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Updated: May 6, 2025
I turned away, at last, with a silent farewell; and when I looked back, he seemed to speed me on my way with gentle valediction. Of my wanderings after I left the Museum on that black and dismal dies irae, I have but a dim recollection.
Thrale says that when he repeated the Dies Irae "he never could pass the stanza ending Tantus labor non sit cassus without bursting into a flood of tears"; and another witness records how one night at a dinner where some one quoted the nineteenth psalm his worn and harsh features were transformed, and "his face was almost as if it had been the face of an angel" as he recited Addison's noble version of that psalm.
He consoled himself with the saying of Berlioz: "Let us raise our heads above the miseries of life, and let us blithely sing the familiar gay refrain, Dies irae...." He used to sing it sometimes, to the dismay of his neighbors, who were amazed and shocked to hear him break off in the middle and shout with laughter. He led a life of stern chastity.
They give a picture of certain Jewish and Christian ideas of the period and of the opinions held concerning certain political events, but otherwise have no historical value. An illustration of the fact that the belief in them as real inspired prediction continued to a late time is found in the hymn Dies Irae, in which the Sibyl is cited along with David as a prophet of the last judgment.
Every city had its pictorial representation of the "Dies Irae;" and within this framework the artist was free to set forth his philosophy of human nature, adding such touches of satire or admonition as suited his own temper or the circumstances of the place for which he worked.
How gloomy was a Gothic church before the eleventh century, with its dark and heavy crypt, its narrow windows, its massive pillars, its low roof, its cold, damp pavement, as if men went into that church to hide themselves and sing mournful songs, the Dies Irae of monastic fear!
Each ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions, each one worked at its task alone, and only their voices mingled in harsh dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they chanted "Dies ilia dies irae, Calamitatis et miseriae!" "No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an infuriated madman "What are you doing in there?
One thing is certain, that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a dies irae coming on, sooner or later. The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this country. My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming, when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy.
Through the side windows were seen portions of the blue sky; the barking of the dogs and singing of birds were heard in the distance; and even while listening to the 'Dies irae', the curb could not help thinking of the robust and bright young fellow who, only the year previous, had been so joyously traversing the woods, escorted by Charbonneau and Montagnard, and who was now lying in a foreign land, in the common pit of the little cemetery of Montebello.
"Let tomorrow answer," I thought, as the piano-forte in the next room played "La Reve." Then fell asleep. And when I awoke next morning to the full knowledge that it was Sunday, I could have murdered the calendar. For Sunday was Dies Irae. After Sunday-school, at least. There is a certain amount of fun to be to extracted from Sunday-school.
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