1106 lines
52 KiB
Plaintext
1106 lines
52 KiB
Plaintext
17 page printout, page 95 to 111
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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CHAPTER 9
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FROM EIGHTEEN NINETY-SEVEN TO
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EIGHTEEN NINETY-NINE.
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Two lectures, The Truth and A Thanksgiving Sermon, were
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published in 1897.
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The orator's attitude toward the subject of the first, and the
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objects and recipients of his gratitude and thankfulness in the
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second, may be safely left, for the present at least, to inference
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and imagination. These lectures are among the rarest of Ingersoll's
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artistic and intellectual treats.
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Even those whose knowledge of Ingersoll has been derived
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solely from the preceding pages will not be surprised at the
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statement, that, in common with many other individuals of genius,
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he was a passionate lover of music. Of its origin he once said: --
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"Music expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was
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below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
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Beneath the waves is the sea -- above the clouds is the sky.
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"Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had
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hopes and fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in
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tones.
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"Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that music
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was born of love. Had there never been any human affection, there
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never could have been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some
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mother, looking in the eyes of her baby, gave the first melody to
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the enraptured air."
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Could anything be tenderer than the last sentence? It will,
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however, doubtless surprise many to learn, that, at the same time,
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he did not, as he himself remarked, know "one note from another."
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He did not need to know: he had a heart and a brain. By this, I do
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not mean, that, like so many others, he had, in his thorax, merely
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a mechanical apparatus which pumped red ice-water, and, in his
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cranium, merely an extremely accurate physicopsychical contrivance
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for examining and analyzing facts, and forming conclusions. I mean
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that he had feeling and imagination, in their fullest, highest, and
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noblest sense -- the elemental passion, instinct, and insight of
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which all art is born; which can neither be taught nor learned;
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which are coexistent with genius; and which, without knowing why,
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recognize their kind as invariably, as inevitably, as the nodding
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violet catches the image of its perfumed self in the stainless
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bosom of the meadow stream.
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And not only did he have the most fitting and adequate
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appreciation of music of all kinds, from the vocal solo to the
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choral, "from the hand-organ to the orchestra": he could describe
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this appreciation, -- the impressions which music made upon him. In
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the presence of a flower; at sight of a sunset, a star; in the
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hearing of "music yearning like a god in pain," -- most men are
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dumb; but the poet is moved to expression. Proof of the unusually
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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95
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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profound depths to which Ingersoll was stirred by music is not only
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a part of the precious memories of all who were near and dear to
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him; there is an abundance of such proof in his works. This varies
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from the merest fanciful word-picture of tone, melody, harmony, as
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occurring in the simplest pieces, to the most profound, subtle, and
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strangely beautiful conceptions of the greatest productions of the
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greatest composer.
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Thus, in Ingersoll's posthumous writings is this random
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"fragment" in appreciation of the voice of Scalchi: --
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"Imagine amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals
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mingled as liquids -- then imagine these marvelous glories of light
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and color changing to a tone, and you have the wondrous, the
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incomparable voice of Scalchi."
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And this, of "The Organ": --
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"The beginnings -- the timidities -- the half-thoughts --
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blushes -- suggestions -- a phrase of grace and feeling -- a
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sustained note -- the wing on the wind -- confidence -- the flight
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-- rising with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous swell --
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in the passionate tremor -- rising still higher -- flooding the
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great dome with the soul of enraptured sound."
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After reading only these few lines, in the light of previous
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knowledge of their author, can we wonder that many a musician,
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instinct with the artist's yearning for sympathy and approval, was
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drawn to Ingersoll in the ties of a friendship which only death
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could sever? The following "fragment," written in August, 1880, is
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not only most interesting evidence of one such friendship, but
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furnishes additional proof of Ingersoll's high and noble
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appreciation of music, and his ability to convey to others, in
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language as subtly sweet as the strains of the violin itself,
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expressions of that appreciation: --
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"This week the great violinist Edouard Remenyi, as my guest,
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visited the Bass Rocks House, Cape Ann, Mass., and for three days
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delighted and entranced the fortunate idlers of the beach. He
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played nearly all the time, night and day, seemingly carried away
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with his own music. Among the many selections given, were the
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andante from the Tenth Sonata in E flat, also from the Twelfth
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Sonata in G minor, by Mozart. Nothing could exceed the wonderful
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playing of the selections from the Twelfth Sonata. A hush as of
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death fell upon the audience, and when he ceased, tears fell upon
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applauding hands. Then followed the Elegy from Ernst; then 'The
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Ideal Dance' composed by himself -- a fairy piece, full of wings
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and glancing feet, moonlight and melody, where fountains fall in
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showers of pearl, and waves of music die on the sands of gold --
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then came the 'Barcarole' by Schubert, and he played this with
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infinite spirit, in a kind of inspired frenzy, as though music
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itself were mad with joy; then the grand Sonata in G, in three
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movements, by Beethoven."
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"Where fountains fall in showers of pearl,
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And waves of music die on sands of gold."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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96
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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Indeed, the frenzied bow of the master will make its many
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journeys, and we shall linger long in the enchanted realms of
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Wordsworth and Keats and Swinburne, before our senses are pained
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again by a strain so enamored of the Elysian fields.
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In another "fragment," Ingersoll writes of Remenyi's playing:
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"In my mind the old tones are still rising and falling --
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still throbbing, pleading, beseeching, imploring, wailing like the
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lost -- rising winged and triumphant, superb and victorious -- then
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caressing, whispering every thought of love -- intoxicated,
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delirious with joy -- panting with passion -- fading to silence as
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softly and imperceptibly as consciousness is lost in sleep."
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We shall not wonder at the praise bestowed in these
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descriptions if we consider that, at the time of their writing,
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Remenyi, who had just completed a tour of the world, was aglow with
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renewed inspiration naturally incident to personal association with
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the foremost musical masters then living, including Brahms, Liszt,
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and Wagner.
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Remenyi's admiration of, and fondness for, Ingersoll were most
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intense. The violinist was a frequent guest of the orator, whose
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self and family he would delight by the hour with his marvelous
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music. His Liberty is dedicated to Ingersoll; and I once saw an
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envelope that was addressed in Remenyi's peculiar hand, "To Col.
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Robert G. Ingersoll, the World's Brain Progenitor." Remenyi seems
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to have been both as sturdy as a lion and as playful as a kitten.
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Naturally the latter side of his personality was unreservedly
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manifested toward his genial, sunny-hearted friend. This is best
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seen in his amusing and altogether delightful letters. They would
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usually begin with some such salutation as, "Dear Colonellibus," or
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"Dear Ingersollibus," or both, and, after running the gamut of
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affectionate friendship, would end with, "Love to alllll," from
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"Your porridge prodigy and admiring friend, the old fiddler." They
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are, indeed, amusing and delightful. Thus one of them, written in
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Chicago, on February 8, 1892, indulges the hope that Ingersoll (to
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arrive later) may evade the thousands of other friends long enough
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to "come and take lunch with me and my friend Dr. E. H. Pratt, who
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is the very bigggestest surgeon doctor on this Globe." Another
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letter, announcing a prospective visit to "400 (5th Avenue),"
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concludes with the warning: " * * * and then woe to you. I will
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suffocate you with music." One of these communications, not too
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intimate for publication, shall here be introduced in full, and
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without sacrificing (to the ruthless rules of grammar!) a whit of
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the unique musical genius and litterateur who penned it: --
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"73 West 85th Street,
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"N.York.
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"Thursday -- 12 Aug. 1897.
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"To
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"Col. Robert Ingersoll
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"Somewhere
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"Anywhere
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"and
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"Everywhere.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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97
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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Dear Jupiter:
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"Here I is at last in N. York, and I long to see you -- and to
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see you all -- Are you, are you all in good Health, because this
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Health matter is THE thing -- I knows it now, since I have been
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partly -- mostly on the other side -- Now I appreciate my GOOD
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health -- and I take precious good care of it -- and to-day it is
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the 342d day that I am living on milk -- and apples, and rough-
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shoed bread, but which is good enough for me, as it keeps me not
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only in ship-shape order, but through the apples in apple-pie order
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-- without the actual pie entering into my system -- but all this
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is much too much about me -- but what is the principle thing, is,
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that I hope to see you all soon -- whereupon I will conclude my
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present epistolary with my loveable salaams to you, my prophet --
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and to you all --
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"Affectionately
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Yours,
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"Ed Remenyi."
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From this digression, so naturally incidental to Ingersoll's
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appreciation of Remenyi's genius (and vice versa), we turn to
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Ingersoll's appreciation of music in general. In so doing, we come,
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in logical progression, to his description of the Sixth Symphony
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(Beethoven): --
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"This sound-wrought picture of the fields and woods, of
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flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes build and swallows
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fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled lullaby of
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brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their
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daised bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the
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laugh of children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering
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leaves; this strophe of peasant life; this perfect poem of content
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and love."
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Although it seem incredible, there was another music which
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Ingersoll appreciated far more than that referred to in this and
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preceding quotations. That was because there was a far greater
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music. The account of his anticipation and discovery of the latter,
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-- the story of his musical evolution, -- is as interesting as that
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of his intellectual evolution. in Why I Am An Agnostic. He says:--
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"During all my life, of course, like other people, I had heard
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what they call music, and I had my favorite pieces, most of those
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favorite pieces being favorites on account of association; and
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nine-tenths of the music that is beautiful to the world is
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beautiful because of the association; not because the music is
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good, but because of association. * * *
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"Now, I always felt that there must be some greater music
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somewhere, somehow. You know this little music that comes back with
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recurring emphasis every two inches or every three-and-a-half
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inches; I thought there ought to be music somewhere with a great
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sweep from horizon to horizon, and that could fill the great dome
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of sound with winged notes like the eagle; if there was not such
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|
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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98
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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music, somebody, some time, would make it, and I was waiting for
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it. One day I heard it, and I said, 'What music is that?' I felt it
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everywhere. I was cold. I was almost hysterical. It answered to my
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brain and heart; not only to association, but to all there was of
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hope and aspiration, all my future; and they said, 'This is the
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music of Wagner.'"
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Richard Wagner was one of the gods on whose altar Ingersoll
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reverently laid the offerings of his great and tender soul. Had
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Ingersoll been a musician, he would have made as devout a grimage
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to Wagner as Wagner made to Beethoven; and we know, that, had
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Ingersoll arrived in time at the shrine of Wagner, one of the most
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unobtrusive of Americans, as well as one of the most obtrusive of
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Englishmen, would have accompanied "the Shakespeare of music" to
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the home of the blind composer. For the genius of Wagner, Ingersoll
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poured out the same unstinted glorification, which he embellished
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the tombs of Shakespeare, Burns, Voltaire, and Lincoln: "Some
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things," he said, "are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the
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marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner." He went even
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further than this; he declared it as his belief, that the human
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mind had reached its limit in the three departments concerned. It
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was his unqualified opinion, notwithstanding his confidence in the
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future splendor of our race, that man would never produce "anything
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greater, sublimer, than the marbles of the Greeks" nor the dramas
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of Shakespeare, and that the time would never come "when any man,
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with such instruments of music as we now have, and having nothing
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but the common air that we now breathe, will * * * produce greater
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pictures in sound, greater music, than Wagner. Never! Never!" And
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why did Ingersoll hold this opinion? Because he believed that the
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Greek sculptors and Shakespeare and Wagner had expressed in marble,
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language, and sound, respectively, all that the heart and brain
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ever were, are, or ever will be, capable of appreciating. He
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believed, that, just as the air gets from the earth and the ocean
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as much only as it is capable of receiving; so there is a limit to
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what the soul can receive from the oceans and continents of music:
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and he believed that this limit, -- the supreme degree of harmonic
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saturation, -- the dew-point of melody, -- was, and forever would
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be, Richard Wagner.
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Without a demonstration, it were difficult to believe that
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even Ingersoll could have expressed in common words more fitting
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and wonderful descriptions of music, -- that he could have woven in
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imagination's loom more subtly rare and delicate conceptions, --
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than those which have been quoted. But his felicity of description,
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always apace with his appreciation, has given us the following
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justification of "the music of the future": --
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"In Wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the
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infinite. The melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer
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clouds, and weird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought
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by fitful winds, and others moan like waves on desolate shores, and
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mingled with these, are shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and
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ripples of laughter, and the wondrous voices of eternal love."
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After the following poetic vision can we wonder at Ingersoll's
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opinion, that Wagner will remain eternally supreme -- that he has
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expressed in sound all that the heart and brain of man are capable
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of receiving? --
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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99
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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"When I listen to the music of Wagner, I see pictures, forms,
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glimpses of the perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast,
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the glance of an eye. I am in the midst of great galleries. Before
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me are passing the endless panoramas. I see vast landscapes with
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vollies of verdure and vine, with souring crags, snow-covered. I am
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on the wide seas, where countless billows burst into the whitecaps
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of joy. I am in the depths of caverns roofed with mighty crags,
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while through some rent I see the eternal stars. In a moment the
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music becomes a river of melody, flowing through some wondrous
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land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the mighty cataract
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is changed to seven-hued foam."
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If all of Ingersoll's critics could see half as much in fifty
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actual landscape-paintings, what a wondrously artistic people we
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should be!
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And who, after viewing this picture of the dawn, will not
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derive a nobler, grander delight from the music of Wagner? Who will
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not see in the latter the glimmer of the morning-star, the
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retreating darkness, and catch the light-like shimmer of melody
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from the violins? --
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"The music of Wagner has color, and when I hear the violins,
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the morning seems to slowly come. A horn puts a star above the
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horizon. The night, in the purple hum of the base, wanders away
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like some enormous bee across wide fields of dead clover. The light
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grows whiter as the violins increase. Colors come from other
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instruments, and then the full orchestra floods the world with
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day."
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Next to the composer of divine harmonies, -- the sculptor in
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sound, -- the painter in viewless air; next to him who, in nature's
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every tone, -- from the first faint whisper when April amorous
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smiles, to the monstrous thunder-sobs of night, -- tells of the
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joys and sorrows, the loves and hatreds, the despair, the hopes,
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the aspirations and the triumphs, -- the sunlit shallows and the
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murky deeps of human life -- next to him is his interpreter. For,
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although the composer is the only one who seeks expression in a
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universal tongue, he is the very one who is least often understood.
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He has many readers, but few interpreters. Millions read his notes
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on paper; but few there are who read them in his heart and brain,
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-- who really and truly feel and understand them, -- and whose own
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emotion and intellect are the inevitable medium of their perfect
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and instinctive interpretation.
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So it is, after all, the interpreter who enables the lover of
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music to enjoy the genius of his favorite master; and Ingersoll
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regarded Anton Seidl as not only the greatest leader in the world,
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but "the noblest, tenderest and the most artistic interpreter" of
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Wagner that had ever lived. When this prince of conductors raised
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his baton, Ingersoll was enraptured. Of all the Wagnerian numbers,
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he was fondest of Tristan und Isolde, that Mississippi of melody."
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A gentleman who was intimately associated with Ingersoll told the
|
||
author, that, on many occasions, during the rendition of this and
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other Wagnerian compositions by Seidl's or chestra, he had seen
|
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"the Colonel" entirely overcome, the tears coursing down his
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cheeks. That was because he was a perfectly developed human being,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
100
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
with all the emotions equally responsive. As he naturally and
|
||
necessarily laughed at the risible, so he naturally and necessarily
|
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wept at the sad; and "Great music is always sad, because it tells
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us the perfect; and such is the difference between what we are and
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that which music suggests, that even in the vase of joy we find
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some tears." It was the same with him when in the presence of
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beauty in any other art. But not to digress: Seidl himself once
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said, that, of all the people whom he had met, Ingersoll was the
|
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most sensitive to music. The following incident is here in point.
|
||
After a Philharmonic concert, at which selections from Parsifal
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were given, and which Ingersoll and family attended, all, including
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Seidl, were seated in the Ingersoll home.
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"Everything seemed to be all right tonight, Seidl, except the
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harp," remarked Ingersoll, adding as to where, in his judgment, it
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should have been placed with relation to the other instruments.
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"Great God!" exclaimed the conductor, springing to his feet. "You
|
||
are the only man, but one, whom I have ever heard make that
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criticism, and that man was Richard Wagner!"
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Aware of suck musical sensitiveness as this on Ingersoll's
|
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part, can we wonder, I ask again, at his opinion that Wagner had
|
||
expressed in sound all that the heart and brain of man are capable
|
||
of receiving? And can we wonder that he formed with Anton Seidl
|
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another of those friendships which was severed only by death, --
|
||
the death of the great interpreter?
|
||
|
||
As had been the case on the death of Whitman, Ingersoll was
|
||
absent from home; and the cold, laconic click of the telegraph told
|
||
him of the death of Seidl. But who would not have recognized,
|
||
regardless of its date and signature, the author of the following
|
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telegram, which was sent to Mrs. Seidl from Pittsburgh, on March
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30, 1898? --
|
||
|
||
"We know that your heart is breaking. Our tears fall not only
|
||
for him, but for you. It does not seem possible that the wonderful
|
||
brain in which dwelt the greatest harmonies -- the divinest
|
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melodies -- has passed to the silence of death. Do not despair. You
|
||
have left a wreath of sacred memories and many friends. We clasp
|
||
your empty hands."
|
||
|
||
As this message would indicate, and as would naturally be
|
||
inferred from all that precedes it, the death of Seidl touched
|
||
Ingersoll sadly and profoundly. If we can properly apply here the
|
||
well known psychological truth, that an individual suffers to the
|
||
same extent that he enjoys, then the death of Seidl, who had for
|
||
many years been the very source of some of Ingersoll's keenest
|
||
joys, must indeed have been to the latter a deep and bitter sorrow.
|
||
|
||
As we have seen, it had for more than twenty years been
|
||
Ingersoll's practice to speak, in person, words of love and eulogy
|
||
above his dead. On the death of Seidl, however, he was unable to be
|
||
present in New York; and there was not time to communicate by mail.
|
||
His tribute to the great conductor is therefore notable not only
|
||
for being the only one which Ingersoll ever delivered in absentia,
|
||
but the only one which he or any one else, perhaps, ever delivered
|
||
through the media of the telegraph and a reader.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
101
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
Since 1846, many millions of telegrams have been transmitted;
|
||
but it is more than probable that the following, filed at Wheeling,
|
||
W. Va., on March 30, 1898, is the most wonderful of them all: --
|
||
|
||
"In the noon and zenith of his career, in the flush and glory
|
||
of success, Anton Seidl, the greatest orchestral leader of all
|
||
time, the perfect interpreter of Wagner, of all his subtlety and
|
||
sympathy, his heroism and grandeur, his intensity and limitless
|
||
passion, his wondrous harmonies that tell of all there is in life,
|
||
and touch the longings and the hopes of every heart, has passed
|
||
from the shores of sound to the realm of silence, born by the
|
||
mysterious and resistless tide that ever ebbs but never flows.
|
||
|
||
"All moods were his. Delicate as the perfume of the first
|
||
violet, wild as the storm, he knew the music of all sounds, from
|
||
the rustle of leaves, the whisper of hidden springs, to the voices
|
||
of the sea.
|
||
|
||
"He was the master of music, from the rhythmical strains of
|
||
irresponsible joy to the sob of the funeral march.
|
||
|
||
"He stood like a king with his scepter in his hand, and we
|
||
know that every tone and harmony were in his brain, every passion
|
||
in his breast, and yet his sculptured face was calm, as serene as
|
||
perfect art. He mingled his soul with the music and gave his heart
|
||
to the enchanted air.
|
||
|
||
"He appeared to have no limitations, no walls, no chains. He
|
||
seemed to follow the pathway of desire, and the marvelous melodies,
|
||
the sublime harmonies, were as free as eagles above the clouds with
|
||
outstretched wings.
|
||
|
||
"He educated, refined, and gave unspeakable joy to many
|
||
thousands of his fellow-men. He added to the grace and glory of
|
||
life. He spoke a language deeper, more poetic than words -- the
|
||
language of the perfect, the language of love and death.
|
||
|
||
"But he is voiceless now; a fountain of harmony has ceased.
|
||
Its inspired strains have died away in night, and all its murmuring
|
||
melodies are strangely still.
|
||
|
||
"We will mourn for him, we will honor him, not in words, but
|
||
in the language that he used.
|
||
|
||
"Anton Seidl is dead. Play the grand funeral march. Envelope
|
||
him in music. Let its wailing waves cover him. Let its wild and
|
||
mournful winds sigh and moan above him. Give his face to its kisses
|
||
and its tears.
|
||
|
||
"Play the great funeral march, music as profound as death.
|
||
That will express our sorrow -- that will voice our love, our hope,
|
||
and that will tell of the life, the triumph, the genius, the death
|
||
of Anton Seidl."
|
||
|
||
Before the echoes of the last sentence, -- the last crescendo,
|
||
-- died away, the conductor of the orchestra raised his baton; and
|
||
the first strains of the Siegfried march mingled the sorrow of the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
102
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
greatest composer "for all the dead" with the sorrow of the
|
||
greatest orator for Anton Seidl.
|
||
|
||
3.
|
||
|
||
Superstition was delivered, for the first time, on Sunday
|
||
October 16th, in Chicago. In this lecture, Ingersoll surveyed, with
|
||
the intuitive instinct and insight of the poet, -- the analytical
|
||
penetration and astronomical scope of the philosopher, -- the
|
||
entire realm of thought. With reason as his standard, guide, and
|
||
touchstone, he began, as he invariably did, at the foundation, by
|
||
specifying the several mental operations which must be classed as
|
||
superstition; and he declared: "The foundation of superstition is
|
||
ignorance, the superstructure is faith, and the dome is a vain
|
||
hope." He then analytically examined, as typical, many of the
|
||
superstitions of mankind, -- from that of the simple female, to
|
||
that of the learned theologian "of the most authentic creed"; and
|
||
he placed all on precisely the same intellectual plane. He found
|
||
that there is as much evidence for the belief that the dropping of
|
||
a dishcloth from the hand of a woman means "company" as for the
|
||
belief that the dropping of a world from the hand of Time means an
|
||
Infinite Personality independent of and superior to nature. There
|
||
was as much philosophical profundity in the mind of the girl who
|
||
counts the leaves of a flower and says; "'One, he comes; two, he
|
||
tarries; three, he courts; four, he marries; five, he goes away,'"
|
||
as there was in the mind of the theological astronomer who sees in
|
||
the glimmer of a distant sun the image of the "Great First Cause."
|
||
A shower of petals in the sunlight, from the dimpled hand of a
|
||
maiden, was just as convincing as a shower of stars from the hand
|
||
of Time, in the dusky dome of night. In nature's infinite realm --
|
||
throughout the thoughtless eons past -- nothing had occurred, or
|
||
had failed to occur, with reference to man. So far as "design,"
|
||
"plan," and "purpose" were concerned, a man and a petal were the
|
||
same. Hence, to believe in any form, phase, or manifestation of the
|
||
supernatural, was simply superstition.
|
||
|
||
But this lecture was something more than a classification, --
|
||
something more than a declaration as to what is, and what is not,
|
||
superstition. As the latter, born of ignorance, had given us, in
|
||
its multifarious forms, all there is of evil; so science, born of
|
||
intelligence, had given us all there is of good. We must therefore
|
||
abandon superstition and the supernatural, and depend absolutely
|
||
upon intelligence and the natural, -- upon reason and science: --
|
||
|
||
"Science is the real redeemer. It will put honesty above
|
||
hypocrisy; mental veracity above all belief. It will teach the
|
||
religion of usefulness. It will destroy bigotry in all its forms.
|
||
It will put thoughtful above thoughtless faith. It will give us
|
||
philosophers, thinkers and savants, instead of priests, theologians
|
||
and saints. It will abolish poverty and crime, and greater,
|
||
grander, nobler than all else, it will make the whole world free."
|
||
|
||
This, in brief, was the positive element of the lecture, --
|
||
its cardinal conclusion. But it contained many minor ones; and of
|
||
these, the most startling to theologians, if not the most
|
||
important, concerned the Prince of Darkness. It was declared by
|
||
Ingersoll, after a most critical examination of the Bible, that, --
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
103
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
notwithstanding the terrible evils which have always followed, and
|
||
which must ever follow, belief in the supernatural, in miracles,
|
||
inspiration, signs and wonders, amulets and charms, witchcraft,
|
||
evil spirits, and all the rest of superstition's brood, -- the
|
||
Christian world could not deny the existence of the Devil; that he
|
||
was really "the keystone of the arch"; and that to take him away
|
||
was to destroy the entire system.
|
||
|
||
"A great many clergymen answered or criticized this statement.
|
||
Some of these ministers avowed their belief in the existence of his
|
||
Satanic Majesty, while others actually denied his existence; but
|
||
some, without stating their own position, said that others
|
||
believed, not in the existence of a personal devil, but in the
|
||
personification of evil, and that all references to the Devil in
|
||
the Scriptures could be explained on the hypothesis that the Devil
|
||
thus alluded to was simply a personification of evil."
|
||
|
||
That the clergy ever made a greater mistake with reference to
|
||
Ingersoll than in assuming this attitude concerning the Devil, is
|
||
very doubtful. "But what were the clergy to do?" may be asked. The
|
||
answer is easy. There was but one thing that they wisely and
|
||
consistently could have done: they could have kept silence. This
|
||
would, indeed, have been "golden." But they had evidently gained no
|
||
prudence from My Reviewers Reviewed; from the experiences of Black,
|
||
Field, Gladstone, and Manning; nor from those afforded by A
|
||
Christmas Sermon and Is Suicide A Sin? They had not learned, even
|
||
yet, that there was only one thing for them to do with Ingersoll,
|
||
-- leave him entirely alone. Had they done this, they would have
|
||
been given "the benefit of the doubt," as far as belief in the
|
||
physical existence of the Devil was concerned; the comparatively
|
||
few specific remarks on that subject in Superstition would not have
|
||
been multiplied; and all would have remained relatively well. As it
|
||
transpired, their evasive and shifting criticisms, -- their attempt
|
||
literally to "beat the Devil around the stump," -- so amused the
|
||
Great Agnostic's sense of justice and mental honesty as to bring
|
||
forth one of his most formidable rejoinders. While Superstition was
|
||
comparatively brief, and weaker on any given point than it would
|
||
have been had its author not been obliged to deal with the many
|
||
aspects and phases of the subject, his rejoinder, a lecture
|
||
entitled The Devil, was not only comparatively long and exhaustive,
|
||
but exclusively devoted to a single aspect of superstition. It was
|
||
first delivered on Sunday February 5th (1899), in New York.
|
||
|
||
"When I read these answers," said Ingersoll, referring, in the
|
||
beginning of this lecture, to the statements of the clergymen
|
||
concerning his own remarks on the Devil in Superstition, "I thought
|
||
of this line from Heine: 'Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride
|
||
on Christ.'"
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll then reviewed the history of demonology. He showed
|
||
that all the devils, great and small, like all the gods, were
|
||
created by mankind that they were inferred from nature by savages
|
||
-- sculptured by fear and terror from injurious phenomena. He
|
||
showed that Christianity obtained its particular devil from the
|
||
Jews, who brought him from Babylon; that the Old Testament teaches
|
||
the existence of a real living Devil, not of "a personification of
|
||
evil"; that, according to this book, the Devil once lived in
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
104
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
Heaven, raised a rebellion, and was cast out; that "it is
|
||
impossible to explain him away without at the same time explaining
|
||
God away"; that had it not been for the Devil, there would have
|
||
been no Christ; that, as a matter of fact, "the religion known as
|
||
'Christianity' was invented by God himself to repair in part the
|
||
wreck and ruin that had resulted from the Devil's work."
|
||
|
||
He declared, that, on the subject of the existence of a real
|
||
Devil, "the New Testament is far more explicit than the Old." He
|
||
pointed out, that Christ was tempted in the wilderness and on the
|
||
mountain, not by "a personification of evil," but by the Devil, who
|
||
"knew that Christ was God, and knew that Christ knew that the
|
||
tempter was the Devil." "If," said Ingersoll, "Christ was not
|
||
tempted by the Devil, then the temptation was born in his own
|
||
heart. If that be true, can it be said that he was divine? If these
|
||
adders, these vipers, were coiled in his bosom, was he the Son of
|
||
God? Was he pure?" Ingersoll also showed, by the gospels, that not
|
||
only the writers thereof, but Christ himself, believed in the
|
||
existence of a real Devil, and of innumerable little devils; that
|
||
the principal occupation of Christ was the casting out of devils;
|
||
and that, therefore, if the Devil does not exist, the New Testament
|
||
is not inspired, the fall of man is a mistake, the atonement is an
|
||
absurdity, and "Christ was either honestly mistaken, insane or an
|
||
impostor."
|
||
|
||
Of course, I have recited only a small part of the arguments
|
||
which the Great Agnostic brought forward on the point concerned;
|
||
but even these few will suffice to indicate the utter folly of his
|
||
clerical critics in breaking silence -- the consummate ease with
|
||
which he refuted their assertion, "that all references to the Devil
|
||
in the Scriptures could be explained on the hypothesis that the
|
||
Devil thus alluded to was simply a personification of evil," and
|
||
with what similar ease he defended, at the same time, the thesis
|
||
laid down in Superstition, "that the Christian world could not deny
|
||
the existence of the Devil, that the Devil was really the keystone
|
||
of the arch, and that to take him away was to destroy the entire
|
||
system."
|
||
|
||
Following as it did within four months the delivery of
|
||
Superstition, this lecture on The Devil affords, in its acutely
|
||
reasoned main text, and in the manner in which it was brought to a
|
||
close, another typical example, not only of the Great Agnostic's
|
||
controversial resourcefulness, but of the versatility of his
|
||
genius.
|
||
|
||
"What poem was that with which 'the Colonel' closed?" was
|
||
asked of one of Ingersoll's associates, who had not heard the
|
||
lecture delivered.
|
||
|
||
"I do not know," answered the latter, adding, in effect, that
|
||
he supposed it to be a quotation from one of the poets.
|
||
|
||
The inquirer replied, in substance, that he did not think so;
|
||
that the poem consisted of many stanzas; and that they were not
|
||
from any poet with whom he was familiar. When Ingersoll was seen,
|
||
soon afterwards, he was asked by the associate about the poem in
|
||
question. He replied that it was something which he had written
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
105
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
that afternoon, before the lecture. It was then recalled that "the
|
||
Colonel" was writing for a time, in the afternoon, at a desk in the
|
||
room in which the usual conversation was going on among friends and
|
||
members of the family. He had written a poem of eighteen stanzas,
|
||
-- 108 verses, -- entitling it the Declaration of the Free.
|
||
Evidently intended, in the main, as a rebuke for his clerical
|
||
critics of Superstition, it is, to that extent, essentially
|
||
didactic. Nevertheless, it is by no means destitute of real poetic
|
||
quality. Ingersoll preceded its recitation by the sentence, "Let me
|
||
now give you the declaration of a creed." I quote the first, fifth,
|
||
fifteenth, and last stanzas: --
|
||
|
||
"We have no falsehoods to defend --
|
||
We want the facts;
|
||
Our force, our thought, we do not spend
|
||
In vain attacks.
|
||
And we will never meanly try
|
||
To save some fair and pleasing lie.
|
||
|
||
* * * * *
|
||
"We have no master on the land --
|
||
No king in air --
|
||
Without a manicle we stand,
|
||
Without a prayer,
|
||
Without a fear of coming night,
|
||
We seek the truth, we love the light.
|
||
|
||
* * * * *
|
||
|
||
"The hands that help are better far
|
||
Than lips that pray.
|
||
Love is the ever gleaming star
|
||
That leads the way,
|
||
That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss,
|
||
But on paradise in this.
|
||
|
||
* * * * *
|
||
|
||
"Is there beyond the silent night
|
||
An endless day?
|
||
Is death a door that leads to light?
|
||
We cannot say.
|
||
The tongueless secret locked in fate
|
||
We do not know. -- We hope and wait."
|
||
|
||
This was his last poem -- in verse.
|
||
|
||
4.
|
||
|
||
On June 2d of this year (1899), he delivered before the
|
||
American Free Religious Association, in the Hollis Street Theater,
|
||
Boston, an address on What is Religion? many clergymen being
|
||
comprised in the audience.
|
||
|
||
To a correct knowledge of his mental tendencies throughout his
|
||
career as a rationalistic reformer, it is as essential as it is
|
||
interesting to note that this, his last public utterance on
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
106
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
religion, differs from his first, Progress, chiefly in being far
|
||
more radical. Following is its noble and heroic peroration: --
|
||
|
||
"Religion can never reform mankind, because religion is
|
||
slavery.
|
||
|
||
"It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and
|
||
barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a
|
||
smile.
|
||
|
||
"It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to
|
||
drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to
|
||
think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the
|
||
breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the
|
||
picture-gallery of the brain,to feel once more the clasp and kisses
|
||
of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms
|
||
and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years,
|
||
to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your
|
||
veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic
|
||
beating of your fearless heart.
|
||
|
||
"And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach
|
||
with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies
|
||
wings, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the
|
||
weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for
|
||
facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the
|
||
now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the week, to
|
||
develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a place for the
|
||
soul.
|
||
|
||
"This is real religion. This is real worship."
|
||
|
||
Nine years before, or on June 23, 1890, in an interview
|
||
published in The Post-Express of Rochester, N.Y., appeared the
|
||
following: --
|
||
|
||
"Question. -- If you should write your last sentence on
|
||
religious topics, what would be your closing?"
|
||
|
||
"Answer. -- I now, in the presence of death, affirm and
|
||
reaffirm the truth of all that I have said against the
|
||
superstitions of the world. I would say at least that much on the
|
||
subject with my last breath."
|
||
|
||
In conjunction with this and the preceding quotation, the
|
||
following letter to Clinton J. Robins (Dayton, O.) is of
|
||
interesting significance, especially if we consider its date: --
|
||
|
||
"New York, July 13, 1899.
|
||
|
||
"C.J. Robins, Esq.
|
||
|
||
"Dear Sir: First accept my thousand thanks for your good
|
||
letter. The only trouble is that it is too flattering. You are
|
||
right in thinking that I have not changed. I still believe that all
|
||
religions are based on falsehoods and mistakes. I still deny the
|
||
existence of the supernatural, and I still say that real religion
|
||
is usefulness. Thanking you again, I remain
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
107
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"Yours always,
|
||
|
||
"R.G. Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
His last public appearance was on June 21st, at Camden, N.J.,
|
||
in an argument before the vice-chancellor of that state, in the
|
||
case of Russell versus Russell. During this argument, made on
|
||
behalf of Mrs. Russell, in connection with the disposition of her
|
||
deceased husband's estate, Ingersoll declared, as he had so often
|
||
done before, that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, was
|
||
"the holiest and the most beautiful" thing in nature -- that it had
|
||
given us "all there is of value in the world."
|
||
|
||
So, too, his last letter, like his last legal, his last
|
||
religious, and his last political address, breathes the same
|
||
sentiments that, with steadfast nobility and heroism, he had voiced
|
||
throughout his life.
|
||
|
||
The letter, addressed to the editor of the Clarion (Mr.
|
||
William Matlock), Chester, Ill., is as follows: --
|
||
|
||
"'Walston,'
|
||
"Dobbs' Ferry-on-Hudson,
|
||
|
||
"July 20, '99.
|
||
|
||
"Editor Clarion.
|
||
|
||
"My Dear Sir: I enclose a clipping from your paper, Of course
|
||
you copied it from some exchange.
|
||
|
||
"The words attributed to me I never uttered or wrote.
|
||
|
||
"'I have one sentiment for soldiers; -- Cheers for the living
|
||
and tears for the dead.' This is mine -- but all the rest is by
|
||
some one else.
|
||
|
||
"It is true that I think the treatment of the Filipinos wrong
|
||
-- foolish. It is also true that I do not want the Filipinos if
|
||
they do not want us. I believe in expansion -- if it is honest.
|
||
|
||
"I want Cuba if the Cubans want us.
|
||
|
||
"At the same time, I think our forces should be immediately
|
||
withdrawn from Cuba, and the people of that island allowed to
|
||
govern themselves. We waged the war against Spain for liberty --
|
||
for right -- and we must bear the laurel unstained.
|
||
|
||
"Yours always,
|
||
|
||
R.G. Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
Could fate have decreed that the champion of liberty, justice,
|
||
and humanity should write his last letter on a more fitting theme?
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
108
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
5.
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||
|
||
It was pointed out in the beginning of Chapter VI, that one of
|
||
the most remarkable exceptions which nature made in the case of
|
||
Ingersoll was his intellectual vigor and productiveness during "the
|
||
afternoon of life." These were undeminishingly manifest until
|
||
November 16, 1896. In the evening of that date, however, while
|
||
delivering a lecture at Janesville, Wis., he experienced a cerebral
|
||
hemorrhage. Its immediate effect was wholly subjective, and did not
|
||
prevent the completion of the discourse. He continued to lecture,
|
||
on his original itinerary, for a few days, when, at the
|
||
solicitation of his family, he went to Chicago and consulted Dr.
|
||
Frank Billings, one of the faculty of the Northwestern University
|
||
Medical School. Dr. Billings advised him to go home and rest two
|
||
months, which he did, resuming his lectures on January 24, 1897.
|
||
About this time, he developed angina pectoris, from which he became
|
||
an intense sufferer.
|
||
|
||
For a number of years, he had been in the practice of spending
|
||
the summer at "Walston," a charming country-seat, which, taking its
|
||
name from his son-in-law, Mr. Walston B. Brown, is situated on the
|
||
highlands of the Hudson, a little more than a mile from the village
|
||
of Dobbs' Ferry. At "Walston," beauty seems omnipresent. To the
|
||
west, the river lies like a great string of pearls placed by some
|
||
huge Wontan on the breast of a sleeping Brunnhilde.
|
||
|
||
"Surrounded by pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those
|
||
I have loved, I hope to end my days. And this I hope may be the lot
|
||
of all who hear my voice," said Ingersoll in 1877. Was the heart of
|
||
destiny touched to fulfillment by this tender and generous wish?
|
||
|
||
During the night of Thursday and Friday July 20th and 21,
|
||
1899, at "Walston," Ingersoll had an attack of acute indigestion,
|
||
sleeping very little, and suffering great pain, which he sought to
|
||
relieve with nitroglycerine, previously prescribed; but he went to
|
||
breakfast in the morning, and afterwards sat on the veranda, as he
|
||
was wont to do, reading and talking with the family.
|
||
|
||
About ten-thirty he remarked that he would lie down and rest
|
||
awhile, and would then return and play pool with his son-in-law.
|
||
Mrs. Ingersoll accompanied her husband up-stairs to their bedroom
|
||
and remained with him while he slept.
|
||
|
||
About eleven-forty-five he arose and sat in his chair to put
|
||
on his shoes. Miss Sue Skarkey, a member of the family, entered the
|
||
room, followed by Mrs. Ingersoll's sister, Mrs. Sue M. Farrell.
|
||
|
||
Mrs. Ingersoll said: "Do not dress, Papa, until after luncheon
|
||
-- I will eat up-stairs with you."
|
||
|
||
He replied: "Oh, no; I do not want to trouble you."
|
||
|
||
Mrs. Farrell then remarked: "How absurd, after the hundreds of
|
||
times you have eaten upstairs with her."
|
||
|
||
He glanced laughingly at Mrs. Farrell, as she turned to leave
|
||
the room; and then Mrs. Ingersoll said: "Why, Papa, your tongue is
|
||
coated -- I must give you some medicine."
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
109
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
He looked up at her with a smile and said, "I am better now,"
|
||
and, as he did so, closed his eyes.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: These were the exact last words said by Robert's
|
||
brother Ebon Ingersoll]
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll was dead.
|
||
|
||
The light of a hemisphere was out.
|
||
|
||
But, companioning that of Shakespeare, another star gleamed in
|
||
the fadeless galaxy of the immortals.
|
||
|
||
Since Ingersoll's death, which was caused by angina pectoris,
|
||
it has been learned that, throughout the two and a half years
|
||
preceding, he possessed exact knowledge of his physical condition.
|
||
He had been told by his physicians that he was likely to die at any
|
||
moment; but, earnestly entreating them to tell no one else, he kept
|
||
the awful secret from his loved ones. Nor does this alone indicate
|
||
his concern for their happiness. Although fully realizing that
|
||
death was ever beside him, he was always very cheerful, and when
|
||
asked as to his health invariably replied, "All right."
|
||
|
||
Seven years before the development of the disease that caused
|
||
his death, he said: --
|
||
|
||
"It is a great thing to preach philosophy -- for greater to
|
||
live it. The highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a
|
||
smile, and greets it as thought it were desired."
|
||
|
||
As soon as poignant and overwhelming grief would permit, it
|
||
was decided that the funeral should be private and the extreme of
|
||
simplicity Accordingly, at four o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday
|
||
July 25th, -- a little more than four day after his death, -- his
|
||
family and thirty or forty friends gathered in the room in which he
|
||
died, and in which the body, without casket or conventional shroud,
|
||
rested upon a bier, -- rested "beneath a wilderness of flowers."
|
||
These had come, in mute expression of sympathy, boundless
|
||
admiration, and love, from men and women of all stations, in
|
||
various parts of America and Europe. And these flowers were to pay,
|
||
in voiceless fragrance and beauty, the only tribute not born of the
|
||
once warm heart of the dead himself. For those of the living to
|
||
whom he had been dearer even than life itself, knew that in his own
|
||
immortal words, if in any, there was solace, -- the only solace
|
||
that their grief could bear. It was therefore arranged to read
|
||
three selections from his works. The first the Declaration of the
|
||
Free, was read by Professor John Clark Ridpath; the second, My
|
||
Religion, by Major Orlando J. Smith; and the third, A Tribute to
|
||
Ebon C. Ingersoll, by Dr. John Lovejoy Elliott. This constituted
|
||
the only service or ceremony at "Walston" or elsewhere.
|
||
|
||
On the morning of Thursday July 27th, it being realized that
|
||
the last look at the idolized dead could nut longer be postponed,
|
||
the body was borne by loving hands to a hearse, which, followed by
|
||
five carriages containing the family and friends, proceeded, at
|
||
eight forty-five, to the railroad-station in Dobbs' Ferry. As the
|
||
cortege passed through the village, business was suspended and
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
110
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
blinds were drawn. Scores of men along the streets removed their
|
||
hats. At the station, the casket and party were transferred to the
|
||
funeral car "Kensico" and one coach, both of which (as a special
|
||
train) Mr. S. R. Calloway, the president of the road, had begged to
|
||
place at the disposal of the family. At the Grand Central Station,
|
||
New York, the casket and party were again transferred to hearse and
|
||
carriages; the cortege proceeding, via the East Twenty-third Street
|
||
ferry and Greenpoint, Long Island, to the Fresh Pond crematory. The
|
||
latter was reached at eleven-thirty; and about four in the
|
||
afternoon the ashes were received in an urn which the family had
|
||
specially provided, and with which they returned to "Walston."
|
||
|
||
The urn, resting on a base of porphyry six inches square and
|
||
two and a half inches deep, is of rich bronze, nineteen inches
|
||
high, and ovoid in form, the largest diameter near the top. From
|
||
the lower face upward and backward over the left side twines a
|
||
branch of cypress, and around the top on the right side is a sprig
|
||
of laurel, both in exquisite bas-relief. On the face is engraved:
|
||
|
||
L'urne garde
|
||
La poussiere,
|
||
Le coeur
|
||
Le souvenir
|
||
|
||
and on the back:
|
||
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
The urn guards the ashes, the heart the memory of Robert G.
|
||
Ingersoll. And so the urn does; and -- so does the heart.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom, Inc. (C) 1990
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
111
|
||
|