DIVA WORSHIP.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 48, 28 March 1874, Page 11

DIVA WORSHIP.

<' New York Tablet.') The blind pagans among their many deities, worshipped the great god Pan. The conception of Pan had at least much that wa9 ideal aud beautiful in it. We are told how the Fauns and Satyrs stole out of the groves timidly to hear him as he played ; how as he played the more, the trees bowed their heads and nodded, until whole groves rose up and followed him down to the sea shore, where the sea came u> meet him ; how wild beasts forgot their instincts and followed, and all nature was moved to harmony by the music of his sweet pipings. Itwasapagnn idea; but, «o far, at least, a very beautiful and harmless one, and was a wonderful expression of the power of music. It contrasts very favorably with modern worship of the same. We know to-day that the great god Pan was, at best, a beautiful ideal. We have thrown him aside with wany another myth. But, we still worship Pan's gifts. We prefer the real to the ideal, especially when the real comes to us in the form of a beautiful womau. Then there is room for worship, aud we testify our adoration eometimes in a form that might well make pagans wonder. A Diva, as our readers know, is " the leading lady " of^an opera troupe. She is called Diva because she is divine ; that is to say, because she can trill out the longest and the loudest and the sweetest note, and quiver and quaver and shake more deftly than her less divine sisters. If her person happen to correspond with her gifts, she is a goJdess— uutil the wrinkles come, and the floating hair falls off, aud the limbs lose their roundness, and the eyes their brightness 5 until, in fact, that horrible realist, Time, the sad old truth-teller, will show through the the thickest of patches and paint. Then our Diva 13 flung aside 5 and the piece of painted flesh that drew emperors, and kings, and merchant princes, and all the " great ones " of this world in her train, may rot, for all lier quondam worshippers cared — for they have found a new Diva.

If the reigning Diva happened to have sprnig from the gutter, if she had walked the streets barefoot, and sung in low concert saloons for the pennies dropped by drunken revellers into her palm— so much the better and it is right that the world that found her in the gutter, and would have left her there, had not accident revealed that a voice lay somewheie concealed in the wretched little body, should afterwards bow down and adore. Our readers may wonder what all this preface is corning to. It results from an interview a ' Herald ' reporter heM with Madame Rouzand, better known as Miss Chiistine Nilsson, "the Swedish Nightirig ile," in which she gave some of the particulars of her recent visit to Russia. They contain a fine satire. Of Madame Nilsson herself we know nothing beyond the ordiuary knowledge gathered from the newspapers. She is, according to all account?, a very amiable and estimable lady, who richly merits whatever honors and rewards her carefully-cultivated powers have commanded ; and her name is only used as typical of a class. We speak not of Madame Nilason, but of the charming Diva. It seems that " the Swedish Nightingale " has been carolling to the Russian bear, aud that animal has comported himself in a manner worthy of his reputation. In St. Petersburg, that used to be known as the Paris of the North, the lady assures us that her benefit night was something to be borne in sensitive remembrance by her to t'io Litest day of her life. Naturally so, one would imagine, from the following account :—: —

" The poor students came pouring out in scores ; they surrounded the doors of her hotel, and when she was about to enter her carri ige several of them seized her, and, inspired by an enthusiasm which, in spite of its violence, never even lost a respect that seemed to border on reverence, took her in their arms and bore her in triurap'i to the theatre, th» others, each with a lighted flambeau in his hand, forming a procession. The whole city was alive with these frantic worshippers, and finally the police turned out in full force, holding themselves in readiness in the event of fire. During the performance at this theatre she was re-called forty-five times, and the stage was absolutely imbedded with ilowers, upon which it was necessary lor her to walk several yards before reaching the footlights. Finally, ii answer to the general acclamations, the artist was compelled to seat herself at a piano, which was conveniently near, and sing one or two ot the Russian national songs, the audience meanwhile standing, and the royal family uniting, up to the last moment, in the popular enthusiasm. As the opera had been ' Mignou,' and as the heroine had her hair streaming over her shoulders, the effect was extremely unique acl picturesque" Surely that was enough adoration for feminine flesh an 1 blood ; but that is not all. When man really begins to worship it is hard t) tell where he will stop :—: —

"On more than one occasion some of the students, in company with not a few oilicers of dignified rank, prostrated themselves on the rrouiid, and welded themselves into a tloor upon which Madumc

Nilsson was obliged to walk in order to reach her carriage. ' This waa too much/ said the speaker, her ejes glistening at the remembrance. 'It was really too trying to an artist's feelings to expect her to accept it. But there they were, and what was I to do ? At my concerts the people behaved so sometimes that I was frightened.' Being requested to mention the particulars, Madame Nilsson said that the people rushed to the edge of the stage, snatched at the hem of her dress, and tore it into fragments, caught her and held her so- that she could not move, and left her in a condition that must hare resembled that of the ' priest all tattered and torn.' They stole her glove 9, her fan, her handkerchief, her bouquet, and almost the slippers from' her feet." We wish that, in the name of manhood, we could give the lie to this ; but from former accounts of the manner in which other Divas have been treated in St. Petersburg, and elsewhere there is no reason for surprise at Madame Rouzand's narrative. This sort of Diva worship is not restricted to Russia. If the whilom little Swedish peasant girl be the woman we believe her to be, she must feel the profoundeat contempt for the men who laid their manhood in the dust that the sole of her slipper might tread on it. She must think that, after all, man's applause is a poor thing, and, when given in this manner, an insult rath«r tban a reward. Whilst she takes the money that she- ha* earned, and that is lavished upon her, she must shrink with horror from the touch and the 6ight of the pagan donors, rather of the wild beasts who grovel before her, and lay their soulless bodies in the earth. These are the students who do this ; the young men who are filled with the advanced ideas of the age. For them to bow the kree before their God would be an action degrading to manhood ; to honor the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God a childish superstition, These are the Comtiats, the Huxleyites, the Millites, the Darainitcs, the feunesse d'oree, who in Paris worshipped Reason in the foulest human form, who, under Falk and Bismarck, worship the state in Germany, who in modern Oxford and the great American cities bow down before Madre Natura. After all we prefer the Diva worship of the Russians. There is at least more of nature m it. In the face of intellectual worship of this kind, how Catholic young men must blush for being superstitious enough actually to take a train that they may reach and kneel at such and such a special altar of their God I