The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860

The Indians would fare no better than the mixed races, though the mode of their degradation might differ from that which would be pursued toward the latter. The Indians of Mexico are a race quite different from the Indians whom we have exterminated or driven to the remote West. They are a sad, a superstitious, and an inert people, upon whom Spanish tyranny has done its perfect work. Nominally Christians, they are nearly as much devoted to paganism as were their ancestors of the age of the Conquistadores. They are the most finished conservatives on the face of the earth, and see ruin in change quite as readily as if they lived in New England and their opinions were worth quoting on State Street. The traveller can see in Mexican fields, to-day, the manner in which those fields were cultivated in the early days of the last Montezuma, before the Spaniard had entered the land,—as in Canada he can occasionally find men following the customs that were brought, more than two centuries ago, from Brittany or Normandy. The Indians are practically enslaved by two things: they are so attached to the soil on which they are born as to regard expulsion from it as the greatest of all punishments,—thus being much like those serfs who, in some other countries, are legally bound to the land, and are sold with it; and they are forever in debt, the consequence of reckless indulgence, and of that inability to think of the morrow which is the most prominent characteristic of the inferior races of men. This has caused the existence of the system of peonage, of which so much has been said in this country, in the attempts that have been made to show that slavery already prevails in Mexico. But American planters never would be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those rights of property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something more than that; and the system of repartimientos, under which the Indians of the time of Cortés were divided among the conquerors, with the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground on which African slavery was introduced into America,—because the negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his power. With such unlimited fields for the production of sugar and cotton, those leading agencies of Christianity and civilization, it would never do for the world to deny to the new school of planters a million of negroes, so necessary to the full development of the purpose of the American crusaders. Observe what a gain it would be to the shipping interest, could the seas become halcyonized through the conquest of prejudices by men who believe that God is just, and that He has made of one flesh and one blood all the nations of the earth!

Even if it should not be sought to enslave the Indians of Mexico, that race would not be the less doomed. There seems to be no chance for Indians in any country into which the Anglo-Saxon enters in force. A system of free labor would be as fatal to the Mexican Indians as a system of slave labor. The whites who would throng to Mexico, on its conquest by Americans, and on the supposition that slavery should not be established there, would regard the Indians with sentiments of strong aversion. They would hate them, not only because they were Indians,—which would be deemed reason enough,—but as competitors in industry, who could afford to work for low wages, their wants being few, and the cost of their maintenance small. It is charged against the Indians that they are not flesh-eaters; and white men prefer meat to any other description of food. Place a flesh-eating race in antagonism with a race that lives on vegetables, and the former will eat up the latter. The sentiment of the whites toward the Indians is not unlike that which has been expressed by an eminent American statesman, who says that the cause of the failure of Mexico to establish for herself a national position is to be sought and found in her acknowledgment of the political equality of her Indian population. He would have them degraded, if not absolutely enslaved; and degradation, situated as they are, implies their extinction. This is the opinion of one of the ablest men in the Democratic party, who, though a son of Massachusetts, is ready to go as far in behalf of slavery as any son of South Carolina.

Another eminent Democrat, no less a man, indeed, than President Buchanan, is committed to very different views. He is the patron of Juarez, whom he would support with all the power of the United States, and whose government he would carry to "the halls of the Montezumas" in the train of an American army. Now Juarez is a pure-blooded and full-blooded Indian. Not a drop of Castilian blood, blue or black, flows in his veins. He is a genuine Toltec, a member of that mysterious race which flourished in the Valley of Mexico ages before the arrival of the Aztecs, and the marvellous remains of whose works astonish the traveller in Yucatan and Guatemala. He is a native of Oajaca, one of the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates bestowed upon Cortés, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so enabled him to play no common part in his country,—the independence of which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing for it a stable and well-ordered government.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen. Herausgegeben von Adolph Bernhard Marx, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.

SECOND NOTICE

The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to "Leonore,"—afterwards printed as Op. 138,—Marx says, "It shows us, as in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the following:—

"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie nun [so] recht glücklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [über ihren Haupte] den sie nicht mehr zu lösen vermögen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'"

The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are slight, but will soon be seen to have significance.

Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die Characterizirung [der Sätze] der B dur Trio……Der erste Satz träumt von lauter Glückseligheit [Glück und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, heiteres Tändeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission—Beethovenscher) ist darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit Permission."]

On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April, 1820."

But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d, the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for his master's perusal!

But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is neither one thing nor another,—neither a biography nor a critical examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,—an attempt to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,—anecdotes of different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,—chronology so oddly abused,—that one can obtain a far better idea of the man Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and discussion for a whole generation,—on these he has little or nothing to say.

But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is worthy of notice; here are a few examples.

Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from memory, and improvising others, before the Abbé Sterkel. Wegeler is the original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel!

Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of temper," etc. To me,—Ries,—a boy of sixteen,—and Beethoven already the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to take at any prices he chose to fix!—Ries relates no such thing. Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna; moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being urged to play in mixed companies,—the fact having no relation whatever to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties.

Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems, there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement of Wegeler.

Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, 1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19.

Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata offered for publication with the Concerto.

Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in 1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to Vienna.

Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through a page or two. Ries relates no such thing.

Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz.

Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him…..a magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George Smart." Cannot Marx read German?

Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing authorities,—a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Cäcilia," in full. Here is the passage;—

"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a musical friend and composer of Grätz, who had hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." Anselm Hüttenbrenner!

Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopædia, for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. For instance,—in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to Sterkel,—that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him [Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'" —which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as 1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel in Berlin.

These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in the same city with the authoress, the questio vexata fully put to rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx says,—"These letters,—one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof of this, no more than of their authenticity,—if they are not imagined, they are certainly translated… from Beethoven into the Bettine speech. Never—compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which are known with these Bettine epistles—never did Beethoven so write….. If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [überdichtet] his letters,—and she has not done even this well; we have in them Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,—liebe, liebe,—liebe, gute,—bald, bald'!"

What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,—"Jeden Tag schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Töplitz in the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A., seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond …. so sehen Sie den kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc.

And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx.

Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims to our applause.

On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the grand symphony.

"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,—a term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the orchestra to Beethoven."

Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be based upon the chronology of the works in question,—a basis which he adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly thrown aside.

We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question.

Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.)

do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801.

do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated.

Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2,

but "begun earlier."

Quintett, Op. 29. 1802.

Septett, Op. 20. Not dated.

Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28,

1801.

Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800.

do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800.

A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also attributed to the same epoch.

Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799.

Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799.

Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799.

Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99.

Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800.

do. Pathétique, Op. 13. 1800.

Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800.

Quintett, Op. 16. 1801.

Sonata, Op. 22. 1802.

do Op. 26. 1802.

do Op. 28. 1802.

From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were published (herausgegeben) during these years, selecting only those which he calls "aus dem Jahre,"—belonging to such a year.

Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 et seq.) shows us that the works above mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which unfitted him for labor throughout the season.

We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for great works; and for minor productions,—by-play,—nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"—a productiveness (and such a productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and most marvellous years.

But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of 1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As this—the "Prometheus"—was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time took place between the execution of the order for and the production of the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of the publication of the works in the above lists, for the dates which he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, "Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,—'Gli Uomini di Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus:

"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested."

No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all schools, the orchestra itself!

Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled "Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives," these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"—its history, its explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others.

The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting out of the path, even when it lies directly before him.