{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:lotos-club-anton-seidl",
  "slug": "lotos-club-anton-seidl",
  "title": "Lotos Club Dinner in Honor of Anton Seidl",
  "subtitle": "After-dinner tribute to the conductor.",
  "excerpt": "Lotos Club tribute to the German-American conductor Anton Seidl — champion of Wagner and the Metropolitan Opera's leading baton of the 1890s.",
  "year": 1893,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "After-Dinner",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/lotos-club-anton-seidl/",
  "wordCount": 2497,
  "body": "Lotos Club Dinner in Honor of Anton Seidl\n\nNew York, February 2, 1895.\n\nMR. PRESIDENT, Mr. Anton Seidl, and Gentlemen: I was enjoying myself\nwith music and song; why I should be troubled, why I should be called\nupon to trouble you, is a question I can hardly answer. Still, as the\npresident has remarked, the American people like to hear speeches. Why,\nI don't know. It has always been a matter of amazement that anybody\nwanted to hear me. Talking is so universal; with few exceptions—the\ndeaf and dumb—everybody seems to be in the business. Why they should be\nso anxious to hear a rival I never could understand. But, gentlemen,\nwe are all pupils of nature; we are taught by the countless things that\ntouch us on every side; by field and flower and star and cloud and river\nand sea, where the waves break into whitecaps, and by the prairie, and\nby the mountain that lifts its granite forehead to the sun; all things\nin nature touch us, educate us, sharpen us, cause the heart to bud, to\nburst, it may be, into blossom; to produce fruit. In common with the\nrest of the world I have been educated a little that way; by the things\nI have seen and by the things I have heard and by the people I have met.\nBut there are a few things that stand out in my recollection as having\ntouched me more deeply than others, a few men to whom I feel indebted\nfor the little I know, and for the little I happen to be. Those men,\nthose things, are forever present in my mind. But I want to tell you\nto-night that the first man that let up the curtain in my mind, that\never opened a blind, that ever allowed a little sunshine to straggle in,\nwas Robert Burns. I went to get my shoes mended, and I had to go with\nthem. And I had to wait till they were done. I was like the fellow\nstanding by the stream naked washing his shirt. A lady and gentleman\nwere riding by in a carriage, and upon seeing him the man indignantly\nshouted, \"Why don't you put on another shirt when you are washing one?\"\nThe fellow said, \"I suppose you think I've got a hundred shirts!\"\n\nWhen I went into the shop of the old Scotch shoemaker he was reading\na book, and when he took my shoes in hand I took his book, which was\n\"Robert Burns.\" In a few days I had a copy; and, indeed, gentlemen, from\nthat time if \"Burns\" had been destroyed I could have restored more than\nhalf of it. It was in my mind day and night. Burns you know is a little\nvalley, not very wide, but full of sunshine; a little stream runs down\nmaking music over the rocks, and children play upon the banks; narrow\nroads overrun with vines, covered with blossoms, happy children, the hum\nof bees, and little birds pour out their hearts and enrich the air. That\nis Burns. Then, you must know that I was raised respectably. Certain\nbooks were not thought to be good for the young person; only such books\nas would start you in the narrow road for the New Jerusalem. But one\nnight I stopped at a little hotel in Illinois, many years ago, when we\nwere not quite civilized, when the footsteps of the red man were still\nin the prairies. While I was waiting for supper an old man was reading\nfrom a book, and among others who were listening was myself. I was\nfilled with wonder. I had never heard anything like it. I was ashamed to\nask him what he was reading; I supposed that an intelligent boy ought to\nknow. So I waited, and when the little bell rang for supper I hung back\nand they went out. I picked up the book; it was Sam Johnson's edition of\nShakespeare. The next day I bought a copy for four dollars. My God!\nmore than the national debt. You talk about the present straits of the\nTreasury! For days, for nights, for months, for years, I read those\nbooks, two volumes, and I commenced with the introduction. I haven't\nread that introduction for nearly fifty years, certainly forty-five, but\nI remember it still. Other writers are like a garden diligently planted\nand watered, but Shakespeare a forest where the oaks and elms toss their\nbranches to the storm, where the pine towers, where the vine bursts into\nblossom at its foot. That book opened to me a new world, another nature.\nWhile Burns was the valley, here was a range of mountains with thousands\nof such valleys; while Burns was as sweet a star as ever rose into the\nhorizon, here was a heaven filled with constellations. That book has\nbeen a source of perpetual joy to me from that day to this; and whenever\nI read Shakespeare—if it ever happens that I fail to find some new\nbeauty, some new presentation of some wonderful truth, or another\nword that bursts into blossom, I shall make up my mind that my mental\nfaculties are failing, that it is not the fault of the book. Those,\nthen, are two things that helped to educate me a little.\n\nAfterward I saw a few paintings by Rembrandt, and all at once I was\noverwhelmed with the genius of the man that could convey so much thought\nin form and color. Then I saw a few landscapes by Corot, and I began to\nthink I knew something about art. During all my life, of course, like\nother people, I had heard what they call music, and I had my favorite\npieces, most of those favorite pieces being favorites on account of\nassociation; and nine-tenths of the music that is beautiful to the world\nis beautiful because of the association, not because the music is good,\nbut because of association.. We cannot write a very poetic thing about a\npump or about water works; they are not old enough.\n\nWe can write a poetic thing about a well and a sweep and an old\nmoss-covered bucket, and you can write a poem about a spring, because\na spring seems a gift of nature, something that cost no trouble and no\nwork, something that will sing of nature under the quiet stars of June.\nSo, it is poetic on account of association. The stage coach is more\npoetic than the car, but the time will come when cars will be poetic,\nbecause human feelings, love's remembrances, will twine around them, and\nconsequently they will become beautiful. There are two pieces of music,\n\"The Last Rose of Summer,\" and \"Home Sweet Home,\" with the music a\nlittle weak in the back; but association makes them both beautiful. So,\nin the \"Marseillaise\" is the French Revolution, that whirlwind and flame\nof war, of heroism the highest possible, of generosity, of self-denial,\nof cruelty, of all of which the human heart and brain are capable; so\nthat music now sounds as though its notes were made of stars, and it is\nbeautiful mostly by association.\n\nNow, I always felt that there must be some greater music somewhere,\nsomehow. You know this little music that comes back with recurring\nemphasis every two inches or every three-and-a-half inches; I thought\nthere ought to be music somewhere with a great sweep from horizon to\nhorizon, and that could fill the great dome of sound with winged notes\nlike the eagle; if there was not such music, somebody, sometime, would\nmake it, and I was waiting for it. One day I heard it, and I said, \"What\nmusic is that?\" \"Who wrote that?\" I felt it everywhere. I was cold. I\nwas almost hysterical. It answered to my brain, to my heart; not only to\nassociation, but to all there was of hope and aspiration, all my future;\nand they said this is the music of Wagner. I never knew one note from\nanother—of course I would know it from a promissory note—and\nwas utterly and absolutely ignorant of music until I heard Wagner\ninterpreted by the greatest leader, in my judgment, in the world—Anton\nSeidl. He not only understands Wagner in the brain, but he feels him in\nthe heart, and there is in his blood the same kind of wild and splendid\nindependence that was in the brain of Wagner. I want to say to-night,\nbecause there are so many heresies, Mr. President, creeping into this\nworld, I want to say and say it with all my might, that Robert Burns was\nnot Scotch. He was far wider than Scotland: he had in him the universal\ntide, and wherever it touches the shore of a human being it finds\naccess. Not Scotch, gentlemen, but a man, a man! I can swear to it,\nor rather affirm, that Shakespeare was not English, but another man,\nkindred of all, of all races and peoples, and who understood the\nuniversal brain and heart of the human race, and who had imagination\nenough to put himself in the place of all.\n\nAnd so I want to say to-night, because I want to be consistent, Richard\nWagner was not a German, and his music is not German; and why? Germany\nwould not have it. Germany denied that it was music. The great German\ncritics said it was nothing in the world but noise. The best interpreter\nof Wagner in the world is not German, and no man has to be German to\nunderstand Richard Wagner. In the heart of nearly every man is an AEolian\nharp, and when the breath of true genius touches that harp, every man\nthat has one, or that knows what music is or has the depth and height\nof feeling necessary to appreciate it, appreciates Richard Wagner. To\nunderstand that music, to hear it as interpreted by this great leader,\nis an education. It develops the brain; it gives to the imagination\nwings; the little earth grows larger; the people grow important; and\nnot only that, it civilizes the heart; and the man who understands\nthat music can love better and with greater intensity than he ever did\nbefore. The man who understands and appreciates that music, becomes in\nthe highest sense spiritual—and I don't mean by spiritual, worshiping\nsome phantom, or dwelling upon what is going to happen to some of us—I\nmean spiritual in the highest sense; when a perfume arises from the\nheart in gratitude, and when you feel that you know what there is of\nbeauty, of sublimity, of heroism and honor and love in the human heart.\nThis is what I mean by being spiritual. I don't mean denying yourself\nhere and living on a crust with the expectation of eternal joy—that is\nnot what I mean. By spiritual I mean a man that has an ideal, a great\nideal, and who is splendid enough to live to that ideal; that is what I\nmean by spiritual. And the man who has heard the music of Wagner, that\nmusic of love and death, the greatest music, in my judgment, that ever\nissued from the human brain, the man who has heard that and understands\nit has been civilized.\n\nAnother man to whom I feel under obligation whose name I do not know—I\nknow Burns, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Wagner, but there are some other\nfellows whose names I do not know—is he who chiseled the Venus de Milo.\nThis man helped to civilize the world; and there is nothing under the\nsun so pathetic as the perfect. Whoever creates the perfect has thought\nand labored and suffered; and no perfect thing has ever been done except\nthrough suffering and except through the highest and holiest thought,\nand among this class of men is Wagner. Let me tell you something\nmore. You know I am a great believer. There is no man in the world who\nbelieves more in human nature than I do. No man believes more in the\nnobility and splendor of humanity than I do; no man feels more grateful\nthan I to the self-denying, heroic, splendid souls who have made this\nworld fit for ladies and gentlemen to live in. But I believe that the\nhuman mind has reached its top in three departments. I don't believe\nthe human race—no matter if it lives millions of years more upon this\nwheeling world—I don't believe the human race will ever produce in the\nworld anything greater, sublimer, than the marbles of the Greeks. I do\nnot believe it. I believe they reach absolutely the perfection of form\nand the expression of force and passion in stone. The Greeks made marble\nas sensitive as flesh and as passionate as blood. I don't believe that\nany human being of any coming race—no matter how many suns may rise and\nset, or how many religions may rise and fall, or how many languages\nbe born and decay—I don't believe any human being will ever excel the\ndramas of Shakespeare. Neither do I believe that the time will ever come\nwhen any man with such instruments of music as we now have, and having\nnothing but the common air that we now breathe, will ever produce\ngreater pictures in sound, greater music, than Wagner. Never! Never! And\nI don't believe he will ever have a better interpreter than Anton Seidl.\nSeidl is a poet in sound, a sculptor in sound. He is what you might call\nan orchestral orator, and as such he expresses the deepest feelings,\nthe highest aspirations and the in-tensest and truest love of which the\nbrain and heart of man are capable.\n\nNow, I am glad, I am delighted, that the people here in this city and in\nvarious other cities of our great country are becoming civilized enough\nto appreciate these harmonies; I am glad they are civilized at last\nenough to know that the home of music is tone, not tune; that the home\nof music is in harmonies where you braid them like rainbows; I am glad\nthey are great enough and civilized enough to appreciate the music\nof Wagner, the greatest music in this world. Wagner sustains the same\nrelation to other composers that Shakespeare does to other dramatists,\nand any other dramatist compared with Shakespeare is like one tree\ncompared with an immeasurable forest, or rather like one leaf compared\nwith a forest; and all the other composers of the world are embraced in\nthe music of Wagner.\n\n\"Nobody has written anything more tender than he, nobody anything\nsublimer than he. Whether it is the song of the deep, or the warble of\nthe mated bird, nobody has excelled Wagner; he has expressed all that\nthe human heart is capable of appreciating. And now, gentlemen, having\ntroubled you long enough, and saying long live Anton Seidl, I bid you\ngood-night.\"\n"
}