The Soul of the Violin

I don't know that Grandma ever memorized this, but she did read it aloud. It was printed in a book called, "Handbook of Best Readings" by S. H. Clark. The book was published in 1902, and Grandma said that it had been her mother's. The full book is scanned as a Google Book here: Handbook of Best Readings. "The Soul of the Violin" is in the section titled, "Pathetic." It's interesting to see how another "elocutionist" marked up this reading.


Scene--A dingy attic-room in a wretched tenement. A bit of candle stuck in an old bottle gives a faint, gloomy light; uncanny shadows move about the room; a rickety chair, a table, a pile of straw that serves for a bed. A man stands by the table lifting a violin from its case

"It has come at last, old comrade; it has come at last - the time where you and I must say good-bye. God knows I wish I could sell myself instead of you. But I am worthless, while you - do you know, my beauty? A shylock down the street, the man who has all else I own save you, has offered me five hundred dollars if I will give you to him - five hundred dollars to a man who has not a coat to his back, a roof to cover him, or a crumb of bread to eat! Why do I hesitate? You are only some bits of wood and a few trumpyery strings - not much for man to starve for. I have only to run down the stairs with you - a few steps more, hand you over the counter - the thing is done; and I have five hundred dollars! I can leave this wretched, rat-ridden hole. I can have food to eat such as I have not tasted for a year. I can mingle again with the men I used to know. I can be one of them. Five hundred dollars! And all for you - you thing without a stomach! You cannot know hunger, you, body without a soul. Stay - am I sure of that?"

The man passes his fingers over the strings and bends his heads to listen. The soft vibrations follow each other like sweet half-forgotten thoughts.

"Your E-string is a trifle flat," says the man. "Well, it doesn't matter."

He rises hastily, possesed by a sudden determination, opens the case, and is about to thrust the violin inside, when he stops. A faint tremor of sound is still audible. It seems almost like a whisper of pain. The man lifts the violin again in his arms and lays his check upon it.

"What, old comrade, does it hurt you too? Ah! I've wronged you. You have a heart. You can feel. I almost believe you can remember."

"Let me see. How long has it been? Twenty, thirty, thirty-five years. think of that, old comrade. Thirty-five years! The average lifetime of man we have been together. And I knew you long before that. You were in a funny old shop, kept by a man who had owned you longer than I have. He would show you to the people who came, and allowed them to read your inscription, 'Cremona, 1731.' But he would not sell you. It is not probable that he was ever hungry. I loved yu then, you inanimate thing of wood. I loved to hold you and hear you sing. I longed for you, as I had never longed for anything before. One day the old man sent for me.

"Bring me your violin," he said," and you shall have the Cremona."

"to keep!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said the old man, "to keep. For I am sure you will keep it. I'm old. some one else will soon take possesion here, and the Cremona might be sold into strange hands. I should not like that. I would rather give it to you."

"So I took you home with me, and sat up half the night drawing the bow softly over your strings. I was the happiest boy in the world, I think. I had you where, if I waked in the night, I could reach out and touch you. I Would not have taken a kingdom in exchange for you then. Ah! But then I was not hungry. What animals we are, after all!

This man still held the violin agaist his cheek, passing his hands gently along the strings, and talking on in a dreamy way, as if he scarcely knew that he spoke at all.

"Thirty-five years! And we have seen the world together. We have tasted its sweets and its bitterness. Kings and beggars have listed to you and both have loved you."

"so you remember the night in Berlin, when we played "The Dream," and the beautiful woman in the box at the right threw a great red rose? It caught upon one of your strings-caught and hung by a thorn. And when I tried to release it, the blood red petals fell in a shower at my feet. Then we played "The Last Rose of Summer." I'm sure you had a heart that night. I could feel it vibrate with the quivering of your strings. There were tears in many eyes when we had finished, and she-I think the music had taken possession of her. For she rose crying out: "No, no! It is not the last;the world is full of roses. See! "and she threw a great armful of white and red blossoms."

"I wonder if she loved me best, or you? It was in the time of roses, when she, the rose of all the world, lay dead. You must remember that,old comrade. When it was dark, when all the rest had gone and left her, we went to say good-bye. The world was full of roses then, and I heaped them over her. Then you sang. Oh! How you sang! I have always believed that her soul was borne away on the wings of your song,carrying the perfume of the roses with it. The next time we played, someone threw a rose and I set my heel upon it. What right has roses to bloom when she was dead?"

"We have done badly since then, you and I. Someway, things ceased to seem worth triving for. And you have been dearer, because you were the only one who knew and understood. And yet I said yu had no soul. Forgive me, old comrade! A man is not to be blamed for what he says when he is hungry."

"Ah, what a fool I am; maundering away to an old fiddle when I might be filling my empty stomach!"

The man sprang up, thrust the violin rudely into its case, closed the lid with a bang, seized it and stopped, listening. The strings were quivering from his rough handling. He heard a sigh, faint as the farewell breath from the lips of a loved one dying. The man set his feet hard, took another step, stopped again. Then, suddenly, he clasped the violin in his arms.

"No,no, I cannot, I cannot! I will not! It may be folly; it is folly. It is madness. No matter. I wll not do it, I am not hungry now."

The man opens the case, lifts the violin again, and held it in his arms as if it were a child.

"To think that I ever dreamed of selling you, my treasure! But a devil prompted me - the demon of hunger. It is gone now. I am quite content, quite satisfied. Come sing to me, and I shall be altogether happy."

The man raises the violin and draws the bow.

"Ah! That E-string! There - so - it is better. Now we are all right. And we are happy, are we not? Sing to me of the rose and of her. See! She is in the box yonder, all among her blossoms. She is smiling and throwing us handfuls, red and white. We must do our best, our very best, when she listens."

The man's eyes kindle and burn. His pale cheeks flush. Starvation and rags are far away and forgotten things. He is again the master of music. the foul attic room has widended and brightend into a great, glittering ampitheater wherin thousands sit, breathless under the spell of the divine melody. The man's soul is breathing itself upon the strings; and how they exultation.

"Hear! Hear! My old comrade!" cries the man. "Bravos! Bravos! Ah, we have conquered the world tonight. How the lights glitter! This is ecstasy - this is heaven!"

Wilder a wilder grows the music. Faster and faster flies the bow. Snap! A string breaks. Snap! Another.

The weird strains sing to a willing, minor key. The arm that holds the bow grows unsteady. The wild eyes cease their feverish shifting and fastens themselves upon one spot at the right. The tense features relax into a smile. The voice is very low and very tender: "One more rose, my beauty, my queen of all the world. The lights are growing dim. My sight is failing. I can see only you, only you!" Snap! The last string breaks.




Scene--The same as at first. The candle, the chair, the table, the straw--yes, and the man too. But he lies prone upon his face, and under him is a handful of wooden fragments, upon one of which is the inscription-- "Cremona, 1731." 

The Jersey Cow

Short and sweet. This was always Doug's request. I found a couple of versions of this oldie but goody. Grandma's version was, as I recall told in first person, but it included the line about the brown eyes, and I think it ended with the line, "our family's Jersey cow."  So neither of these is exactly right, but they will do, I think.




The Jersey Cow -- Version 1


We walked in the lane together;
The sky was covered with stars.
We reached the gate in silence
As I lifted down the bars.
She neither smiled nor thanked me
Because she knew not how
For I was only a Farmer's Boy
And she was a Jersey Cow.




The Jersey Cow -- Version 2


They strolled the lane together;
The sky was studded with stars. 
They reached the gate in silence; 
He lifted for her the bars. 
She raised her brown eyes to him, 
There was nothing between them now 
For he was just a farmers boy 
And she, a Jersey Cow.

The Eagle's Rock -- But Not Really

One piece that Grandma rarely did, was "The Eagle's Rock." It is a  poem about an eagle that snatches a baby from where he is lying in the village green during a festival of some kind. The poem is essentially about mother love triumphing over all, as the strong young men of the village are not able to scale the steep cliff to the eagle's nest, but the baby's mother, not heeding the danger, climbs to the nest and rescues her baby. I have searched all over for this poem, and I can't find it. If anyone has it, I would love to put it here. In the meantime, I found this poem called "The Vulture of the Alps" in a book called, "Comstock's Elocution" that deals with a similar idea--a baby snatched by a large bird of prey. I include it here as a kind of place keeper. I imagine it was for elocution class in school that Grandma learned all of her poems. Why don't we do that anymore?

The Vulture of the Alps

I’ve been among the mighty Alps, and wandered thro’ their vales,

And heard the honest mountaineers—rel to their dismal tales,

As round the cotter’s blazing hearth, when their daily work was o’er.

They spake of those who disappeared, and ne’er were heard ofmore.

And there, I, from a shepherd, heard a narrative of fear,

A tale—to rend a mortal heart, which mothers—might not hear;

The tears—were standing in his eyes, his voice—was tremulous;

But wiping all those tears away, he told his story thus:

“It is among these barren cliffs—the ravenous vulture dwells,

Who never fattens on the prey, which from afar he smells;

But patient watching hour on hour upon a lofty rock,

He singles out some truant lamb, a victim, from the flock.

One cloudless Sabbath summer morn, the sun was rising high,

When, from my children on the green, I heard a fearful cry,

As if some awful deed were done, a shriek of grief, and pain,

A cry, I humbly trust in God, I ne’er may hear again.

I hurried out to learn the cause; but, overwhelmed with fright,

The children never ceased to shriek; and, from my frenzied sight,

I missed the youngest of my babes, the darling of my care;

But something caught my searching eyes, slow sailing thro’ the air.

Oh! What an awful spectacle—to meet a father’s eye,--

His infant—made a vulture’s prey, with terror to descry;

And know, with agonizing heart, and with a maniac rave,

That earthly power—could not avail—that innocent to save!

My infant—stretched his little hands—imploringly to me,

And struggled with the ravenous bird, all vainly to get free:

At intervals, I heard his cries, as loud he shrieked and screamed!

Until, upon the azure sky, a lessening spot he seemed.

The vulture—flapped his sail-like wings, though heavily he flew;

A mote upon the sun’s broad face, he seemed unto my view;

But once I thought I saw him stoop, as if he would alight—

‘Twas only a delusive thought, for all had vanished quite.

All Search was vain, and years had passed; that child was ne’er forgot

When once a daring hunter climbed unto a lofty spot.

From thence, upon a rugged crag—the chamois never reached,

He saw—an infant’s fleshless bones—the elements had bleached!

I clambered up that rugged cliff—I could not stay away—

I knew they were my infant’s bones—thus hastening to decay;

A tattered garment—yet remained, though torn to many a shred:

The crimson cap—he wore that morn—was still upon his head.”

That dreary spot—is pointed out to travelers, passing by,

Who often stand and musing, gaze, nor go without a sigh;

And as I journeyed, the next morn, along my sunny way,

The precipice was shown to me, whereon the infant lay.

An Order for A Picture

I think that after "Lasca" this was my favorite.

By Alice Cary

Oh, good painter, tell me true,
Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.

Woods and corn fields, a little brown,—
The picture must not be overbright,—
Yet all in the golden and gracious lightOf a cloud, when the summer sun is down.
Alway and alway, night and morn,
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn
Lying between them, not quite sere,
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room
Under their tassels,—cattle near,
Biting shorter the short green grass,
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras,
With bluebirds twittering all around,—
(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)—
These, and the house where I was born,
Low and little, and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,—
Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush:
Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done
With woods and corn fields and grazing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun
Looked down upon you must paint for me:
Oh, if I only could make you see
The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while,
I need not speak these foolish words:
Yet one word tells you all I would say,—
She is my mother: you will agree
That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee
You must paint, sir: one like me,—
The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise:
At ten years old he went to sea,
God knoweth if he be living now,—
He sailed in the good ship Commodore,
Nobody ever crossed her track
To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, it is twenty long years and more
Since that old ship went out of the bay
With my great-hearted brother on her deck:
I watched him till he shrank to a speck,
And his face was toward me all the way.
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,
The time we stood at our mother's knee:
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
Carried sunshine into the sea.

Out in the fields one summer night
We were together, half afraid
Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,—
Loitering till after the low little light
Of the candle shone through the open door,
And over the hay-stack's pointed top,
All of a tremble and ready to drop,
The first half-hour, the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see
Propped and held in its place in the skies
By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree,
Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,—
Dead at the top,—just one branch full
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,
From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our heads, when we came to play
In its hand-breadth of shadow, day after day.
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,—
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:
The berries we gave her she would n't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?
If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face
Of the urchin that is likest me:
I think 't was solely mine, indeed:
But that 's no matter,—paint it so;
The eyes of our mother—(take good heed)—
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,
Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise!
I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
A sharp blade struck through it.
You, sir, know
That you on the canvas are to repeat
Things that are fairest, things most sweet,—
Woods and corn fields and mulberry-tree,—
The mother,—the lads, with their bird, at her knee:
But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!
High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

The Patter of the Shingle

This always made my dad laugh. According to him, Grandma didn't use a shingle, she used a hairbrush, until she broke it on one of the "boys" backsides.

WHEN THE ANGRY PASSION gathering in my mother's face I see,
And she leads me to the bedroom, gently lays me on her knee,
Then I know that I will catch it, and my flesh in fancy itches
As I listen for the patter of the shingle on my breeches.

Every tingle of the shingle has an echo and a sting
And a thousand burning fancies into active being spring,
And a thousand bees and hornets 'neath my coattail seem to swarm,
As I listen to the patter of the shingle, oh, so warm.

In a splutter comes my father-who I supposed had gone--
To survey the situation and tell her to lay it on,
To see her bending o'er me as I listen to the strain
Played by her and by the shingle in a wild and weird refrain.

In a sudden intermission, which appears my only chance,
I say, "Strike gently, Mother, or you'll split my Sunday Pants!"
She stops a moment, draws her breath, and the shingle holds aloft,
And says, "I had not thought of that, my son, just take them off."

Holy Moses and the angels! Cast your pitying glances down,
And thou, O family doctor, put a good soft poultice on.
And may I with fools and dunces everlastingly commingle,
If I ever say another word when my mother wields the shingle!

The Inventor's Wife

THE INVENTOR'S WIFE
by
Mrs. E. T. Corbet


It's easy to talk of the patience of Job -
Job had nothing to try him!
If he'd been married to 'Bijah Brown
Folks wouldn't have dared come nigh him.

Trials indeed! Now I'll tell you what -
If you want to be tired of your life,
Just come and change places with me a spell,
For I'm an Inventor's Wife!

And such inventions! I'm never sure,
When I take up the coffee-pot,
That 'Bijah aint been improving it
And it mayn't go off like a shot!

Why, didn't he make me a cradle once
That would keep itself a-rocking?
And didn't it pitch the baby out?
And wasn't his head bruised? Shocking!

Then there was that patent peeler too -
A wonderful thing, I'll say!
But it had one fault: it never stopped
Till the apple was peeled away!

As for locks and clocks and mowing-machines
And reapers and all such trash -
Why, 'Bijah invented heaps of them,
But they don't bring in any cash!

He invented a Jew's-harp to go by steam
And a newfangled powder-horn
While the children were going barefoot to school
And the weeds were a-choking our corn!

When 'Bijah and me kept company
He wasn't like this, you know.
Our folks all thought he was dreadful smart
But that was years ago!

He was as handsome as any picture then
And had such a glib, bright way.
I never thought as I'd see the time
When I'd rue my wedding-day!

But since I've been forced to chop the wood
And tend to the farm beside,
And to see 'Bijah just sitting there -
Well, I've just sat down and cried!

We lost the whole of our turnip crop
While he was inventing a gun;
But I counted it one of my mercies
When it bust afore it was done!

So he turned it into a burglar alarm -
It ought to give thieves a fright;
It would scare an honest man out of his wits
If he set it off at night!

Sometimes I wonder if 'Bijah's crazy,
He does such curious things!
Have I told you about his bedstead yet?
'Twas full of wheels and springs.

It had a key to wind it up
And a clock face at the head,
And all you did was to turn the hands
And, at any hour you said,

The bed got up and shook itself,
Then bounced you on the floor,
And then shut up, just like a box,
So you couldn't sleep any more.

Well, 'Bijah - he fixed it all complete
And set it at half-past five,
But he hadn't no more than got into it,
When - Strike me sakes alive! -

The wheels began to whiz and whirr
- I heard a fearful snap -
And there was the bedstead, with 'Bijah inside,
Shut up - just like a trap!

I screamed, but of course it wasn't no use
And I worked the whole long night
A-trying to open the pesky thing;
At last I got in a fright.

I couldn't hear his voice inside
And thought he might be dying,
So I took a crowbar and smashed it in
And there was 'Bijah, peacefully lying

Inventing a way to get out again!
That's all very well to say,
But I don't believe he'd have found it out
If I'd left him in all day!

Now since I've told you my story
Do you wonder I'm tired of my life
And think it strange I often wish
That I weren't an INVENTOR'S WIFE?

Lasca

I think this has to be everyone's favorite. One year after we moved to Texas, almost 20 years ago, my husband and I drove from Houston to California for Christmas. The drive across Texas is almost 800 miles along I-10. As we were driving across the desert in West Texas, we saw a sign for a turnoff just past the tiny town of Sierra Blanca, about 5 miles north of the Rio Grande. The street name? Lasca Road.

A few days before I started my mission, we had a family dinner with Grandma. We sat together and she coached me on how to recite Lasca. At one point she said, "Now slow down, and take a big pause there. You need to really squeeze their hearts." She definitely had a flair for the dramatic.

Grandma often recited this leaving out the 4th stanza, "Her eye was brown -- a deep, deep brown..." and go directly to the 5th stanza, "The air was heavy, the night was hot..." I've heard her do it both ways, but I think she left it out more often than not.

LASCA

- Frank Desprez

I want free life and I want fresh air;

And I sigh for the canter after the cattle,

The crack of the whips like shots in a battle,

The medley of horns and hoofs and heads

That wars and wrangles and scatters and spreads;

The green beneath and the blue above,

And dash and danger, and life and love --

And Lasca!

Lasca used to ride

On a mouse-gray mustang close by my side,

With blue serape and bright-belled spur;

I laughed with joy as I looked at her!

Little knew she of books or of creeds;

An Ave Maria sufficed her needs;

Little she cared, save to be by my side,

To ride with me, and ever to ride,

From San Saba's shore to LaVaca's tide.

She was as bold as the billows that beat,

She was as wild as the breezes that blow;

From her little head to her little feet

She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro

By each gust of passion; a sapling pine

That grows on the edge of a Kansas bluff

And wars with the wind when the weather is rough

Is like this Lasca, this love of mine.

She would hunger that I might eat,

Would take the bitter and leave me the sweet;

But once, when I made her jealous for fun, At something I'd whispered, or looked, or done,

One Sunday, in San Antonio,

To a glorious girl in the Alamo,

She drew from her garter a dear little dagger,

And -- sting of a wasp! -- it made me stagger!

An inch to the left, or an inch to the right,

And I shouldn't be maundering here tonight;

But she sobbed, and, sobbing, so swiftly bound

Her torn reboso about the wound,

That I quite forgave her. Scratches don't count

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

Her eye was brown -- a deep, deep brown;

Her hair was darker than her eye;

And something in her smile and frown,

Curled crimson lip and instep high,

Showed that there ran in each blue vein,

Mixed with the milder Aztec strain,

The vigorous vintage of Old Spain.

She was alive in every limb

With feeling to the finger tips;

And when the sun is like a fire,

And sky one shining, soft sapphire,

One does not drink in little sips.

The air was heavy, and the night was hot,

I sat by her side, and forgot - forgot;

Forgot the herd that were taking their rest,

Forgot that the air was close opprest,

That the Texas norther comes sudden and soon,

In the dead of night or the blaze of noon;

That, once let the herd at its breath take fright,

Nothing on earth can stop the flight;

And woe to the rider, and woe to the steed,

Who falls in front of their mad stampede!

Was that thunder? I grasped the cord

Of my swift mustang without a word.

I sprang to the saddle, and she clung behind.

Away! On a hot chase down the wind!

But never was fox hunt half so hard,

And never was steed so little spared,

For we rode for our lives, You shall hear how we fared

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

The mustang flew, and we urged him on;

There was one chance left, and you have but one;

Halt, jump to ground, and shoot your horse;

Crouch under his carcass and take your chance;

And, if the steers in their frantic course

Don't batter you both to pieces at once,

You may thank your star; if not, goodbye

To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh,

And the open air and the open sky,

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

The cattle gained on us, and just as I felt

For my old six-shooter behind in my belt,

Down came the mustang, and down came we,

Clinging together -- and, what was the rest?

A body that spread itself on my breast,

Two arms that shielded my dizzy head,

Two lips that hard on my lips were prest;

Then came thunder in my ears,

As over us surged the sea of steers,

Blows that beat blood into my eyes,

And when I could rise--

Lasca was dead!

I gouged out a grave a few feet deep,

And there in Earth's arms I laid her to sleep;

And there she is lying, and no one knows;

And the summer shines and the winter snows;

For many a day the flowers have spread

A pall of petals over her head;

And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air,

And the sly coyote trots here and there,

And the black snake glides and glitters and slides

Into a rift in a cottonwood tree;

And the buzzard sails on,

And comes and is gone,

Stately and still like a ship at sea.

And I wonder why I do not care

For the things that are like the things that were.

Does half my heart lie buried there

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande?