III

FALLING IN LOVE

I AM attracted to my present theme by the merest freak of circumstance. I was shown a most interesting letter. As I read that letter I felt as one might feel who is suddenly transported to Mexico or Tibet. Everything was absolutely foreign to me. The language was unfamiliar, and the atmosphere was one which I had never breathed. As a matter of fact, it was the letter of an accomplished pianist concerning music and musicians. The writer lives, moves, and has her being in a world which, I blush to confess, I have never invaded. A message from Mars could not have possessed greater novelty. But let me hasten to the point. The writer speaks of her acquaintance with a certain eminent pianist whose recitals crowd the most spacious auditoriums in Europe with ecstatic admirers. But, our correspondent goes on to say, there is just one thing lacking. This brilliant pianist is a lonely, taciturn man, and a certain coldness and aloofness steal into his play. And then the writer of our letter mentions the name of a lady pianist. That name is a household word in musical circles the wide world over; and the writer says that, to her personal knowledge, this illustrious lady one day laid her hand on the shoulder of the brilliant young performer, and said: ‘Will you let me tell you, my boy, that your playing lacks one thing. So far you have missed the greatest thing in the world. And, unless you fall in love, there will always be a certain cold perfection about your music. Unless you come to love another human being passionately and unselfishly, you will never touch human hearts as deeply as you might.’

 Now I have confessed that when I read the letter in the presence of the person to whom it was addressed, I felt myself a pilgrim in a foreign clime, as much abroad as an Esquimaux in Italy. But even an Esquimaux in Italy would at least be interested, would look about and stare if he did not understand. I found myself similarly arrested. Then, becoming sceptical, I turned to the recipient of the letter and asked him if a very liberal discount might not reasonably be deducted in consideration of the pardonable enthusiasm and excusable exaggeration of so attached a musical devotee? Did not imagination count for some- thing? ‘Well!’ replied he, ‘the singular thing is that the writer of the letter was a pupil of the illustrious lady pianist to whom she refers. One day, at the conclusion of a lesson, the pupil looked up into the face of her teacher and told her that she had a secret to reveal. ‘I know you have,’ replied the instructor, ‘although it is no secret.’ The girl told of her engagement ‘Yes’,  answered the teacher, ‘but it is not quite new; it is some time ago!’ ‘That is so, but however did you know?’ ‘I noticed the difference in your playing at once, and I have observed the change ever since. I was wondering when you were going to tell me!’

 I am still a stranger in a strange land. The flowers wear strange hues; the birds are of unfamiliar plumage and of unaccustomed song; I do not understand the ways of the people; I cannot speak their language; I am all abroad, and hopelessly lost. But I have been here long enough to satisfy myself that, strange as it all is, the country is a real country. The things at which I marvel are real things. I am not being tricked by a mirage. It is no illusion; I do not dream.

 It is worth thinking about, partly because the same sort of thing is to be met with in other realms than in that of music. It is not merely that love lends to life a new interest, a new rapture, or even a new outlook. Everybody recalls the lines of Tennyson’s ‘Lover’ :

Let no one ask me how it came to pass,
It seems that I am happy, that for me
A greener emerald twinkles in the grass,
A bluer sapphire melts into the sea.

 But the suggestion in the letter that lies before me goes further than that. It means, if it means anything, that love liberates powers which before were simply latent. An Arctic explorer has recently drawn our attention to a most singular phenomenon. He tells us that some years ago a party of British sailors landed on an isle in the frozen North, and, by some mischance, set fire to the stunted vegetation that scantily clothed the inhospitable place. They left it a bare and blackened rock. A few years later another party landed and found it clothed with a forest of silver birch-trees, with stems that glittered in the sunlight and leaves that quivered in the wind. It was a scene of sylvan loveliness. The flames had awakened slumbering seeds which, in the cruel grip of the icy cold, had lain dormant throughout the years. The wilderness had blossomed like the rose. Now the letter suggests that, when the soul of a man is stirred and swept by life’s most masterful passion, new and unsuspected powers spring into activity and fruition.

 Two instances leap to mind. I suppose Scottish literature holds no lovelier gem than the famous letter of Dr. John Brown to Dr. John Cairns. It is printed in Rob and his Friends. In that letter Dr. Brown tells the pathetic story of Dr. Belfrage. Dr. Belfrage’s wife was a lady of great sweetness and delicacy. After less than a year of singular and unbroken happiness, she suddenly died. The doctor was disconsolate, and his grief was intensified by the reflection that there existed no portrait of his lost love. He resolved that there should be one. He had not an idea of painting. He had never touched an easel. He went to the nearest art emporium, procured all the necessary materials, shut himself up in unbroken solitude for fourteen days, and at the end of that time emerged from his seclusion bearing a portrait of his late bride which became the admiration of all who were privileged to behold it. ‘I do not know of anything,’ says Dr. Brown, ‘more remarkable in the history of human sorrow and resolve.’

 The other case is, of course, that of Quintin Matsys. He was a Flemish blacksmith. He became deeply enamoured of the daughter of a painter; but the painter had vowed that his daughter should marry none but a distinguished master of his own craft. Matsys laid down his hammer and left the forge; he entered a studio, and seized the brush.

 And to-day four centuries after his death pilgrims and tourists cross Europe to gaze upon the mystery of his ‘Descent from the Cross’ in Antwerp Cathedral, and his ‘Two Misers’ at Windsor. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, with her usual subtlety and discernment, has sung to us in a similar strain:

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,
It is not Art, but Heart, which wins the wide world over.
Though perfect the player’s touch, little if any he sways us,
Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.
It is not the artist’s skill which into our souls comes stealing,
With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player’s feeling.

 I have thought though I hesitate to say it that all this may explain a mystery otherwise incapable of solution. I speak as to wise men. Many of us are teachers, officers, ministers, and the like. We are frequently confronted with doleful cries and still more doleful facts. Here are articles on ‘The Dearth of Conversions,’ and here are plaintive papers on ‘The Arrested Progress of the Church.’

 Has my theme nothing to do with it? I fancy it has. May not the ministry of the preacher, like the music of the player, lack that subtle element of passion that makes just all the difference? I fancy I detect in my own ministry sometimes I will not dare to speak of the work of others that very self-same ‘coldness and aloofness’ which the lack of love explained in the distinguished pianist. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.’ It is a very old complaint, but none the less tragic on that account. We take it for granted that we preach Christ because we love Christ; but is the assumption always safe? May we not rather cry, with Tennyson’s poor fallen queen?

Ah, my God,
What might I not have made of Thy fair world
Had I but loved Thy highest creature here?
It was my duty to have loved the highest!

 ‘The more I love Christ,’ exclaimed Gustave Doré, ‘the better I can paint Him!’ Of course! The most accomplished, the most biblical, the most evangelical ministry may, after all, resemble the playing of our European professor ‘an indescribable coldness, a strange aloofness’ one thing lacking. There can be no doubt that Love exercises singular influences and wields potent charms. ‘Had I but loved!’ cries poor Queen Guinevere in the anguish of her remorse. But no minister or teacher can afford to risk the visitation of that most poignant and pitiful regret.

F. W. Boreham