CHAPTER XXVI

NIGHT IN THE HILLS

THE sands were running out. Handel knew at the end of 1758 that he was dying. His strength was sinking like the sap from a tree in autumn. Only with the greatest difficulty was he able to get about. He craved for solitude. More solitude. Visitors to Brook Street found that he was not receiving; only four or five people, indeed, found it possible to get beyond the stout janitor, de Bourke, who guarded the door. What little energy remained to Handel he stored, jealous lest it should be given to any project other than his concerts.

They missed him in the streets. The ambling figure with the big stick that had for so many years walked almost daily through the Park, was seen no more. From Marylebone Gardens, where he used to go and sit on one of the seats to listen to the excellent band that performed there and to criticise its music, he had gone for ever. The regular habitués of the Gardens missed his shuffling step. He was never seen except at his concerts, or in his pew at St George's, Hanover Square, on Sundays. The Handel of the old Haymarket nights, the Handel who for more than forty years had been astir in the life of London, had passed. When they caught a glimpse of him in his hackney-coach as he went to and fro to his concerts, it was as if they watched a ghost go by. They talked of him as one who, like some gorgeous comet, had swept across the sky almost before London was aware of it. More and more did London wish to forget that it had ever striven to destroy him.

His life at Brook Street in these closing days was simple in the extreme. The pleasures of the table, with his health broken, lost their appeal at the close of the year his appetite failed altogether. Food became a nuisance. Very often

The Nearing End

Christopher Smith watched the bulky figure perched up at the table, eating scarcely sufficient to keep a bird alive. His body no longer needed nourishment, for it was will-power alone which kept him going.

There was no luxury and very little comfort in those Brook Street rooms. The ease that might have helped a man, afflicted as he, to bear his suffering, was entirely absent. More probably he would have rejected it had it been provided. Every room betrayed his character; his hard, rugged simplicity. Plain furniture—almost bad furniture, and certainly worthless. A few good pictures on the walls. His Rembrandts, his Denner portrait of himself, some landscapes—the pictures he had loved so much.

Step into the room in which he worked and look at its contents. An oval table; a square block table, half a dozen old matted chairs, a chimney-glass in a gilt frame, his harpsichord, a wall-desk, five china coffee cups and six saucers. Or pass into the dining-room-quietly, lest the still figure should hearand look at the humble shoddy things. An iron hearth, seven matted chairs, two round card-tables, a leather stool, a broken chimney-glass. Or into his bedroom-where is the majesty of greatness here? or of achievement? The queer white tester bed, the crimson haritten furniture, an old stove, six matted chairs much the worse for wear, a wicker firescreen, a glass in a frame.1 Were these things luxury? These tawdry little belongings of the man who had been the pride of kings ? But to Handel they were luxury. In a room redolent of riches his home life would have been spoiled. The old bachelor had loved these things. They were part of him. They were simple, and he had found his way to the heart of the world by the understanding of simple things.

At the end of 1758 he had ceased to compose. He knew that the end was not very far away. He spoke of it openly, and not with fear or regret. Then would follow a mood of energy, of rediscovered life, as if he had pushed Death aside even as it waited at his elbow. He played with Death, appearing at times to invite it as he lay with lulled senses in a kind of dream.

1 From the inventory of his effects made at the time of his death, when his furniture was sold to his principal servant, John de Bourke.

A few hours later he was hustling Christopher Smith about his coming concerts.

When the oratorio season opened in March he announced a series of ten concerts. He gave Solomon once, with additions and alterations; Susanna and Samson three times, Judas Maccabæus twice, Messiah three times. He seemed to have sprung out at London suddenly as a man, believed to be dead, might spring from his shroud. It was amazing. The curiosity of seeing him, like some wonderful wraith, at the performances, helped the season to a great success. The entire town began to talk of Handel anew; a new generation was taught that the master still lingered, like some brown clinging leaf after winter has swept the tree.

Handel conducted all the concerts without the first trace of any waning strength. He would go on, the town said, for many seasons yet. There was some mystic cloak of invincibility about him; he had beaten adversity, he would beat Death till, without warning, he suddenly dropped in the concert-room, or in passing up his own stairs. They knew he would go like that. They said so. Nor could they imagine

oratorio without Handel.

He was now seventy-four. His birthday came; March passed. The season went on, with every seat sold for each performance. The clamour of spring swept with green gladness across the trees in the Park. The performance of his Messiah at Covent Garden, on 6th April, was to be his last. He carried it through to the final Amen without fatigue. Who associated Death with Handel at this hour? Messiah had never been given better. The packed audience dispersed into the night entranced. Handel had been wonderful. He was always wonderful these days. But even as they talked he was lying in a faint at the theatre.

They hurried him home to Brook Street. They put him to bed and called in his friend, Dr Warren. They did not know he was dying. So they spoke of his illness as a return of the old strain, due to the heavy season. Ten concerts in little over a month, and at the age of seventy-four! Some day the veteran would learn his lesson.

Handel had no illusions as to the imminence of death.