Torch of reason., March 19, 1903, Image 1

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AT a KC TH 19, E. M. 303 (1903.)
A P rice le ss P a ra d is e .
1 \
NO. 6.
strange and changing forms, like have been longing to utter. The
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM.
sum m er clouds, and weird harmon-1 horns run riot; the drums and
BY EDMUND NANCE COOKE.
lies come like sounds from the sea symbols join in the general joy- The Modern State and Individual— What
F som e w eiM g n o m e sh o u ld seek m y brought by fitful winds, and others the old bass viols are alive with*
Each May and May Not Do
hom e,
moan like waves on desolate shores, passion; the ’cellos throb with
Som e genie, fa iry , w itch,
To b lin k m y eyes w ith ev ery p rize
and mingled with these, are shouts love; the violins are seized with a (F ro m c o n c lu sio n of P re s id e n t W ood-
&
V/ w W ils o u ’s book, “T he S ta te .” )
O f life a n d ask m e, “ W h ic h ? ”
row
of jov, with sighs and sobs and 1 divine fury, and the notes rush out
I th in k I ’d choose, in h a lf a tric e ,
H E state of the ancients had
T h is boon; to n e v er a sk th e price.
ripples of laughter, and the won- as eager for the air as pardoned
been an entity in itself—an
drous voices of eternal love. Wag- prisoners for the roads and fields
I w ould n o t claim a g ild ed n am e,
O r be a fin an c ie r,
entity to which the entity of
lier is the Shakespeare of Music.
The music of W agner is filled
N o r w ould I hold th e wide w o rld ’s g o ld ;
The funeral march for Siegfried with landscapes. There are some the individual was altogether sub­
A nd y e t I so m ew h at fe a r
ordinate.
I ’d ask a j u s t su fficie n t slice
is
the
funeral
music
for
all
the
dead.
strains,
like
m
idnight,
thick
with
T h a t I m ig h t n ev er a sk th e p rice.
rI he feudal state was merely an
Should all the gods die, this music constellations, and there are har­
A c o at-o f-a rm s has m eagre c h a rm s
would be perfectly appropriate. monies like islands in the far seas, aggregation of individuals—a loose
To m en of m o d ern views,
Net w ere it m ine to m ake d e sig n ,
It is elemental, universal, eternal. and others like palms on the des­ bundle of separated series of men
I know w hich one I ’d choose;
The love-music in Tristan and e rt’s edge. H is music«satisfies the knowing no common aim or action.
An open p u rse , w ith th is device:
“ H e never, n e v er a sk s th e p ric e .”
Isolde is, like Romeo and Ju liet, heart and brain. It is not only for It not only had no actual unity: it
an expression of the human heart memory; not only for the present, had no thought of unity. National
Is H eaven a sta te , a place, a fete,
A r a p tu r e , a rest?
unity came at last,—in France, for
for all time. So the love-duet in but for prophecy.
T he q u e s tio n ’s old a n d each m ay hold
instance, by the subjugation of the
The F lying D utchm an has in it
H is own o p iu io n b e st;
W
agner
was
a
sculptor,
a
painter,
B ut my id ea of P a ra d ise
barons by the king; in England
the consecration, the infinite self- in sound.
W hen he died, the
Is w here one need n o t ask th e price!
by the joint effort of the people
—[S a tu rd a y E v e n in g P o st. denial, of love. The whole heart greatest fountain of melody that
is given; every note has wings, ever enchanted the world, ceased. and barons against the throne,—
and rises and poises like an eagle H is music will instruct and refine but when it came it was the ancient
W a g n e r ’s M u s ic .
unify with a difference. Men were
in the heaven of sound.
forever.........................
no longer state fractions; they had
W hen I listen to the music of
BY ROBERT G . IN G ER SO LL.
D uring all my life, of course,
Wagner, I see pictures, forms, like other people, I had heard what become state integers. The state
(F ro rn D re sd e n E d itio n , V ol. 12.)
glimpses of the perfect, the swell fhey call music, and I had my seemed less like a natural organ­
T is probable that I was se­ of a hip, the wave of a breast, the hivorite pieces, most of those fav­ ism and more like a deliberate or­
lect ed to speak about music, glance of an eye. I am in the orite pieces being favorites on ac­ ganized association. Personal alle­
because, not knowing one midst of great galleries. Before count of association; and nine- giance to kings had everywhere
note from another, I have no pre-! me are passing the endless pano- tenths of the music that is beauti- taken the place of native member­
judice on the subject. . . .
ramas. I see vast landscapes with ful to the world is beautiful be- ship of a body politic. Men were
Music expresses feeling
and I valleys of verdure and vine, with cause of the association, not be­ now subjects, not citizens.
N ew C haracter of S ociety .—
thought, without language.
It soaring crags, snow-crowned. I cause the music is good, but be-
And, more than that, the result
was below and before speech, and !am on the wide seas, where count- cause of association,
it is above and beyond all words. less billows burst into the white
Now, I always felt that there has been to give to society a new
Beneath the waves is the sea— caps of joy. I am in the depths of must be some greater music some- integration. The common habit
above the clouds is the sky.
caverns roofed with m ighty crags, where, somehow. I thought there is now operative again, not in ac-
Language is not subtle enough, while through some rent I see the ought to be music somewhere with quiesence and submission merely,
tender enough, to express all that eternal stars. In a moment the a great sweep from horizon to but in initiative and progress as
we feel; and when language fa ils,, music becomes a river of melody, horizon, and in the meanwhile well. Society is not the organism
the highest and deepest longings ! flowing through some wondrous could fill the great dome of soutk « it once was,—its members are given
are translated into music. Music land; suddenly it falls in strange with winged notes like the eagle; freef play, fuller opportunity for
is the sunshine—the clim ate—o f , ^ a s m s , and the m ighty cataract if there was not such music, some- organization; but its organic char­
the soul, and it floods the heart is changed to seven-hued foam.
body, sometime, would make it acter is again prom inent. I t is
with a perfect June. . . .
' G reat music is always sad, be- and I was waiting for it. One day the whole which has emerged from
I am not saying that great music cause it tells us of the perfect; and I heard it, and I said, “W h at’mu- the disintegration of feudalism and
was not produced before W agner, slK‘h is the difference between sic is that? W ho wrote t h a t ? ’ the specialization of absolute mon­
but I am simply endeavoring t o , what we are and that which music I felt it everywhere. I was cold archy. The whole, too, has be­
show the steps th at have been suggests, that even in the vase of I was almost hysterical. It an- come self-conscious, and by be­
taken. I t was necessary th a t all , .W we find some tears.
swered to my brain, to my heart ; coming self-directive has set out
tin* music should have been writ-
The music of W agner has color, not oidy to association, but to all upon a new course of development.
In brief, the modern state has
ten, in order that the greatest and when I hear the violins, the there was of hope and aspiration,
might be produced. The same is m orning seems to slowly come. A all my future; and they said this been largely DE-SOCIALIZED. The
true of the drama. Thousands and horn puts a star above the horizon, is the music of W agner I never modem idea is this: the state no
thousands prepared the way for the The night, in the purple hum of knew one note from another, and longer absorbs the individual; it
supreme dram atist, as millions the bass, wanders away like some was tterly and absolutely ignor- only serves him : the state, as it
prepared the way for the supreme enormous bee across wide fields of ant of music until I heard W agner appears in its organ, the govern­
ment, is the representative of the
composer
dead clover.
I he light grows interpreted by the greatest leader
W hen I read Shakespeare, I am w hiter as the violins increase, in my judgm ent, in the world— individual, and not his representa­
astonished that he has expressed Colors come from other instru- Anton Siedl. He not only urider- tive even except within the definite
so much with common words, to ments, and then the full orchestra stands W agner in the brain, but he commission of constitutions; while
for the rest each man makes his
which he gives new meaning; and floods the world with day.
feels him in the heart, and there is
own social relations. “The indi­
so when I hear Wagner. I exclaim:
W agner seems not only to have in his blood the same kind of wild
Is it possible that all this is done given us new tones, new combina- and splendid independence that vidual for the state” has lieen re­
versed and ma^e to read, “The
with common air?
lions, but the moment the orchestra was in the brain of Wagner,
state for the individual.” . . .
In W agner’s music there is a begins to play his music, all the
The liest interpreter of W agner
F unctions of G overnment much
touch of chaos that suggests the instrum ents are transfigured. They in the world is not German, and no
the S ame now as A lways .—This
infinite.
The melodies seem seem to u tter the sounds that they '
C o n tin u e d on page O
is indeed a great and profound
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