Ole Bull Part 20

A few days only after Mr. Horsford left came the sudden change,-the loss of strength, and the fear, on the part of those in charge of the case, that the illness would prove fatal. Never had a patient kinder physicians; Dr. Moore being in constant attendance, and Dr. Wiesener, of Bergen, in daily consultation. The sick one bravely fought the disease at every step, and calmly awaited the issue. It has been said of another: "A devoted lover of religious liberty, he was an equal lover of religion itself, not in any precise dogmatic form, but in its righteousness, reverence, and charity." This was true of Ole Bull. As his body weakened, his soul seemed the stronger, "and full of endearment and hope for humanity," as Mr. Fields wrote of him. He gave the sweet a.s.surance that life had been precious to him, and the dear smile lighted the way for all, as he pa.s.sed beyond. One who was present wrote of that hour:-

Everything made the change remarkably free from the dark and terrible in death. The day was a beautiful, quiet one, full of suns.h.i.+ne and gladness, and the fragrance of flowers. You know how lovely the surroundings are. I hope death may always seem to me as here, a happy, peaceful ending of suffering, and a quiet pa.s.sing away into something n.o.bler and better.

Another quotation from a letter written only for the eyes of friends will give the public feeling of the time and its expression:-

All honor is being paid our beloved by king and people. The king sent a telegram of condolence to Mrs. Bull, expressing his personal as well as the national loss. The city is in mourning, with hundreds of flags at halfmast, among them the royal standard. The common council of Bergen at once met, and offered a spot in the very centre of the old cemetery for the place of burial. It is a beautiful location. The newspapers are enclosed with broad lines of black, as never before, except for members of the royal family, and contain many tributes and accounts of his life.

On Friday last the Kong Sverre, one of the largest of the coast steamers, came out with friends to see the remains as they lay in state in the music room. On Monday the funeral ceremonies took place, and honors more than royal were indeed shown to our dear one. It seemed that all the patriotism, all the love of people and country, which have so characterized and distinguished his nature during all his long life, wherever he might have been, were now returned to him in this spontaneous outpouring of respect and love. On the morning of the day of burial the Kong Sverre came again, bringing the family and intimate friends to attend the services here, which were held in the hall, and were very impressive, especially so to us, for whom the place has so many beautiful a.s.sociations connected with his life and music. After a prelude on the organ played by his friend, Edward Grieg, there was prayer by the pastor, and singing of a poem written for the service; then followed an address, eloquent with feeling, by Mr.

Konow (the grandson of ohlenschlager), a neighbor and warm friend of Ole Bull. After music again, the casket, covered deep with most beautiful flowers, the gifts of friends, was borne by peasants down to the steamer, followed by the family and friends, leaving desolate the island which he had made a home, and so much loved.

The sad ride to Bergen was happily brightened by the sun. The steamer, on entering the large fjord which lies outside the harbor, was met by a convoy of sixteen steamers, ranged on either side-a wonderfully impressive escort. As the fleet approached the harbor slowly, guns fired from the fort and answered by the steamers echoed and reechoed among the mountains. The harbor and s.h.i.+pping were covered with flags of all nations, at halfmast, the whole world paying its last tribute to a genius which the whole world had learned to know and love. The quay was covered thick with green juniper, and festoons of green draped its whole front to the water's edge. Every shop and place of business was shut; the whole population of the city stood waiting silent, reverent.

As the boat touched the quay, and while the casket was being borne to the high catafalque, one of the artist's own melodies was played.

Young girls, dressed in black, bore the trophies of his foreign success; his gold crown and orders were carried by distinguished men of Bergen. As the procession pa.s.sed slowly along the streets strewn with green, flowers were showered on the coffin, and tears were seen on many faces; but the silence was unbroken save by the tones of Chopin's funeral march, and the tolling of the church bells. At the house where Ole Bull was born, the procession halted while a verse of a poem written by a friend was sung. At the grave, pastor Wallum read the service, and spoke with feeling of the work and life of the departed, and the grat.i.tude of his country.

Then Bjornstjerne Bjornson spoke to the a.s.sembled thousands as follows:-

Ole Bull was loved; this we see today; he was honored, but it is more to be loved than to be honored!

If we would understand this deep attachment from its inception, understand him, what he was, what he is to us, then we must go far back to the time when he first appeared among us.

We were a poor, a small nation, with glorious traditions of earlier times, starting afresh with longings not soon to be realized, longings for which we were sometimes mocked.

Even of our own intellectual and spiritual inheritance but few crumbs had fallen to us, Denmark having taken the loaf. They said we were incapable of an independent intellectual existence, and our best men believed this. A Norse literature was deemed an impossibility, though the ample foundations were there to build upon; an individual Norse school of history, a thing to be laughed at; even our language was not acceptable unless spoken with a Danish accent and soft consonants; a national theatre not even to be thought of.

Our political situation was equally unfortunate. We had been newly bought and sold, and what little liberty we had presumed to seize, and had succeeded in extending, gave us no security, but much concern.

We dared have no official celebrations, since it might offend in high places. But a young generation came, nourished on freedom, and without the fear and prudence of their elders, but with more of defiance, more of anger. They lived in the morning of freedom and honor, and in this dawn came Ole Bull's tones like the first rays of the sun over the mountain tops.

At that time the folkmelodies invaded our music, the democratic invaded the aristocratic, the national the abstract, the individual the formulated ideal. To our honor be it said, we followed.

Older men have told you of the giant form which suddenly stood forth, not in the low, no, in the highest places, before kings and the most cultured, and played with a wild power, possessed by only one man before, but in Ole Bull more original, more humanly sympathetic,-a power for the first time Norse. When they read how he stood and sang Norwegian melodies from his violin to other nations, we felt that they were one with us while they were moved to laughter and tears as they caught glimpses back of him of our people and grand, beautiful nature; thus one may understand the confidence, the faith, the pride he awakened,-he the foremost of all in our Norse independence. Henrik Wergeland expresses this when he makes Norway thus sing to Ole Bull:-

"Oh, worldwide is my son's fair fame!

Anew my eye is proud aflame.

"On, on, my son! when thou art blest, 'Tis blessing in thy Mother's breast.

"A poet I, for ages long; The Nors.e.m.e.n's legends are my song.

"My epic have I written too, A n.o.ble thought each hero true."

On his first return from his triumphs abroad it was a festival but to look at him. When he played the folksongs, which had been timidly hidden, though cherished in memory, now through him applauded by mighty rulers, that generation felt themselves borne to the same heights; Ole Bull became the first and greatest festival in this people's life; he gave us selfrespect, the greatest gift possible at that time.

This is Ole Bull's undying honor, this the supreme accomplishment of his life.

If one would measure the depth of an impression, he must seek its expression in literature. Read Welhaven's poem at that time to Ole Bull. Any man with a knowledge of European literature will not hesitate to say that it is one of the most beautiful lyrics ever written.

How happened it that he was the one to accomplish all this? His birth of a musical race had not sufficed without the fervor of his patriotism. During our war for independence he was still a boy at play, and his childish voice was among the first to shout for our young freedom. When a youth-I speak whereof I know-his violin, with its boundless, exultant joy, sang our first national songs in Henrik Wergeland's collegeroom, and became the overture to Wergeland's inspiration of our national observance of the 17th of May. These feelings Ole Bull carried with him to other lands.

Patriotism was the creative power in his life. When he established the Norse theatre, a.s.sisted Norse art, helped the national museum, his mighty instrument singing for other patriotic ends; when he helped his countrymen and others wherever he found them, it was not so much for the object, or the person, but for the honor of Norway. He always felt himself our representative; and, if he felt there was need, let it be at home or abroad, that "Ole Olsen Viol, Norse Norman from Norway"[25] should appear, he never failed us.

[25] His own nickname for himself.

His patriotism had a certain tinge of _navete_, of morbidity, about it; it was a consequence of the times. But it was of importance to us that our finest gentleman, coming from Europe's most cultured salons, could and would go arm in arm with our poor Norse beginnings. It lies in the nature of things that first attempts are never popular; they only become so when developed and recognized by all; but, as a rule, they have then outlived their usefulness.

It was this st.u.r.dy faithfulness in Ole Bull, spite of his impulsive temperament, that made him dear to our people; in other words, it was his patriotism.

So it was with Henrik Wergeland. Ole Bull and Henrik Wergeland were of the same age and temperament. The one responded to the other as in the spring the woodsong answers the green of the meadows, or on the western coast the sea skerries and irregular mountain groups-the flickering suns.h.i.+ne on their gra.s.sy slopes, their s.h.i.+fting lights and shadows-answer the wooded ridges, the great, broad, rich landscape of the east, with Mjosen's gleaming surface in its midst. The one was the blue boy of the west, with the ocean's salt flavor, the restless spirit of the Vikings; the other, the gray boy of the east.[26] There was western blood in Henrik Wergeland; but his genius had the color of the mild, broad outlook of an eastern landscape, with the mountains in the distance.

[26] Gray and blue are the colors worn by the peasants in Norway.

When Ole Bull talked of his art, he was wont to say that he had learned to "sing" of the Italians. Without doubt this was true; the outer form he had learned from them, but the genius and the colors were from the soul of our soul, the most spontaneous message of the folksong, as love of country made it glow in his consciousness. An old, worldrenowned artist[27] said to me: "Faults in Ole Bull's playing are more noticeable as he advances in age; but no artist in our time has possessed Ole Bull's poetic power; no one has ever surpa.s.sed his playing of the 'Adagio.' I think all his cultivated auditors will say the same."

[27] Joachim.

The criticism has been made that Ole Bull has failed in not leaving behind him great musical works. This is unjust. A man that could so fully give what he at times gave us could not do more. In proportion to the ability for the one, is the other impossible.

But it was important for us at that time, as it is always important for a small nation, that we had a man of the first rank among us. It was a direct connection with the outside world. It exalted our aims. As far as human power could, it spurred our ambition,-and that in all directions.

Let us then, at the grave of our greatest citizen, say honor to him beyond all the artists who have broken a way for us,-he who not alone inspired followers in his profession, but also awakened ambition and happiness wherever he was known; helping the moral and intellectual forces,-the greatest legacy one can bequeath.

I love to remember him on the great 17th of May celebrations; for he was a celebration himself, majestic, fascinating, as he walked among us. And a gesture of his hand, a look, raised in him who received it a holiday mood.

Thus hand in hand with all our national development, enn.o.bling it, cheris.h.i.+ng in his love the least with the greatest, always enn.o.bling,-this was his life, this his inspiration. Such a love of country rewards, as by miracle, him who cherishes it. When I read every year how he came home with summer, like the bird of pa.s.sage, how he came this summer, and that his love of country, of home, bore him on, spite of distance, the advice of physicians, and all hindrances, I thought of Henrik Wergeland's words of Robert Major: "First thence and then to heaven would the old gray republican." His eye would fondly rest on that land he loved before it closed in death.

Countrymen! let us not leave this spot till we have thanked her who did what a nation could not-opened to his age a home of beauty and comfort....

Always before when we have spoken in Ole Bull's honor we have closed with a "Long live Ole Bull!" This we may never say again-though dead to us he is not,-he will be with us when we return to our homes. Let my last words be an appeal to the young here present. True to the dead one, as your elders who knew him, ye cannot be; but by this grave, mark the wonders worked by love of country, the miracle revealed forever in this rich life of which we solemnize the earthly close.

Again a hymn was sung, and Edward Grieg then said with emotion:-

Because more than any other thou wast the glory of our land, because more than any other thou hast carried our people with thee up towards the bright heights of art, because thou wast more than any other a pioneer of our young national music, more, much more, than any other the faithful, warmhearted conqueror of all hearts, because thou hast planted a seed which shall spring up in the future and for which coming generations shall bless thee-with the grat.i.tude of thousands upon thousands, for all this, in the name of our Norse memorial art, I lay this laurel wreath on thy coffin.

Peace be with thy ashes!

Mr. Bendixen, on behalf of the National Theatre, said:-

With grateful remembrance that our great artist, ardently loving his native land, saw with clear, penetrating vision the influence of art on the development of a people,-especially of an independent dramatic art springing up in its midst,-with earnest and heartfelt thanks, because we owe to his inspiring energy and example the presence of that art in his own native city, recognizing that his name will be always connected with its history,-in the name of Bergen's National Theatre, I lay this wreath upon his grave.

"After the coffin had been put in the grave, and the relatives had gone away, there was paid a last tribute to Ole Bull,-a tribute more touching and of more worth than the king's message, the gold crown, all the orders, and the flags of the world at halfmast, meaning more love than the pinestrewn streets of the silent city, and the tears on its people's faces; a tribute from poor peasants, who had come in from the country far and near, men who knew Ole Bull's music by heart,-who, in their lonely, povertystricken huts had been proud of the man who had played their 'Gamle Norge' before the kings of the earth. These men were there by hundreds, each bringing a green bough, or a fern, or a flower; they waited humbly till all others had left the grave, then crowded up, and threw in, each man, the only token he had been rich enough to bring.

The grave was filled to the brim. And it is not irreverent to say, that to Ole Bull, in heaven, there could come no gladder memory of earth than that the last honors paid him there were wild leaves and flowers of Norway, laid on his body by the loving hands of Norway peasants."

"Now long that instrument has ceased to sound, Now long that gracious form in earth hath lain, Tended by nature only, and unwound Are all those mingled threads of love and pain; So let us weep, and bend Our heads, and wait the end, Knowing that G.o.d creates not thus in vain."

APPENDIX.