized by his hands hands that
surely were just like this hand of the " David."
The artist gives us his best gives it to us forever, for
our very own. He grows aweary and lies down to sleep
to sleep and wake no more, deeding to us the mintage of
his love. And as love does not grow old, neither does
Art. Fashions change, but hope, aspiration and love
are as old as Fate who sits and spins the web of life. The
Artist is one who is educated in the three H's head
heart and hand. He is God's child no less are we and
he has done for us the things we would have liked to do
ourselves S& S&
The classic is that which does not grow old the classic
is the eternally true.
" Did you meet Michelangelo in Rome? " Why, it is
the most natural question in the world ! At Stratford I
expected to see Shakespeare; at Weimar I was sure to
meet Goethe; Rubens just eluded me at Antwerp; at
Amsterdam I caught a glimpse of Rembrandt; in the
dim cloisters of Saint Mark's at Florence I saw Savona-
rola in cowl and robe; over Whitehall in London I
beheld the hovering smoke of martyr-fires, and knew
that just beyond the walls Ridley and Latimer were
burned; and only a little way outside of Jerusalem a
sign greets the disappointed traveler, thus: " He is
risen He is not here! "
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GEORGE HANDEL
N one of his delightful talks talks that are
as fine as his feats of leadership Walter
Damrosch has referred to Handel as a con-
temporary. Surely the expression is fitting,
for in the realm of truth time is an illusion and the days
are shadows.
George Frederick Handel was born in Sixteen Hundred
Eighty-five, and died in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine.
His dust rests in Westminster Abbey, and above the
tomb towers his form cut in enduring marble. There he
stands, serene and poised, accepting benignly the
homage of the swift-passing generations. For over a
hundred years this figure has stood there in its colossal
calm, and through the cathedral shrines, the aisles, and
winding ways of dome and tower, Handel's music still
peals its solemn harmonies.
At Exeter Hall is another statue of Handel, seated,
holding in his hand a lyre. At the Foundling Hospital
(which he endowed) is a bust of the Master, done in
Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight; and at Windsor is the
original of still another bust that has served for a copy
of the very many casts in plaster and clay that are in all
the shops.
There are at least fifty different pictures of Handel, and
nearly this number were brought together, on the
occasion of a recent Handel and Haydn Festival, at
South Kensington.
When Gladstone once referred to Handel as our greatest
253
GEORGE HANDEL
English Composer, he refused to take it back even when
a capricious critic carped and sneezed.
Handel essentially belongs to England, for there his
first battles were fought, and there he won his final
victory. To be sure, he did some preliminary skirmish-
ing in Germany and Italy; but that was only getting his
arms ready for that conflict which was to last for half a
century a conflict with friends, foes and fools.
But Handel was too big a man to be undermined by
either the fulsome flattery of friends, or the malice of
enemies, who were such only because they did not
understand. And so always to the fore he marched,
zigzagging occasionally, but the Voice said to him, as it
did to Columbus, " Sail on, and on, and on." Like the
soul of John Brown, the spirit of Handel goes marching
on. And Sir Arthur Sullivan was right when he said,
" Musical England owes more to Father Handel than
to any other ten men who can be named he led the
way for us all, and cut out a score that we can only
imitate." 3& 33
254
GEORGE HANDEL
T the Court of George of Brunswick, at
Hanover, in Seventeen Hundred Nine, was
George Frederick Handel, six feet one, weight
one hundred eighty, rubicund, rosy, and full
of romp, aged twenty-four. George of Brunswick was
to have the felicity of being King George the First of
England, and already he was straining his gaze across
the Channel.
At his Court were divers and sundry English noblemen.
Handel was a prime favorite with every one in the
merry company. The ladies doted on him. A few
gentlemen, possibly, were slightly jealous of his social
prowess, and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for
only a short time before he had broken a sword in a
street duel with a brother musician, and once had
thrown a basso prof undo, who sang off key, through a
closed window all this to the advantage of a passing
glazier, who, being called in, was paid his fee three times
over for repairing the sash. It 's an ill wind, etc.
Handel played the harpsichord well, but the organ
better. In fact, he played the organ in such a masterly
way that he had no competitor, save a phenomenal
yokel by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach. These
men were born just a month apart. Saint Cecilia used to
whisper to them when they were wee babies. For several
years they lived near each other, but in this life they
never met.
Handel was an aristocrat by nature, even if not exactly
255
GEORGE HANDEL
so by birth, and so had nothing to do with the modest
and bucolic Bach even going so far, they do say, as to
leave, temporarily, the City of Halle, his native place,
when a contest was suggested between them. Bach was
the supreme culminating flower of two hundred fifty
years of musical ancestors servants to this Grand
Duke or that. But in the tribe of Handel there was not a
single musical trace. George Frederick succeeded to the
art, and at it, in spite of his parents. But never mind
that! He had been offered the post as successor to
Buxtehude, and Buxtehude was the greatest organist of
his time. He accepted the invitation to play for the
Buxtehude contingent. A musical jury sat on the case,
and decided to accept the young man, with the proviso
that Handel (taught by Orpheus) should take to wife
the daughter of Buxtehude this in order that the
traditions might be preserved.
Young Handel declined the proposition with thanks,
declaring he was unworthy of the honor.
Young Handel had spent two years in Italy, had visited
most of the capitals of Europe, had composed several
operas and numerous songs. He was handsome, gracious
and talented. Money may use its jimmy to break into
the Upper Circles; but to Beauty, Grace and Talent that
does not shiver nor shrink, all doors fly open. And now
the English noblemen requested nay, insisted that
Handel should accompany them back to Merry
England 33 5&
256
GEORGE HANDEL
He went, and being introduced as Signore Handello, he
was received with salvos of welcome. There is a time to
plant, and a time to reap. There is a time for everything
launch your boat only at full of tide. London was ripe
for Italian Opera. Discovery had recently been made
in England that Art was born in Italy. It had traveled
as far as Holland, and so Dutch artists were hard at
work in English manor-houses, painting portraits of
ancestors, dead and living. Music, one branch of Art,
had made its way up to Germany, and here was an
Italian who spoke English with a German accent, or a
German who spoke Italian what boots it, he was a
great musician!
Handel's Italian opera, " Rinaldo," was given at a
theater that stood on the site of the present Haymarket.
The production was an immense success. All educated
people knew Latin (or were supposed to know it), and
Signore Handello announced that his Italian was an
improvement on the Latin. And so all the scholars
flocked to see the play, and those who were not educated
came too, and looked knowing. In order to hold interest,
there were English syncopated songs between the acts
ragtime is a new word, but not a new thing.
Handel was very wise in this world's affairs. He assured
England that it was the most artistic country on the
globe. He wrote melodies that everybody could whistle.
Airs from " Rinaldo " were thrummed on the harpsi-
chord from Land's End to John O'Groat's. The grand
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GEORGE HANDEL
march was adopted by the Life Guards, and at least one
air from that far-off opera has come down to us the
' Tascie Ch'io Pianga," which is still listened to with
emotion unfeigned. The opera being uncopyrighted, was
published entire by an enterprising Englishman from
Dublin by the name of Walsh. At two o'clock one morn-
ing at the " Turk's Head," he boasted he had cleared
over two thousand pounds on the sale of it. Handel was
present and responded, " My friend, the next time you
will please write the opera and I will sell it." Walsh took
the hint, they say, and sent his check on the morrow to
the author for five hundred pounds. And the good sense
of both parties is shown in the fact that they worked
together for many years, and both reaped a yellow
harvest of golden guineas.
On the birthday of Queen Anne, Handel inscribed to
her an ode, which we are told was played with a full
band. The performance brought the diplomatic Handel
a pension of two hundred pounds a year.
Next, to celebrate the peace of Utrecht, the famous
' Te Deum " and " Jubilate " were produced, with a
golden garter as a slight token of recognition.
But Good Queen Anne passed away, as even good
queens do, and the fuzzy-witted George of Hanover
came over to be King of England, and transmit his
fuzzy-wuzzy wit to all the Georges. About his first act
was to cut off Handel's pension, "Because," he said,
" Handel ran away from me at Hanover."
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GEORGE HANDEL
A time of obscurity followed for Handel, but after some
months, when the Royal Barge went up the Thames, a
band of one hundred pieces boomed alongside, playing a
deafening racket, with horse-pistol accompaniments.
The King made inquiries and found it was " Water-
Music," composed by Herr Handel, and dedicated in
loving homage to King George the First.
When the Royal Barge came back down the river,
Herr Handel was aboard, and accompanied by a great
popping of corks was proclaimed Court Musician, and
his back-pension ordered paid.
The low ebb of art is seen in that, in the various operas
given about this time by Handel, great stress is made in
the bills about costumes, scenery and gorgeous stage-
fittings. When accessories become more than the play
illustrations more than the text millinery more than
the mind it is unfailing proof that the age is frivolous.
Art, like commerce and everything else, obeys the law
of periodicity. Handel saw the tendency of the times,
and advertised, " The fountain to be seen in 'Amadigi '
is a genuine one, the pump real and the dog alive."
Three hours before the doors opened, the throng stood
in line, waiting.
259
GEORGE HANDEL
UT London is making head. Other good men
and true are coming to town. Handel does not
know much about them, or care, perhaps. His
wonderful energy is now manifesting itself in
the work of managing theaters and concerts, giving
lessons and composing songs, arias, operas, and attend-
ing receptions where " the ladies refrain from hoops for
fear of the crush," to use the language of Samuel
Pepys S& $&
In shirt-sleeves, in a cheap seat in the pit, at one of
Handel's performances, is a big lout of a fellow, with
scars of scrofula on his neck and cheek. Next to him is a
little man, and these two, so chummy and confidential,
suggest the long and short of it. They are countrymen,
recently arrived, empty of pocket, but full of hope.
They have a selfish eye on the stage, for the big 'un
has written a play and wants to get it produced.
The little man's name is David Garrick; the other is
Samuel Johnson.
They listen to the singing, and finally Samuel turns to
his friend and says, " I say, Davy, music is nothing but
a noise that is less disagreeable than some others."
They would go away, would these two, but they have
paid good money to get in, and so sit it out disgustedly,
watching the audience and the play alternately.
In one of the boxes is a weazened little man, all out of
drawing, in a black velvet doublet, satin breeches and
silk stockings. At his side is a rudimentary sword. The
260
GEORGE HANDEL
man's face is sallow, and shrewdness and selfishness are
shown in every line. He looks like a baby suddenly
grown old. The two friends in the pit have seen this man
before, but they have never met him face to face,
because they do not belong to his set.
" Do you think God is proud of a work like that? " at
last asked Davy, jerking his thumb toward the bad
modeling in courtly black.
" God never made him." The big man swayed in his
seat, and added, " God had nothing to do with him he
is the child of Beelzebub."
' Think 'ee so?" asks Davy. "Why, Mephisto has
some pretty good traits; but Alexander Pope is as
crooked as an interrogation-point, inside and out." 3&
" I hear he wears five pairs of stockings to fill out his
shanks, and sole-leather stays to keep him from flat-
tening out like a devilfish," said Doctor Johnson.
" But he makes a lot o' money! "
4 Well, he has to, for he pays an old woman a hundred
guineas a year to dress and undress him."
" I know, but she writes his heroic couplets, too! " 33
" Davy, I fear you are getting cynical let 's change
the subject."
It surely is a case of artistic jealousy. Our friends locate
the poet Gay, a fat little man, who is with his publisher,
Rich 53 53
' They say," says Samuel, again rolling in his seat
as if about to have an apoplectic fit, " they say that
261
GEORGE HANDEL
Gay has become rich, and Rich has become gay since
they got out that last book." There comes an inter-
lude in the play, and our friends get up to stretch their
legs 52 52
" How now, Dick Savage? " calls Samuel, as he pushes
three men over like ninepins, to seize a shabby fellow
whose neckcloth and hair-cut betray him as being a
poet. " How now, Dick, you said that Italian music was
damnably bad! Why do you come to hear it? "
'* I came to find out how bad it is," replied the literary
man. " Eh! your reverence?" he adds to his companion,
a sharp-nosed man with china-blue eyes, in Church-
of-England knee-breeches, high-cut vest, and shovel-
hat 52 52
Dean Swift replies with a knowing smirk, which is the
nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged.
Then he takes out his snuffbox and taps it, which is a
sign that he is going to say something worth while.
' Yes, one must go everywhere, and do everything,
just to find out how bad things are. By this means we
clergymen are able to intelligently warn our flocks.
But I came tonight to hear that rogue Bononcini
you know he is from County Down I used to go to
school with him," and the Dean solemnly passes the
snuffbox 52 52
Garrick here bursts into a laugh, which is broken off
short by a reproving look from the Dean, who has gotten
the snuffbox back and is meditatively tapping it
262
GEORGE HANDEL
again. The friends listen and hear from the muttering
lips of the Dean, this:
Some say that Signore Bononcini,
Compared to Handel is a ninny;
Whilst others vow that to him Handel,
Is hardly fit to hold a candle.
Strange all this difference should be
'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee.
The people are tumbling back to their seats as the
musicians come stringing in. Soon there is a general
tuning up scrapings, toots, snorts, subdued screeches,
raspings, and all that busy buzz-fuzz business of getting
ready to play.
4 The first time we came to the opera Doctor Johnson
thought this was all a part of the play, and applauded
with unction for an encore," says Garrick.
"And I heard nothing finer the whole evening," answers
Doctor Johnson, accepting the defi, and winning by
yielding S& S&
1 Why don't they tune up at home, or behind the
scenes? " asks some one.
" I '11 tell you why," says Savage, and he relates this:
" Handel is a great man for system he is a strict
disciplinarian, as any man must be to manage musicians,
who are neither men nor women, but a third sex. Often
Handel has to knock their heads together, and once he
shook the Cuzzoni until her teeth chattered."
' That 's the way you have to treat any woman before
263
GEORGE HANDEL
she will respect you," interrupts the Dean. Nothing else
being forthcoming, Savage continues: " Handel is abso-
lute master of everything but Death and Destiny. Now
he didn't like all this tuning up before the audience;
he said you might as well expect the prima donna to
make her toilet in front of the curtain "
" I like the idea," says Johnson.
Savage praises the interruption and continues: "And so
ordered every man to tune up his artillery a half-hour
before the performance, and carry his instrument in
and lay it on his chair. Then when it came time to com-
mence, every musician would walk in, take up his
instrument, and begin. The order was given, and all
tuned up. Then the players all adjourned for their
refreshments 33 33
'In the interval a wag entered and threw every
instrument out of key.
'It came time to begin the players marched in like
soldiers. Handel was in his place. He rapped once
every player seized his instrument as though it were a
musket. At the second rap the music began and such
music ! Some of the strings were drawn so tight that they
snapped at the first touch ; others merely flapped ; some
growled; and others groaned and moaned or squealed.
Handel thought the orchestra was just playing him a
scurvy trick. He leaped upon the stage, kicked a hole in
the bass-viol, and smashed the kettledrum around the
neck of the nearest performer. The players fled before
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GEORGE HANDEL
the assault, and he bombarded them with cornets and
French horns as they tumbled down the stairs.
' The audience roared with delight, and not one in
forty guessed that it was not a specially arranged
Italian feature. But since that evening all tuning-up is
done on the stage, and no man lets his instrument get
out of his hands after he gets it right."
4 It 's a moving tale, invented as an excuse for a man
who writes music so bad that he gets disgusted with it
himself, and flies into wrath when he hears it," says
Johnson 3$ 33
A subdued buzz is heard, and the master comes forth,
gorgeous in a suit of purple velvet. His powdered wig
and the enormous silver buckles on his shoes set off his
figure with the proper accent. His florid face is smiling,
and Garrick expresses a regret that there are to be no
impromptu tragic events in way of chasing players from
the stage.
' Would you like to meet him? " asks the sharp-nosed
Dean 33 33
Garrick and Johnson have enough of the rustic in them
to be lion-hunters, and they reply to the question as one
man, " Yes, indeed! "
" I '11 arrange it," was the answer. The leader raps for
attention. Johnson closes his eyes, sighs, and leans back
resignedly.
The others look and listen with interest as the play
proceeds 33 33
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GEORGE HANDEL
HE other day I read a book by Madame
Columbier entitled, " Sara Barnum." Only a
person of worth could draw forth such a fire of
hot invective, biting sarcasm and frenzied
vituperation as this volume contains. When I closed the
volume it was with the feeling that Sara Bernhardt is
surely the greatest woman of the age; and I was fully
resolved that I must see her play at the first opportunity,
no matter what the cost. And as for Madame Columbier,
why she is n't so bad, either! The flashes of lightning in
her swordplay are highly interesting. The book was
born, as all good books, because its mother could not
help it. Behind every page and between the lines you
see the fevered toss of human emotion and hot ambition
these women were rivals. There were digs and
scratches, bandied epithets in falsetto, and sounds like a
piccolo played by a man in distress, before all this ; and
these are not explained, so you have to fill them in with
your imagination. But the Bernhardt is the bigger
woman of the two. She goes her splendid pace alone,
and all the other woman can do is to bombard her with
a book 35 SS
The excellence of Handel is shown in that he achieved
the enmity of some very good men. Read the " Spec-
tator," and you will find its pages well peppered with
thrusts at " foreigners," and sweeping cross-strokes at
Italian Opera and all " bombastic beaters of the air,
who smother harmony with bursts of discord in the
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GEORGE HANDEL
name of music." *J These battles royal between the