Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 153.—DECEMBER, 1877. (continued 3)

“How, then, could it happen that this division has been so long continued? It is because the distrust of the defenders of traditional philosophy has been provoked by the presentation of the theory at the present day generally adopted by scientists, as an innovation. This distrust will have no longer any object, and harmony cannot fail to be re-established, from the moment when it shall be recognized that the modern experimental science is in perfect harmony with the principles laid down by Aristotle and accepted by St. Thomas.”

The professor of physics who prepared the Exposé given in Father Ramière’s appendix presents very distinctly and strongly what is the common sentiment, especially of those who are devoted to the study of physical science, in our modern Catholic schools:

“The peripatetic system on the composition of bodies is rejected by the greater number of Catholic philosophers, because this system, considered metaphysically, sustains itself solely on equivocations and the begging of questions (Card. Tolomei), and has no demonstrative 690force (P. Zigliara); considered psychologically, it gives a handle to materialism; considered in the aspect of the chemical sciences, it is in evident contradiction to their experimental facts; considered historically, it has been, so far as its psychological part is concerned, always combated by the school of Alexander de Halès, St. Bonaventure, Scotus, and the Franciscans; was condemned in the thirteenth century by all the doctors of the English universities, together with a majority of those of the Sorbonne; and in the eighteenth century was commonly repudiated by all the schools, with the exception of the most rigid Thomists.”

There is certainly no chance whatever that this theory will ever regain any considerable sway from the mere weight of authority which belongs to it from the traditions of the past. As Father Ramière justly remarks:

“We must not forget that the present discussion appertains to the purely scientific order, and must consequently be definitively decided not by authority but by reason. So long as the rational arguments which overturn the theory contrary to our own have not been refuted, nothing will be gained by the effort to prove from a literal interpretation of some texts that this theory belongs to St. Thomas. The only interpretation admissible in this case is the rational interpretation, which clears up obscure texts by the perfectly clear principles which the holy doctor loudly proclaimed. It is thus that we explain many difficult passages in the works of the eagle of Hippo; and those who act otherwise, far from proving in this way their respect for him, really inflict an outrage on his memory by putting him in opposition to himself and to the truth. Let us not do a similar wrong to St. Thomas. As he was always attentive to correct himself even to the end of his short career, we can be sure that, if his mortal existence had been prolonged to our day, he would not have failed to clear up that which remained in obscurity in his writings, and to complete, by the aid of new discoveries in science, what was necessarily incomplete in his theories. Let us act in the same manner, and not fear to show ourselves more faithful to 691the spirit of the doctrine of St. Thomas than to the letter of a certain number of texts found in his writings.”

Father Ramière could not have expected to put an end to the controversy by his short essay, and, in fact, the only immediate result of Dr. Frédault’s larger work and his own briefer piece of argument has been to call forth rejoinders from the Scienza Italiana and the Civiltà Cattolica. Some of the advocates of the peripatetic theory are unquestionably as well versed in the physical sciences as their opponents. Their studies in chemistry and other branches of science have made them dissatisfied with the prevalent modern theories on the constitution of bodies, and they have for this very reason sought for a more philosophical doctrine in the ancient metaphysics. It is not to be supposed that they will yield to anything short of cogent reasoning, or that any agreement in unity of doctrine can be produced, unless some really solid, satisfactory, and conclusive theory is presented with such convincing proof and evidence that it must command general assent. Until this is done there is no choice except to continue the discussion. If it is interminable, then all sides must agree to differ, and in such a case it is quite natural to fall back on the authority of great men who are supposed to have been gifted with extraordinary perspicacity of intellect, and to have seen into things more clearly and deeply than modern men are able to do, perhaps by the aid of supernatural light. If the constitution of bodies is an impenetrable mystery, we must be content to remain in our ignorance, and accept whatever formulas of metaphysical or physical statement seem to us the best expression of 692the vague and confused notions we possess. We are not quite prepared to accept this situation as inevitable, and it is certain that not only on the European continent, but in England and America also, the reviving interest in metaphysical studies and the necessity of combating materialism will stimulate an effort toward a more perfect evolution of the truth contained in the ancient philosophy by the help of mathematical and experimental science. It may be asked what metaphysics and theology have to do with these matters, which seem to belong to the domain of physics. We reply to this question in the words of Father Ramière:

“The question what is in general the nature of material beings, and what is in particular the nature of man as appertaining by his corporeal part to the material world, does not belong, at least exclusively, to physics; it is also within the domain of philosophy and theology. The special object of physics is the study of the sensible properties of bodies, the observation of the phenomena by which the different forces with which they are endowed manifest themselves, and the determination of the laws which regulate the exercise of these forces. The investigation of the essential properties which enter into the very idea of body and distinguish it from spiritual being belongs to metaphysics. And since, in man, the body, united with the spirit, participates in its destiny; since, in Jesus Christ, the corporeal world has been associated to the divine dignity, theology cannot give us a perfect knowledge of our destiny and our deification by the divine Person who assumed humanity, without availing itself of the aid which is furnished by an exact notion of the nature of bodies.”

It seems to us that the real point of difficulty and of controversy respecting the “nature of bodies” lies deeper than any of the questions proposed by Father Ramière, 693and that the whole discussion must start from this point in order to be thorough and decisive. It is no solution at all of the question, What is the nature of corporeal being? to tell us that bodies are material substances endowed with determinate forces, or composites of such substances. The drop of water, mechanically divided, gives us only minuter and minuter molecules of water. But since, chemically divided, it gives oxygen and hydrogen in composition with each other to form these minutest molecules, there must be in each of these molecules others of such minute quantity as to elude experiment, which are composed of still smaller distinct molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. One of these molecules of oxygen, considered apart from all other corporeal beings, must be itself constituted by smaller molecules or of some more simple elements. We must come at last to these simple elements, and ask the question, What constitutes the entity and first actuality of these elements? Boscovich and Leibnitz, two of the most original thinkers of modern times, both of them well versed in mathematics as well as eminent in metaphysics, have presented the theory of simple monads, which are dynamic centres radiating in space upon each other the active forces which produce extension, quality, motion, and every kind of material substance with all their specific differences. Father Bayma, in his remarkable work Molecular Mechanics, has presented the hypothesis that these simple elements are each separately endowed with only one force—that is, either the attractive or repulsive. The laws of molecular mechanics have been exposed in this treatise with rigid and complicated 694mathematical demonstrations. The metaphysical part of this hypothesis has been fully developed, so far as its primary and essential principles are concerned, in the pages of this magazine. The arguments by which this hypothesis is sustained and the contrary ones overturned we have never seen fairly and distinctly answered. Certain objections are made, such as these: that a force is not a being in itself, but needs a substance to support it; that dynamism takes away the reality of matter, that it makes material substance like spiritual substance, that it gives no basis for extension and continuous quantity, etc. We think there is some misunderstanding of terms and concepts in the minds of those who make these objections. We understand in this theory such terms as “active force” to denote not an attribute or product without subject or cause, but a principle from which force proceeds, which is also a passive principle upon which active force terminates. It is a real being, simple, unextended, not a body or a spirit, having position but not quantity, marking by its existence a point in space, the first element of the primary composite body or molecule, distinguishable in respect to its matter and form, but not separable, any more than the centre and circumference of a circle are separable. It is a substance, standing in se et per se, in respect to existence, but expressly created for entering into composition with similar entities, in order to make bodies with the various attributes and accidents, active powers and passive potencies, which experience shows them to possess. It is not a spirit, because it has no capability of consciousness, intelligence, or volition, but is simply determined 695by its grade of being to act in space by means of motion. It is ens mobile, and the beginning of physical quantity, as the point is the beginning of abstract quantity in geometrical science. As to the difficulty of conceiving how extension arises without a first material continuum to begin with, we think this objection is counteracted by the arguments proving that such a continuum is an absurdity and an impossibility.

The great desideratum in the question of matter is to find the invariable and indestructible element, which remains, and will forever remain, the same amid all transmutations of bodies, the ultimate substance endowed with a perpetual existence in se, and competent from its potency and active power to be the principle of every possible combination and mode of being within the limits of the purely corporeal essence. Such a principle seems to be furnished by the theory of Boscovich and Leibnitz, as corrected and developed by Father Bayma. The simple beings endowed with attractive or repulsive force proceeding from a centre which marks a point in space, and having both a form and a material principle which are naturally inseparable, are capable of existing, each one alone by itself, and absolutely indestructible, except by annihilation. Though utterly useless and inoperative, except as existing in multitude and mutually acting on each other in their chemical and mechanical combinations they furnish the substratum of every kind of matter and form which can be predicated of corporeal being as ens mobile. The primary molecules of the simple bodies formed by the first combinations of simple elements are so firmly bound together 696that no power of which man can avail himself suffices to separate them, and we may suppose there is no power in nature which can break up their unity. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that God can make bodies of any magnitude or composite perfection which are likewise incorruptible, in accordance with the ancient conception of materia quinta, or celestial, incorruptible bodies. The reasoning by which this dynamic hypothesis is sustained and contrary theories refuted seems to be extremely probable, and even, in certain parts, demonstrative, from its premises and data. If these include all which must be included, and nothing pertaining to the essence and integrity of the matter of demonstration is left out, the hypothesis is sufficient to account for all which must be accounted for, and by its simplicity recommends itself to the mind as proposing enough, and no more than enough, for a distinct notion of the nature of body and its specific difference from soul and spirit. Just here, it seems to us, comes in the need for more full explanation and evolution of the theory, and a more minute discussion between its advocates and those who advocate the theories of the rigid peripatetic system or the system favored by Father Ramière. We would like to see a more complete proof given that all which can be predicated of material substance, as such, can be referred to its nature as ens mobile, and accounted for by the two primitive forces of attraction and repulsion.

Especially when we consider the phenomena of organized, living bodies, vegetable and animal, the most important questions arise, demanding from each one of the different 697philosophical schools the answers which they are able to furnish, and an exposition of the way in which they seek to harmonize this particular portion of their respective systems with the first principles of philosophy, of physics, and of theology. The notions of potential matter and substantial form assume here a new import and present difficulties of the first magnitude, the solution of which in one way or another introduces most considerable modifications into the metaphysics and the theology of each different party in the controversy.

What is the principle of vegetable life and reproduction? If all the facts and phenomena of vegetable life can be explained by the laws of molecular mechanics and chemistry, the need for a distinct, simple form, vital principle, or vegetable soul, is removed; otherwise the hypothesis fails to meet the exigency of the case, and the reasoning of the peripatetic philosophers remains, in this respect, unanswered.

The question of the animal soul stands by itself, and is more important. Molecular mechanics and chemical combinations cannot produce a sentient subject or account for the sensible cognition which animals possess. There is certainly in the animal a distinct form giving to animal nature a potency and a power not reducible to attraction and repulsion between molecules, not a modification of mobility and motion. The ingenious scholastic theory gives us a formula which answers very well as a verbal statement of the difference between the irrational and the rational soul, between the brute and man. According to this theory, the animal soul is not a substance, is not capable of existing in se, depends on the 698body and is destroyed by its death, is not immediately created, but is educed, ex nihilo sui, from the potentiality of matter by the physical agencies and laws of generation. What is startling and puzzling about this theory is that it makes an organized, material body exercise sensible cognition. The soul is a mere substantial form, higher than the aqueous or igneous or cadaverous form, but of the same genus. It is educed from the potentiality of matter, and therefore matter is in potency to the sentient faculty, as it is in potency to have quantity, figure, color, and weight. Second causes suffice to evolve from its potency this new form of being in which it can see, hear, feel, imagine and remember, simulate many of the processes and actions of rational beings, enjoy and suffer, recognize friends and enemies, invent stratagems, play tricks, exercise courage, fidelity, fortitude, and constancy in affection, and show forth all those remarkable phenomena which make the animal, in one point of view, the greatest marvel of creation. If the animal soul is not a distinct substance, immediately created and having existence in se, the peripatetic theory, pure and simple, with all its mysteriousness, is preferable to any other, and its failure to give demonstration and satisfy the ingenium curiosum of many searchers into the secrets of nature is a necessary consequence of the impenetrable mystery which shrouds the essence of material being.

If the animal soul is a substance, we must admit a grade of being between the corporeal and the rational natures, an inferior kind of spirit, similar to the human soul in respect to that which makes it fit to be the animating principle of an organic 699body, destitute of intelligence and incapable of activity independent of its bodily organs, yet, as a substance in itself and a simple being, not destructible by corruption. It is a maxim in philosophy that there is no destruction of anything once created by annihilation. It continues to exist, therefore, after the death of its bodily compart. If the anima belluina is imperishable, what becomes of it when the animal dies? Even the human spirit, though capable by its intellectual faculties of living a separate life, has an intrinsic exigency for a body which it can animate; much more, then, the anima belluina, which is a principle of animal life and activity, and nothing more. There is nothing superfluous or useless in nature, yet this kind of soul, continuing to exist without a body, is a useless thing. Moreover, although the more perfect animals manifest qualities which can easily be taken to indicate the presence of a vital principle which is a distinct substance, what shall we say of those which can be divided into sections, each of which continues to live; and of those which approach so near to the line of demarcation between animal and vegetable life that the difference between the two seems to reach a vanishing-point, and they shade into each other by nearly imperceptible gradations?

This is enough to show how serious is the task of reconciling philosophical parties, and settling the disputes about the constitution of bodies, matter and form, and all their cognate topics, and making a perfect synthesis of physics and metaphysics. Mathematics come in also, with the consideration of quantity, space, infinites and infinitesimals, demanding a place in a really complete synthetical exposition 700of fundamental and universal philosophy. There is room enough for a great genius who shall be a continuator of the work of St. Thomas. If such a man should arise, he would need to have all the intellectual gifts and all the knowledge of a great metaphysician, a great mathematician, and a great physicist, combined under one form. There has been but one Aristotle and one St. Thomas, and we cannot tell whether or no any other man like them, or even equal to Suarez, will be granted to the science of philosophy. It seems that we need some man of that kind to deal with the obscurities and ambiguities, the new aspects and new relations of scholastic metaphysics, and with the peculiar mental attitude and habits of thought and expression belonging to our own time. The English-speaking part of the educated world certainly needs the service of some really original thinker, as well as learned and acute expositor, to make all that is certain or highly probable in the Thomistic philosophy thoroughly intelligible, and to accomplish whatever is requisite and possible in advancing this philosophy toward a desirable completion. Able and learned expositors of the ancient philosophy are not lacking in Italy and Germany, but it seems to us that some higher degree of original power of thought and expression than is found even in the most eminent of these authors is desirable for the masterly handling of certain questions of present controversy.

Father Ramière considers that the time has come to hope for and attempt the construction of “the majestic temple of Catholic science, whose base is laid in the infallible dogmas of faith and the immovable principles of reason, whose stories 701are erected by the co-operating labor of observation and reasoning, whose circuit embraces the entire expanse of human knowledge, in which facts and laws, experimental and abstract sciences, the truths of the natural and those of the supernatural order, complete, strengthen, and embellish each other by their mutual agreement.” That “complete synthesis, to which all the particular sciences are attached as branches of a tree to the trunk,” he considers to have been fifty years ago apparently impossible, though the conception of it may have been latent in some minds, but at present to be really within the power of combined and rightly-directed intellectual effort to achieve.

So far as essentials are concerned, we are convinced that the learned and pious Jesuit is not without a solid ground for his enthusiastic prognostication of the advancement of Catholic science. In respect to the special topics of which we have been writing in the present article, we are not very sanguine of a speedy adjustment of the controversies which divide Catholic philosophers and others, whether physicists or metaphysicians, who investigate and argue upon the nature of material substance. There is yet a good deal of discussion and controversy to be gone through, and we confess we are in doubt how far it will ever terminate in a conclusive and final result. There are limitations to human knowledge which are not precisely determined. The space of the unknowable lies around our restricted sphere of the known and the knowable. Happily, it is not necessary for the substantial solidity and practical utility of rational metaphysics and ethics, much less for theological certainty in the 702matters of real moment, that all the interesting and abstruse questions of controversy between different schools should be decided. Apparent “antinomies of reason” may furnish a pretext to the sceptical and captious, but they prove only the limitation of intellect and reason, our imperfect and inadequate conceptions of the terms and premises which we reason about and from which we draw conclusions, and the defectiveness of language as the medium of thought. The certainties of reason, of history and experience, of the judgments of the human conscience, of divine revelation, of Catholic authority, of the common sense of mankind, are amply sufficient for refuting every kind of infidel or heretical error which cloaks itself under a scientific pretext, and for proving and defending all that belongs to sacred dogma in faith or morals, or is in proximate connection with it. Unity and harmony in these things need not be disturbed by differences and discussions respecting all manner of scientific questions. We understand that this is what Father Ramière principally aims at, and he himself gives a good example of free and earnest controversial discussion conducted in the irenical spirit. We have always found his writings luminous, interesting, and profitable. We trust that he and his confrères will continue their labors in the same direction. We shall look also with great interest for the arguments by which the learned writers for the Civiltà Cattolica and Scienza Italiana and other advocates of strict Thomism maintain their own opinions. The Sovereign Pontiff, in his recent letter to the rector of the University of Lille, has declared that he desires all learned Catholics 703“should with one accord, although they follow different systems, turn all their energies to put down materialism and the other errors of our age.” This shows that, in the judgment of the Holy Father, agreement in these matters of actual difference is not a necessary condition precedent to combined and successful polemics against materialism and the other dangerous errors of our time. The Holy Father also exhorts “all whom it may concern” not to “scatter their forces by disputing with one another on questions which are matters of free opinion.” We understand this to mean that discussions should not degenerate into disputes of that kind which is hostile to the spirit of unity and charity, and not that discussion should be altogether abandoned. For, in another paragraph, he exhorts learned Catholics to “keep within the bounds of moderation and observe the laws of Christian charity while they discuss or attack systems in nowise condemned by the Apostolic See.” This may suffice for the present, and we trust that our readers who hold metaphysical articles in aversion will tolerate this one, in consideration of the long time they have been spared a similar trial of their patience.

704

TOTA PULCHRA.^[84]

Can God so woo us, nor, of all our race,

Have formed one creature for his perfect rest?

Must the Dove moan for an inviolate nest,

Nor find it ev’n in thee, O “full of grace”—

In thee, his Spouse? Or could the Word debase

His Godhead’s pureness when he fill’d thy breast,

Tho’ Moses treasured up, at his behest,

The typical manna in a golden^[85] vase?

Who teach that sin had ever aught in thee,

Utter a thought the demons may not share—

Not tho’ they prompt it in their fell despair:

For these, while sullenly hating the decree

That shaped thee forth Immaculate, “All Fair,”

Adore it still—and must eternally.

705

THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD ORGAN.

In one of the least-visited churches of Ghent stands the most curious and characteristic thing in it—its organ: a contrast to the defaced wood-work and mouldering Renaissance plaster, to the unused and deserted chests in the vestry and the few benches in the choir. The paintings, the removable carvings, even some of the monuments, the choir-stalls and the stained-glass windows, disappeared long ago; the very name by which the church goes in the popular speech is ill-omened and mysterious. Old women cross themselves and shake their heads as they whisper the name of the Apostate’s church, and tradition tells the rare inquirer that this was a private chapel, the property of a once renowned family, noble and brave, but fierce and fanatical, well known in the town annals for centuries, and only struck from the roll of citizens and householders at the end of the great Flemish struggle of the sixteenth century, when the Protestants left Spanish ground for ever and found a new country in Holland. The disappearance of all valuable objects in the deserted church is ascribed—and perhaps truly—to many combining causes. Some were destroyed during the occasional image-breaking raids that distinguished the wars of the Reformation; some were sold or carried off by the family whose property they were, some confiscated or stolen by the triumphant Spanish government, or by no less indignant relations of the family, who, remaining behind, were anxious to prove by deeds their freedom from 706complicity with the apostate and fugitive Stromwaels. Such were the fragments of information to be picked up by any one in whom the simple people of the neighborhood had confidence; but whether every fragment was historical is another question. The church was in a lonely quarter of the town, the least altered by progress, where stood only small shops supplying the local wants, which in such populations and such places vary very little from those of five or six generations ago. A few spacious, comfortable houses showed among more cramped and less ornamented ones, but the aspect of all, if rather dead-alive, was very picturesque. The church stands in a narrow street and far from the house of its patrons, now used as a storehouse by the few wholesale dealers of this quarter, who each have one floor. In the attics live a few workmen and one or two nondescript, eccentric, and inoffensive persons, supposed to be pensioners of one of the dealers. One of these is a bookworm and supposed to know much of local legends and history. Being very poor, he frequents only the public library and such private ones as are accessible gratis to students; and when he wants to preserve information which he cannot purchase in the shape of printed books, he copies it assiduously on miscellaneous paper, recruited from old ledgers, bank and register books, large parcels, etc., besides the little he buys or has been given to him. His notes thus present a very curious appearance, which he sometimes complacently connects 707with the possible researches and comments of scholars of two hundred years hence. One of his many little sheaves of manuscript came into my hands not long ago while I was poking about the neighborhood, looking for anything out of the way, and I was induced to go and see him. He was very shabby and commonplace, and a good deal smeared with snuff; neither his appearance nor his home was in keeping with the outward look of the houses, and there were no artistically-dilapidated surroundings to fill out the romantic sketch which my imagination had made before I was introduced to him. Travellers seldom mention their disappointments, and always make the most of their agreeable surprises, so that stay-at-home people are often deluded into a belief that every one on the European continent is more or less like a Dresden figure or an actor in a mediæval play. My friend, however substantial the entertainment might be which his manuscript and his narrative gave me, was decidedly a failure personally, but none the less was he to me a very important and, in a degree, even an interesting vehicle of information. A free translation of his manuscript is all that I can give; as to his absorbed manner in speaking, his evident interest in the past, and his self-forgetfulness when he got upon the subject of the stories he had dug out or pieced together from ancient papers, and his own impressions concerning whatever was uncertain—these it is impossible to convey to others. He asked me first whether I had examined the organ in the chapel. I had done so, and found its case a very beautiful piece of carving; the keys were kept speckless, and the front contained a 708remarkable group of figures, carved in wood and painted, representing our Lord and the twelve apostles. The instrument stood in a high tribune looking into the choir, and reached by a separate staircase, narrow and winding. A carved railing gave this tribune something of the look of a balcony, but it scarcely projected forward into the chapel; the carved front of the organ and the gilt pipes were visible from below, and a tapestry curtain hung from an iron rod on each side of the instrument, concealing the back entrance into the tribune. The peculiarity about this organ was that it was all but dumb, and had never given a satisfactory sound since its maker had bid it be silent. It emitted some doleful sounds, if struck, but for all musical purposes it was useless. The situation it was in, and the defects in its interior, besides a third reason still unforgotten by the popular mind, accounted for its having been left when the rest of the church treasures were carried off. As a relic of antiquity it was valuable, exhibiting as it does the state of mechanical art at the beginning of the sixteenth century; but it was still more interesting as the tangible proof of a story connected with its maker, the organist of the church in 1505. This my old friend of the attic had written out in the queer-looking manuscript I have mentioned.

Nicholas Verkloep was born a servant of the Stromwaels, and brought up in their household in the very house where I read the story. His parents kept the outer gate, and the boy passed through the usual stages of service common to lads of his position, now a favorite, now a butt, according to the 709humor of his master and each member of the family, but all the spare time at his command was devoted to music. He haunted the churches, and begged his way into choirs and libraries, learnt all the church music he could pick up by his ear, the hints of choristers, and the few explanations in the manuscript chant-books of the time, and at last begged to be allowed to blow the organ-bellows at the family chapel. Meanwhile, he joined in the services, and drew on himself the notice of the old organist, who grew so fond and proud of him that he taught him all he knew, taught him to play the organ, and asked the Count Stromwael to allow him to bring the boy up as his successor. Nicholas was fifteen when this request was granted, and henceforth he nearly lived in the chapel. Not only the music of the organ fascinated him; he grew absorbed in studying its mechanism, and would crouch for hours within the instrument, getting his eyes used to the darkness, and learning by heart the “feel” of each piece. This developed all sorts of oddities in him: he grew absent-minded, and often unconsciously moved his fingers as if at work. Soon after he began to make models of various parts of an organ, indifferently the inside and the outside; for carving seemed as natural to him as mechanical dissection. He had not the same conservative feeling about things as is common among our present musicians, and the fact that the Stromwael instrument was a hundred and fifty years old, and had gone through many repairs as time went on and new improvements succeeded each other, did not prevent him from feeling certain that he could make a much better organ in a very short time. 710His plans were manifold; the subject grew and grew in his mind; the additional stops which he added in imagination disgusted him with the music he could draw from the instrument at present; and while every one in the town was excited about the wonderful young player who bade fair to be a prodigy, he himself was impatiently bewailing his drawbacks.

He told no one but his old master of his hopes and his expectations, and this confidant was certainly the safest he could have; for the old musician was a contented and patient man, used to his old ways, firm in his old traditions, not caring to travel out of his old grooves, and rather resentful of the idea that what had been good music and perfect mechanism in his time should not be good enough to satisfy the fastidious taste of a young beginner. Yet he was fond of his pupil, who used to soothe him by the saying that each generation had a new door to open and a new room to explore in the house of knowledge, and that he ought not to grudge him his appointed advance, any more than Moses grudged Josue his succession to the leadership. In truth, the old man was secretly proud of his clever scholar, and, perhaps unconsciously to himself, expected even more of him than the youth did of himself. The two lived together in the house of their patron, but had little intercourse with the rest of the mixed household, more gay and more ignorant than themselves, and my snuffy old friend nursed the belief that he had discovered the room which was home to these two. It was a small attic chamber looking towards the church, and in a chest in it had been found remnants of wood, wire, and leather, as 711well as some strange-looking models and bits of carving, with rough sketches on strips of parchment, all of which I had seen in their case in the museum at the Town-hall. On the walls were some doggerel Latin verses and some rather indistinct marks, which, nevertheless, the most learned musician in the town had pronounced to be, most likely, a sort of musical short-hand, understood only by its author. All this I also saw, and, having no opposite theory to uphold, was glad to believe remains of Nicholas.

Now, says the manuscript, there were found notes and jottings besides plans and sketches, and it seems plain from these that the young organist wished eagerly to make a new organ, on which no one but himself should work; indeed, this idea grew to be a monomania, and he devoted to it all the energy and interest which a man generally spends on wife, children, friends, home, profession, and advancement. But the count was an obstinate conservative, and scouted the idea of replacing his time-honored family organ by a new one, the work of a crazy youth, even though he were the best player and composer that ever breathed. The old organist and his pupil had many anxious talks on the subject. In those days it was not easy to transfer your domicile and allegiance to a patron better suited to you; family bondage still held good in practical matters; the Stromwaels had given him all the home and education he had, and, in fact, he belonged to them. Besides, the count was as proud of his human possession as he was of his ancient organ, and set as much store by the reputation of the marvellous young musician whom he 712owned as he did by that of his best-bred falcon, dog, or horse. He would not have given up any of these; they were all ornaments to his name, and it was fitting that he should not be beneath or behind any of his townsmen. He was not old enough to give room to hope for a change of circumstances through his death, and Nicholas became every day more discontented at his prospects. He was more reserved, morose, and morbid than ever, and as he grew odder the more was his music admired. Strangers from neighboring towns came to hear him play; the towns-people begged him to teach their sons; women looked up at the gallery where he sat with his back to them, with eyes that told of as ready an inclination to love the player as to admire the music; wealthy foreigners sent him presents of money or jewels, after the fashion of the times; but nothing seemed to elate, or even interest, him.

One day, while he was sitting at the old organ, poring over his plans for a new one, and contrasting the existing instrument with the possible one, a man lifted the curtain which then, as now, covered the entrance to the tribune. He was a stranger to Nicholas, and seemed elderly; he was very quietly dressed in black, and wore a sword. The young man looked up in bewilderment, but rose and welcomed the unknown, who sat down with great composure by his side on the wide carved bench in front of the organ. He spoke Flemish, but Nicholas thought with a foreign accent, which, however, he could not localize.

“You will forgive my curiosity,” he said, “in coming here. I have often heard you play from below, 713and to-day, passing by the open door, I came into the chapel in hopes of hearing something, but met your little blower lying asleep on the altar steps, woke him up, made inquiries, and decided to come up.”

“You are very welcome,” said Nicholas in a low voice, politely but not cordially, and speaking with that resignation which well-bred but much tried misanthropes have but too much occasion to practise in all times and companies.

“I want to speak of something else than mere conventionalities,” said the stranger abruptly, “and I will begin by telling you that I quite understand and appreciate your distaste to general fellowship with your kind; I see no reason why I should be an exception, so you need not resort to courteous commonplaces. I have heard what is your aim, and only seek you because I think I may be of some use to you.”

Nicholas looked up, at first eagerly, then a shadow came over his face. Any allusion to future success fired him even against his will, but experience had always hitherto gone the opposite way. Taking the stranger’s permission literally, he said nothing, but looked at him inquiringly. The other went on after a pause:

“I think I can promise you the certainty, within ten years, of accomplishing your wish and seeing your organ, if not in this place, at least in some other quite as advantageous. I have oddities and fixed ideas myself, and understand them in others. In short, it rests mainly with you whether you like to accept my proposal or not.”

“There are conditions, then?” asked Nicholas, whom the belief of his time with regard to compacts 714with the devil imbued quite as strongly as if he had not been a genius, and who, in consequence, immediately jumped to the conclusion that this visit was not wholly natural.

“Yes,” said the stranger in his metallic voice, unimpassioned but compelling attention by some quality indefinable to Nicholas’ mind, yet surely present to his perception, “I always hedge in business with conditions; otherwise I should be a mere Haroun-al-Raschid, an experimenter in benevolence, which, though an amiable character, is a weak one. I hate weakness and I hate foolishness. I judged you to be neither fool nor weakling, and so sought you out. The conditions are very simple: I want you to bind yourself to my secret service for ten years, and in return I promise you the fulfilment of your wish at the end of that time. In the meanwhile your fame will increase, your powers as a musician will be unrivalled; you will play and compose so as to rouse the jealousy of all your profession; you will be in danger, but will never be struck down; you will have full time for work and study, yet you must always be ready to leave everything instantly when I call upon you; you will be my right hand, but no one will suspect it; but if you once fail in your allegiance to me during these ten years, your object will be frustrated at the end of that time.”

“But,” said Nicholas, who had listened, growing more fascinated as the stranger spoke, and by his eagerness and play of features guiding unconsciously the latter’s fast-increasing promises—“but what power have you to bring such things about? Count Stromwael is a great man, besides being obstinate 715and perverse; how can you dispose of his property, and even his will?”

“And how,” quickly retorted the stranger with a cold smile, “can you be so imprudent as to speak thus unguardedly of your master’s defects to one whom you saw to-day for the first time, and whose name, position, and motives are unknown to you? Do you know that you put yourself in my power by these words? But I will partly answer your question. I know something of Count Stromwael, and what I know gives me the right to offer you what I do; and as I happen to want your services—they will never conflict with your outward allegiance to your patron—I make you the only proposal, as an equivalent, for which you care. If you cared for the common things—women, money, position—you would not be the person I want; such vassals can be bought by the cart-load, in every station in life, from the Countess of Flanders or the first lord of her household down to the ragged beggars or the sleek hypocrites who crowd the city. I want you, my fancy has chosen you, and I ask you will you buy success at the price of ten years of your life?”

“But why,” persisted the eager but uneasy Nicholas, “only ten years? Why not ask for my whole life?”

The stranger laughed oddly. “And your future life too?” he said. “Yes, I see what you are thinking of: that I want your soul. I will not deny your imputation; you flatter me by identifying me with one whose power is as dread as you have been taught to believe the devil’s to be, but I am quite truthful in saying that I do not crave more than a promise of ten years’ faithful and blind service. 716You may, if you can, redeem the sacrifice by a long after-life—I only ask ten years; at your age it is not much to give.”

“And if I should die before the ten years are over?”

The stranger raised his eyebrows, but without opening his eyes perceptibly wider.

“You insist on continuing the parallel?” he asked. “I only said ten years of life; if you die you escape me, but you lose your own chance. What should I want with a dead man? The loss would be as much mine as yours.”

“If you can guarantee, as you said, that I should be in danger but should not be struck down, perhaps you can promise me that I shall not die till our contract is fulfilled on both sides?”

“My dear friend, one would need to be deathless one’s self to make such a promise. Even a doctor could only promise life provided such and such circumstances were certain.”

“If you can dispose of Count Stromwael’s will and property,” said Nicholas doggedly, “you can ensure me ten years’ life.”

“Is your life dearer to you than your success, then?”

“No; but the latter depends on the former, and if you must hedge in business by conditions, I must be sure that I do not give you in advance all you want without being sure of my reward at the end.”

“I should not have expected so much foresight in you; I respect you for it. I will see that you have this assurance, but how do I know whether you will believe in it? You see you are so much shrewder than ordinary enthusiasts that I may be taking a spy or a critic into my service.”

“I have never thought about 717business or guarantees before, because I care for nothing but the success of my organ, and only that would have made me eager to bind you to your promise,” said Nicholas, still uneasily; “but since you only ask ten years’ service, I think I may safely say yes.”

The stranger smiled again, as oddly as before, and drew out a roll of parchment from a little bag. “According to tradition, you should sign this with your blood,” he said, “but I shall be quite content if you sign it with common ink. Here is a horn and a pen; only write your name. But first read the bond.”

Nicholas looked suspiciously at the stranger, who calmly handed him the paper; the latter’s face showed neither interest nor triumph. The deed was very simply worded: “I, Nicholas Verkloep, promise to owe unfailing and unquestioning obedience in all things to Marcus Lemoinne for the space of ten years from this day and hour, in return for the success of my organ at the end of that time, and for all the help he may give me in the interval.” The date was already filled in, being the day on which the above conversation took place, and the hour was marked two hours after noon. Nicholas glanced at the clock behind him in the chapel; the hands pointed to ten minutes to that hour. The stranger followed his glance, quietly rose from the bench, and turning his back upon him, knelt down on the narrow board fixed for this purpose to the front of the tribune.

Nicholas quickly turned things over in his mind: as to his silence about it when the promise was signed he had decided; as to his fulfilment of his obligations to the letter he was as loyally certain; 718as to the individual whom this man either was or represented he had very little doubt. Very few in his time would have thought otherwise; perhaps few would have hesitated so much after having made up their minds not to ask the advice of any one either before or after the contract was made. Nicholas was only an average Christian, and had no strong feelings except on the subject of his art; everything was in favor of his giving ten years’ life for the success of his scheme. As the clock struck the hour the stranger rose, touched his shoulder, and said, “Well?”

Nicholas, with something like a start, took the pen and signed his name as quickly as he could, whereupon the other also wrote in a fair and scholarly hand these words: “I, Marcus Lemoinne, promise to ensure the success of Nicholas Verkloep’s organ at the end of ten years, in return for his obedience to me during that time.”

No commonplaces passed at parting, and Nicholas went home soon after. His old master noticed that he was a little more excited than usual, and began to make plans and preparations with more energy, but he was used to these phases of mind. The young man (he was now twenty-three) procured beautiful and costly wood for carving, besides ivory, paints, and other materials, and set to work on a complete model. Now began the oddest experiences of his life: his mind seemed doubled, for he was conscious of a never-ceasing expectation, an alertness, and a watchfulness hitherto unknown to him. In the streets, in church, in bed at night, he was always looking for Lemoinne or ready to obey his summons, yet his attention, when he bestowed it on his work, was not 719disturbed or lessened by this parallel current of thought. His mind grew stronger, brighter, quicker, more ingenious; his fanatical devotion to his art increased daily, and with it his powers, until his fame grew to be just such as the stranger had foretold. This stimulated him further, and he made unheard-of progress, so that his old friend and teacher was half-crazy with joy and pride. The count sent for him to play in the hall before his guests on a small organ of no great power or value, and Nicholas drew from it such sounds as the great men of the profession could not draw from the most magnificent church instruments. That they were jealous of him he knew, but he feared no jealousy, as he courted no admiration. He refused repeatedly to take advantage of his reputation and increase his fortune by travelling to the various art-loving cities of the Netherlands and of Italy, or even by performing in public on great occasions, so that the crowds of his persistent admirers had to content themselves with hearing him at his own old organ in the Stromwael chapel. Even the popular preachers of the day were envious of him. Meanwhile, he worked first at the model, then at the separate pieces of his future organ. The count had given no permission, nor hinted at any, and Lemoinne had made no call on his time, but his belief in the efficacy of the bond never flagged for a moment. It did not occur to him to wonder why he never heard the man’s name mentioned as among those who, whether merchants, artists, or statesmen, had public or secret power; his unspoken suspicion of his identity prevented all such ideas, but it did strike him as odd that for ten 720months after the signing of the contract nothing was required of him. He felt morbidly that he did not belong to himself, and knew that, do what he would, a secret influence sat within, master of his heart and will, master even of his dreams, and, he feared, of his art also. Was it himself that he put forth in his compositions? When the ten years were ended he would be able to tell, but it was a long time to look forward to. Yet during that time his fame would have been made, and if his power then suddenly deserted him and his suspicions came to be confirmed, he could easily retire on his former laurels and compose no more. Retire at thirty-three? Well, there was the monastery; many men had made a second career, more creditable even than the first, by devoting their worldly gifts, their wealth, and their fame to religious purposes when circumstances made the world distasteful to them at an earlier period than usual. If his suspicions should be true, an after-life of atonement would be fitting, and it would give him time for studies which he longed to undertake, but had no leisure or opportunity for at present. The spiritual element counted for nothing in his calculations; there were many doors still closed in his nature. As he wandered in fancy, his fingers worked and produced beautiful or weird things. The face of Lemoinne, so constantly present to his mind, often came out in wood under his touch, and always, when finished, gave him a start of surprise; for, surely, that was not the expression he remembered? And yet, in carving the likeness, he must have had the recollection before him? A year after the interview in the chapel his old teacher 721the organist died, and the first strange thing that he had ever said to his pupil he said on his death-bed.

“My son,” he began, as he lay with his hand in that of Nicholas, “there is one thing I feel I must say to you before I go; it is my duty, and young men sometimes forget it. With you it is more dangerous than with most. Be your own master; do not lose the ownership of yourself. Men who do generally commit crime, and, if the slavery be to a woman, they often do base, mean things. I have sometimes feared that you were losing the mastery of yourself, and yet at other times I saw you absorbed in what has been your only idol for twelve years or more.”

“There is no woman that shares that idolatry,” answered Nicholas evasively, starting at the old man’s anxious looks and awakened insight.

“Well,” said the dying man, “I do not grudge you a wife, but I fear any one, man or woman, whose influence over you is not entirely supported and controlled by reason. In God’s name, Nicholas, and as a dying man, I beseech you, if you are in any toils, break through them as quickly as you can.”

“My dear master,” said his pupil, “when you are in heaven pray that I may be guided aright, for I shall have lost the only guide on earth whose help or advice was of use to me.”

“That is no answer, Nicholas,” said the old man reproachfully and wearily; “but remember what I said.”

“Yes, I will remember it,” said the other in an altered tone, “and, if I can, I will heed it.”

After the old man’s death Nicholas led a very lonely life, but his 722increasing labors at his organ cheered him and occupied his time. His fame kept at its high pitch, and the jealousy of his brother artists was well known.

Fourteen months after his first interview with Lemoinne the latter came again, this time to his home (possibly the attic before described). Nicholas told him how surprised he had been at hearing nothing from him for so long.

“One does not use one’s best and rarest tools often,” said the other with his indescribable smile, “though the highest price paid for them is none the more begrudged on that account; and, again, the finest instruments are used to do what seems the least important work. You know how a glass-cutter uses a diamond? Now, all I want you to do is to ride to a certain place and deliver this letter; you will find the horse ready saddled at St. Martin’s Gate; you have twelve hours to do it in, and by daybreak you will find the same man ready to take the horse at the same place from which you start. The fleetest government messenger would take sixteen hours; but I know the horse and his powers; of his rider I know enough to make me trust him equally.”

The implied trust flattered Nicholas, who took the letter, and, seeing the direction, started a little, but said: “If you say it can be done, it can, but the distance would take a common rider nearer twenty hours than sixteen. Shall I go at once?”

“Yes, and remember your trust goes no further than the delivery of this package to whoever opens the door of that house to you.”

It would take too long to describe the night ride, or even the state of mind in which Nicholas 723found himself while careering along at a headlong speed towards his goal. This was the first service he had performed for his strange master—an easy and safe one apparently, though secret; the man’s fascination of manner or voice—which was it?—had evidently not lessened since his last appearance. Nothing special occurred; he gave the letter to a commonplace looking person at the door of an ordinary, rather shabby house, and returned by dawn. As to curiosity concerning his errand, it struck him as odd that he should feel none; yet he had never been of a gossipy turn of mind, and these things were, after all, only details in the scheme. This business of Lemoinne’s was probably connected with politics, about which he cared nothing. He did not see his patron again for months, and his work progressed wonderfully.

The next figure which bore the man’s likeness was that of a physician, pouring a liquid from one vial into another, and the expression was that of absorbed attention. The organ-case was to be ornamented with figures representing various saints, the patrons of music, of the Stromwaels, of the chapel, and of the city; then figures typifying the various city guilds; then nine figures emblematic of the traditional nine choirs of angels; but a space was left in the centre, just over the key-board, for the crowning masterpiece. A rose-tree hedge was to run round the instrument, and the pedals were each to be carved so as to represent the seven deadly sins, which, by being trodden under foot, contribute to make the music of the soul before God. Fantastic ideas and odd devices were constantly springing up in his brain and being realized beneath 724his touch, and in these he encouraged himself to indulge. In one corner of the case, however, was to stand a beautiful, dignified, venerable figure, the glorified likeness of his old master, with no corresponding figure opposite, and robed like a prophet, holding a tablet on which in letters of gold were to be carved in Latin these words: “Be master of thyself.”

His life as a solitary artist and mechanic was a monotonous one to record; even his few tests of obedience to Lemoinne were neither romantic nor terrible. Once he was sent in the disguise of a page to a court entertainment, with orders to follow and observe a high official of the state (who afterwards was proved a traitor and put to death accordingly); another time he was instructed to detain for half an hour a professor of one of the great universities, by which delay the man lost an appointment he much coveted; and another time he was sent to a young man of great position and wealth, but an orphan, to recommend a servant to him. From this, however, sprang some other circumstances worth recording. The young man, Count Brederode, took a violent fancy to him, visited him at his home, entered into his hopes and plans, and begged him to be a friend and brother to him. Nicholas felt drawn to the count, but reminded him of the difference between their stations, and only agreed so far as circumstances would allow. This young man was his very opposite—bright, garrulous, sociable. He always had a love affair on hand, and always confided it to Nicholas, whose words on the subject were never, however, very encouraging. He wasted his money in a way that distressed his prudent friend, and 725his time in a thousand pursuits for which he had no better excuse than that “gentlemen generally did so and so.” The best-employed part of his day was that which he sometimes spent watching Nicholas at work. At last one day he said suddenly:

“Do you know I am to marry Count Stromwael’s favorite niece, whom he brought up as a sister with his own only daughter? And upon this occasion I am going to ask him a favor, which I am sure he cannot refuse: to let you put up your organ in place of his, which I will take for my chapel in the country.”

Nicholas stared at him in silence. Was this a roundabout fulfilment of Lemoinne’s promise, or a wild, boyish freak, likely to result in nothing?

“Your organ is sufficiently far advanced to put up and play on, is it not?”

“It will be in six months.”

“Then six months hence you shall transfer your workshop to the chapel tribune,” said Brederode confidently.

Nicholas said nothing, but the other was used to that. The famous musician grew more silent every day; things got complicated in his mind, and he was always puzzling himself. His brain was clear only for his work; at all other times he walked in a dream of expectation, conjecture, and dread. Each day the seemingly light burden weighed more upon him; the horror of being entangled in conspiracies of which he was ignorant, and concerned in wrongs which he could neither prevent nor reconcile to himself, haunted him; and yet in actual facts there was nothing to complain of, nothing even to describe. It seemed incomprehensible 726to him that Lemoinne should have made so solemn an appeal and promise for so little reward, and should have used his power so sparingly. The very blandness of the passing years made him fear some awful test towards the last. Meanwhile, Brederode’s generous, boyish friendship cheered and soothed him. But a year after he first knew him, and two months after Count Stromwael had yielded to his nephew-in-law’s vehement pleading for the Verkloep organ, Nicholas, at work in the chapel, saw him enter with an unusually serious face. The young man began to make dark confidences on political subjects, which Nicholas instinctively repelled, and, without knowing why, he said:

“I entreat you, Count Brederode, do not make me the repository of plans and intentions that may end dangerously for you. I wish to know nothing of anything which is likely to make the state rake up all your habits and intimacies, and use them as the Philistines did Delilah.”

“I would sooner trust you than my own wife,” laughed the young man, “and no one will suspect such a maniac as you are, you know!”

“If you insist upon it,” said Nicholas sadly, “let me at least solemnly swear to you, by my hope of salvation, that nothing shall make me betray you in the slightest thing.”

“I would trust you without an oath,” cried Brederode.

“Then you are not of the stuff of which conspirators are made,” said Nicholas, “and I wish you would retire from a position unsuited to you. You have no interest even in it.”

“None but the fun of secrecy and excitement—except this,” he 727added more seriously: “that having once promised to give others the shield of my name and the support of my money, I am bound in honor not to run away.”

“True, but break with them honorably and frankly.”

“I cannot.”

“You will not?”

“No, it is not that; there are other games almost as exciting, but my wife’s brother is involved, and I must stand by him. Let us treat it only as an escapade; I want to tell you about it.”

“I repeat my oath, then, and pray Heaven to strike me deaf, dumb, and palsied before I have anything to do in this to your disadvantage.”

“You make it so serious that it loses its fun. But....” And Brederode went on to explain a scheme which the spirit of the times and its prejudices alone made dangerous, but which, if frustrated and discovered, surely entailed capital punishment. Nicholas listened moodily, striving to abstract his mind, endeavoring not to take in his friend’s talk, and all the while feeling a miserable consciousness that, however it might come about, he was nearing one of the tests of his hateful bondage. The day passed, and he still felt uneasy; each step on the stairs frightened him; he could hardly work. At night Lemoinne came to see him. Few words passed; Lemoinne bade him in the same cool, metallic voice, indifferent yet compelling attention, denounce Brederode and his fellow conspirators. He pleaded his oath.

“No oath that conflicts with your promise is worth anything.”

“But he is my friend, and his wife the niece of my patron.”

“No harm shall come to you 728through denouncing him; your name will be unknown. You shall appear only as an agent—my agent—and not even Brederode himself shall have the chance of upbraiding you.”

“But, since you know the whole affair, why not act yourself?”

“I do not know the whole, but you do, and I mean you to tell me and write it down; I will sign it alone. I am known and have power in many places, but it is useful to have instruments; I have bought mine, and only wish to use what I purchased. Sit down and write.” Nicholas stood sullen and silent. “Do you fancy, because your organ is partly built and placed, that no accident may happen to it? I can do more than you think; you weigh an act with which no one but I shall be acquainted against the possible destruction of your favorite, the fall of your ambition, the collapse of your whole life.”

“No one can put it to me more forcibly than I have done to myself,” said Nicholas moodily; “but, unluckily for me, I have a conscience left.”

“Forget it for twenty-four hours.”

“You do not ask me to forget it, but to disregard it, to gag it. I know what I lose in breaking my bond, and I believe in your power sufficiently to be sure that even my friend would not have opportunity to rebuke me in life.”

“Why do you talk about it?” interrupted Lemoinne with the cold smile peculiar to him. “To discuss a thing, and weigh pros and cons, is to yield; you do not reason against what you have made up your mind to refuse.”

Nicholas gazed at the man in horror. Who was he to go thus mercilessly to the heart of the question, to see his hidden thoughts, 729to interpret the secret of all the uneasiness he had felt ever since his friend had spoken those light but fatal words? Who? A master stronger than himself; one whom it was little use to resist now, no doubt, since he had not had the fortitude to resist him at first. It ended in his yielding, but not without the most terrible self-contempt; self-reproach was nothing to it. He wrote what he knew; as he wrote it all came back to him, much as he had honestly tried not to hear or understand the details. Lemoinne alone signed the paper, and bade him take it to a certain address before morning.

“If you change your mind or try to deceive me, I shall know it,” he said coldly as he left, “and all the difference will be that you will lose your hopes, as well as Brederode his life.”

Nicholas did as he was bidden, and from that day the little peace he had had before fled. The day of the execution came, and he could not resist going to see his friend pay the penalty of his treachery. His tongue was parched and his eyes bloodshot; he skulked behind people in the crowd, and wore his cap as low as he could over his forehead; but nothing availed him, and when the axe fell he felt as if his own soul had been under it instead of the head of his friend. Feverishly and recklessly, all but despairingly, he returned to his work, but though his brain and hands had not lost their cunning, the impressions of that day clouded everything else in his mind, and he had no heart for anything. Two years sped on, and Nicholas Verkloep, with his glowing reputation, was more of an enigma than ever; but it would be impossible to describe the many phases of his mental delirium 730tremens during that time. The organ was near completion, and Count Stromwael was now as proud of it as the maker. Lemoinne visited Nicholas once more before the end, and this time at the place where the contract was first made. It was the same hour, too. He began by congratulating him on his success so far, then examined the carvings, and smiled as he noticed his own face repeated many times.

“And here is Brederode’s,” he said, as he pointed to the figure personifying the Choir of Thrones. “What made you put him in?”

“Because, as you well know, his face is always with me,” said Nicholas, emboldened by his very complicity with his terrible master. “It was a relief to me to make the image a sort of reality, to give tangible expression to my remorse.”

“Yes; I see you have made the carvings a sort of history of your mind: I see the venerable prophet and the device he bears; the rose-hedge with the prominent and unnaturally-multiplied thorns; the haunting imps of dreams, your own face and mine, and so on. It is only a year and a few months now to the time when our contract ends, and hitherto we have kept it well. I think it likely we shall not meet again till the day is over. Nothing but silence now will be your burden. If you speak of or hint at anything of our transactions, remember the bond is cancelled; but, of course, after the expiration of the ten years you are free to publish the whole.”

He smiled scornfully, and, with another expression of admiration as to the work, left the tribune. It was now that Nicholas put in just over the key-board the groups of our Saviour and the twelve apostles (Judas, with the bag of money, 731bore Lemoinne’s likeness), but, instead of being, as they are at present, immovable, the figures went in and out by a spring hidden among the stops, so that at the Consecration they could be brought forward, and after the Communion return to the interior of the organ, in the same way as some of the famous figures of the clock in Strassburg Cathedral. The day of the public opening of the completed organ came, the tenth anniversary of the day of the contract, and the reader may imagine all the paraphernalia of a great mediæval fête, half-religious and half-secular.

Lemoinne sat among the guests at Count Stromwael’s banquet; it was the first time Nicholas had met him in public. The strange man seemed utterly unconscious that they had ever met before, and his eyes met the organist’s fully as he complimented him in set phrases and handed him a golden gift with a small roll of parchment attached. Stromwael laughed as he remarked:

“Is that the title-deed to a mortgaged estate, or a share in one of your ships?” Nicholas clutched it in silence and tried to smile; the talk around him seemed to point to his strange master being a banker, but he held to his first suspicions. As soon as he was alone he looked hastily at the hateful bond and thrust it into the fire. It seemed odd to him that he did not yet feel free; he had expected the release to be instantaneous. Weeks passed, and still the same old watchfulness and uneasiness went on. Brederode’s face came to him more constantly; all his faculties were centred in horrible recollections and vague and still more horrible expectations. All Flanders raved about the wonderful organ, and requests for similar 732ones made under his directions and supervision poured in from distant parts. He vowed to himself never to touch such a thing again, or even give directions for it; it was to his fancy an accursed thing, associated with all the horror and despair of his life. He refused all offers; and this grew to be even more of a mania with him than the making of the instrument had been before. Now that his dream had been fulfilled, he only longed to die; his servitude was still unbroken, though the letter of the bond was now a dead letter; he felt himself miserably fettered, haunted, paralyzed. To the rather imperious demand of Count Stromwael’s cousin, himself a powerful personage, for an organ with the same group of the twelve apostles, he returned a flat denial, and neither threats nor promises could shake him. At last the power of the two nobles combined threw him into prison; they made sure of reducing him to obedience by violence and temporary ill-treatment. The prison was what all mediæval dungeons were—damp, filthy, unhealthy, dark. His food was bread and water, and a very scanty measure of both. For a month he was treated as a criminal, but nothing made any impression on the moody, prematurely-aged man. He had made up his mind that only death would make him free, only death would make him able to explain and excuse himself to his dead friend. He cared for no bodily tortures; for ten years he had suffered a mental hell. His friends and his patrons came alternately to coax and tempt or to threaten and abuse him; he would not yield.

Neither wealth, marriage, nor a patent of nobility tempted him; neither the wheel, the rack, nor the 733block frightened him. He grew weaker and weaker. His eyes saw Lemoinne and Brederode all over the narrow cell; the one seemed like a fiend, and the other always like a corpse, with the head half-severed, yet still conscious with a kind of ghastly life. Physicians examined him and confidently pronounced him sane, and priests visited him and pronounced him certainly not possessed, but both agreed that something unusually terrible must be preying on his mind. He never told what he saw or felt, and answered all questions evasively. At last Stromwael, furious at his vassal’s obstinacy, threatened to put his eyes out and prevent him from ever taking pleasure in work again. He only said:

“You cannot take away my sight, even if you put out my eyes; would to God you could!”

Before this last measure was resorted to he received a visit from Lemoinne, who, in the calm tone of a cynic and a man of the world, begged him to reconsider his decision.

“Nothing could tempt me!” said Nicholas. “Not even you could compel me; it is not in the bond, and I am free.”

“Of course,” said the other, smiling. “I only ask you to yield for your own good. Why should you object?”

“Because the thing is accursed; it has wrecked my life, and I will have no more to do with it,” said Nicholas violently.

“But you are free now?”

“Am I?” said Nicholas, with savage meaning.

“You do me too much honor,” said Lemoinne sarcastically, “in believing my power to be supernatural. Shall I tell you who I am, 734and what was both my object and the secret of my influence?”

“You can tell what lies you like.”

“I dare say your superstition is greater than my falsehood,” said the man with a smile; “and if I told you, you would be convinced against your will and still remain of the same opinion. Well, you are free now, and show your freedom by throwing away the very gift you sold yourself to obtain.”

“If I could undo the past ten years,” said Nicholas, “I would give up not my organ only, but my art. But as it is, I shall never be free while I live, and I will do nothing that may save or lengthen my horrible life—a mockery, indeed, of freedom!”

“If that is your last decision, I will say no more,” said Lemoinne; “but remember, though our pact is over, I am still your friend, and, should you wish anything between this and death which your jailers would deny you, send me word.”

Nicholas looked at him in surprise and suspicion.

“Yes, they know me here by the same name as you do, and I can generally find means to do what I wish. It is not the first time I have been here or made a like offer to a condemned man.”

“I believe you,” said Nicholas shortly, and his visitor left him. Two days elapsed before the threat was carried into execution, but the prisoner, full of his own trouble, hardly dwelt upon the coming trial. He prayed wildly that the red-hot iron which was to take away his bodily sight would blot out his phantom companions from his mental vision; the horrors of his disturbed brain appalled him more than any earthly punishment, and his half-description or hints of it to 735one person who visited him constantly was such that the latter compassionately got leave for one of his jailers to sleep with him in his dungeon. The day of the horribly unskilful torture came, and with common iron rods, heated red-hot, the famous artist’s eyes were put out. He writhed and moaned, but the bodily pain was only a faint image of the agony of his mind. Was it madness? Was it possession? Were all the learned men wrong, and he alone right, in thinking that he carried hell within his brain? There was no peace from the gnawing remorse of his betrayal of friendship; no assurance that his repentance was of avail comforted him; no obstinate affirmations could make him feel that the unholy fetters of his bond were in truth broken. It was not his blindness that was killing him; it was his mania. He felt life ebbing, and was fiercely glad, yet at times furious that, with such gifts as his, he should go prematurely to the grave. A chaos of schemes floated through his brain and maddened him yet more: he saw a long array of the works he might have accomplished before he died—Masses, antiphons, fugues; the improvements in the organ-stops and the internal machinery of the instrument; a school he might have founded—if he had been content to rely upon his own industry and the slow path of trust in Providence. He had sold his birthright, and what was the farce of a ten years’ contract, when he knew that at this present moment even the wreck that was left of him was not his own? “If I am still his, at least he shall help me once more,” he thought suddenly, as Lemoinne’s offer occurred to his mind. “I will end this suspense at once.” He asked the man who 736brought him his meals to tell Lemoinne that he wanted him; and as he began the message he watched with fear and curiosity to see how it would affect the bearer of it. Strange! nothing but a common assent; evidently the request was not a novel one. Lemoinne came that very evening, and Nicholas asked him for a sharp knife. He produced his own, which Nicholas felt all over and took, saying:

“When you hear of my playing on my organ for the last time, come to the tribune and claim your knife. I shall make the request, and feel sure they will grant it.”

“What do you mean to do with the knife?”

“Nothing which you would disapprove; but since you say I am free, let me prove it by not answering this question.”

“I do not press you,” said Lemoinne with his usual icy smile. Nicholas felt the look he could not see, and his very heart seemed to tighten and writhe within him. He had guessed truly; when he asked Count Stromwael to allow him to play once more on the organ before he died—for he felt that he should not live long, he said—the request was quickly granted. His persecutors fancied that he would be less on his guard now, and that somehow, while he played, they could surprise the secret which they wanted to discover. He was taken to the chapel and seated before his instrument. Stromwael, his cousin, and Lemoinne were there, besides other less important persons. All watched eagerly. After half an hour’s playing, as divine as the player’s mind was storm-driven and despairing, Nicholas asked:

“Are the apostles out or in?”

“In,” was the answer.

737He pressed a spring and the group came slowly out—our Lord’s figure from the centre, and those of six apostles from each side. Then, with a quick and deft touch, he cut something, and a snapping sound was heard within; his fingers moved again, the knife gleamed, and a wailing sound came from the notes on which his left arm now leaned; then, turning round with a smile of triumph that looked ghastly on the blank face and mutilated eye-sockets, he said:

“I am free now. I am ready to die.”

Lemoinne quickly took up the knife that Nicholas dropped, and smiled as if another character-play had come to an end and he had solved another riddle; Stromwael burst out into wild and furious threats of purposeless revenge. Nicholas sat unmoved and said:

“This organ will be my only monument, and, if a man’s curse can follow another, may mine follow whoever shall attempt to remove or to repair my organ.”

To this day the instrument stands a witness to the tradition of its maker’s fate; the group is immovable, and the few sounds the notes produce are worse than dumbness. Nicholas died two months after, in prison, his mind more and more delirious each day. It is said that, when Lemoinne heard of his death, he remarked to one of his associates:

“That man was the most perfect tool I ever knew. If I had sworn to him that I was a banker, a merchant, a usurer, a spy—an unscrupulous eccentric, whose one mania was the possession of secret power, and whose conscience was dead to any obstacle—he would still have believed in his own theory. But I own I overshot the mark and drove him too far.”

738

THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

The social, moral, and political influence of the German-born and German-descended population of the United States upon their fellow-citizens has already been perceptible; that this influence will vastly increase in the future is highly probable. We may state here one of the many reasons for this belief. The intellectual and political leaders of the Germans in America have hitherto mainly confined their public utterances, in the press or on the platform, to the German language. The German newspapers are very numerous; their circulation is large; they are written for the most part with much ability; their treatment of social and political questions is often marked by a breadth of view and a soundness of logic too frequently wanting in many of their English contemporaries. Their influence upon the minds of their readers is also greater than that wielded by the majority of our newspapers printed in the English language. We have heard this fact attributed to the superior honesty with which the German press is conducted; but upon this delicate ground we shall not enter. Our point at present is that German thought and opinion, as expressed through the German periodical press, influence 739for the most part only the German population. Few of us who are not Germans read a German journal; what the German leaders in politics, morality, and literature are saying, day after day, is for the most part wholly unknown to the rest of us. Occasionally an American editor translates a leading article from a German journal and gives it to his readers; still more frequently he avails himself of the ideas and the arguments of his German contemporaries and reproduces them as his own.

In the next generation this state of things will be modified; more Americans will read German literature, and more Germans, or German-Americans, will write in English journals, speak in English at public conventions, and sit in our legislative assemblies. The barrier of language, which has hitherto tended to separate Germans from the rest of us to so great an extent, will gradually yield and disappear. The German language will be learned by increasing numbers of our non-German citizens; the common use of the German language by the German-Americans will be dropped, and the English tongue adopted in its stead, not only in business affairs, but in politics, literature, religion, and social intercourse. The English language has made many conquests, but in America it has only to hold its own. It is the language of the country, of the legislature, of the courts, of the markets and exchanges, and of society. Our German citizens must acquire it, or enter handicapped into all the relations of life.

The ability with which the German journals here are conducted does not prevent nearly the whole of them which are not avowedly Catholic from being inspired by an 740antagonism to religion. The genius of the German mind has little sympathy with socialism or communism, and the theories of socialism and communism find expression among our German citizens only through the writings or speeches of a few insignificant and uninfluential men in New York and some of our other large cities. But the German who is not a Catholic is most often an atheist; and he differs from the French atheist in wishing his wife and children to be atheists also. The non-Catholic German press faithfully represents this phase of the German mind; and it sneers at religion with the same pertinacity and often with more skill than is shown in a like direction by too many of our English-written newspapers.

The total immigration into the United States from the close of the War of Independence to the end of 1876 was 9,726,455 souls. The records of the government do not furnish an ethnological classification of all these; it is only since 1847 that this classification has been made. But every one knows that the bulk of our immigrants have come from Ireland and Germany. At the port of New York alone the total number of Irish immigrants from 1847 up to September 1 of the present year was 2,009,447; of German immigrants 2,345,486; of all others 1,265,240. An estimated classification of those arriving before 1847, added to the above figures, gives 2,463,598 Irish, 2,622,556 German, and 1,542,311 of other nationalities. The present Secretary of the Interior is the only American citizen of German birth who has ever held a cabinet appointment; we believe that he is the only citizen of German birth who has ever sat in the Senate. 741But among the senators at the last session of the Forty-fourth Congress there were seven who were either of foreign birth or the sons of foreigners; and in the lower House of the same assembly there appears to have been but one German to twelve naturalized citizens of other nationalities. The Secretary of the Interior owes the prominent political position which he fills less to his statesmanlike and philosophical acquirements than to his command of the English language and to his grace and power as a public speaker. No doubt there are among our German citizens many who are his equals in learning and political wisdom, but who are almost wholly unknown outside the German-speaking community, for the reason that they confine themselves, on the platform or in the press, to the use of the German language. The coming generation of Americans of German descent will not subject themselves to this disadvantage; and thus the influence of German thought will be widened and deepened.

Upon this portion of our subject we may as well reproduce in substance, although not with literal exactness, the observations made to us by a German ecclesiastic, a member of one of the German religious orders which are working here with so much zeal and success. In his opinion the German element now in the United States will ere long be greatly increased by a revival of immigration. Immigration from Germany may not again attain the vast proportions which it reached in 1852–53–54, nor during the seven memorable years 1866–1872, but it will still be very large. All other things being equal, the proportion of Catholics immigrating from Germany will be 742greater in the future than in the past. In looking at the future of the country we should reckon that the German element here will for many years to come steadily and rapidly increase. But it is not probable that, after the passing away of the present generation, our German population will so tenaciously retain its distinctive national or ethnological features. It will become absorbed in, amalgamated with, the rest of the community, but through this very absorption and amalgamation it will leaven the whole mass for good or for evil; and most probably the good will preponderate.

In our present German population, especially the younger portion of it, there is a very perceptible disposition to be a little ashamed of their German origin. This feeling, which has long existed, received a check during and immediately after the triumph of Germany over France in 1870 and the erection of the German Empire. But it has now revived and prevails with more force than before. Our German citizens feel that the golden apples of victory have turned to ashes in the grasp of the conquerors. The milliards wrung from France have sunk into the ground or vanished in the air, and Germany is poorer than before the war—much poorer than France, which Prince Bismarck imagined had been crushed into nothingness. All the glory that Germany won by her conquest of France in the field has been eclipsed by the peaceful victory of France—a victory the effects of which were made manifest at our International Exhibition last year. More serious still than this, in the opinion of the learned and acute ecclesiastic whom we are quoting, is the dislike and contempt 743with which the iniquitous, unnecessary, and tyrannical policy of the German government toward the church is regarded not only by Catholic Germans in America, but by those of their non-Catholic compatriots here who are not swayed by sectarian hatred of the church. This policy is justly regarded as at once an evidence of weakness and a prolific source of future trouble, and among the non-Catholic German-Americans the remark is common that “between the Red-coats and the Black-coats—the Communists and the Catholics—the empire is in great danger of destruction.” For these reasons, and other slighter ones, our German fellow-citizens are becoming less and less disposed to boast of their nationality, and more and more inclined to Americanize themselves and their children. The “Watch on the Rhine” gives place to “Yankee Doodle”; the suggestive inquiry as to the precise locality and boundaries of the Faderland is not so popular as “Hail Columbia.” Certain considerations of a utilitarian nature aid powerfully in leading our German citizens in the same direction. Their common sense enables them to see that their own advancement in life, and the prosperity and happiness of their children, materially depend upon their thorough Americanization—their complete identification with the rest of the community in which they live. The first step towards this end is the acquirement and use of the English language, and in this the children often outstrip the wishes of their parents. In the German-American schools, secular as well as religious, the study of the English language is compulsory, and necessarily so. The children appear to have a natural affinity 744for the English tongue; they acquire its use rapidly and soon begin to speak it in preference to their native language. It is not uncommon to meet with families where the parents address the children in German and the children reply in English. The truth is that the English language as now spoken, largely Teutonic in its composition and structure, but enriched and softened by Celtic, Latin, and Greek accretions, more easily adapts itself to the expression of the necessities, the emotions, and the ideas of the age. An amusing illustration of this self-asserting power of the English language was afforded by the experience of a village in Indiana, on the Ohio River, which was settled a few years ago by an exclusively German colony consisting of about three hundred families. Nothing but German was at first spoken in the houses, but in a very brief space of time the language in the streets was found to be English, and ere long that became the prevailing dialect of the place, appearing, as one of the residents said, to have sprung up and taken root there just as the weeds in the fields.

We should not omit to mention, however, a fact which to a very large degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the Germans are richly endowed. The influence of 745the mother in the family is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect, looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income, and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune. The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; 746he shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on fête days or on summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens. The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display, nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families, are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors. There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them; and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.