Chapter V: Departure (1)

She left her country with a happy sense of the goodwill that was faithfully following her career, as it opened out into paths that carried her far afield. She had a few engagements to fulfil on her way across Europe, before she joined her companions, Benedict and Belletti, who were awaiting her in London.

She crossed quickly through England, only sleeping a couple of nights in London, and reaching Crumpsall, near Manchester, the home of her faithful friends the Schwabes, in time to rest a few days before fulfilling her engagements at Liverpool on the 16th and 19th of August. Both Mr. and Mrs. Schwabe accompanied her; and she had, therefore, the comfort of affectionate intimacy to help her through the racket and distress of the final start.

The two concerts were to raise money towards paying for the new hall of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in which they were given. The first of these, on the 16th, was noticeable only for “causing an excitement,” according to the _Times_ of August 19th, “to which the musical annals of Liverpool can find no parallel.” “The enthusiasm went far beyond fever-height.” She sang her famous pieces, ‘_Qui la Voce_;’ ‘_Und ob die Wolke_,’ from the _Freischütz_; ‘_Non paventar_,’ from the _Flauto Magico_; a Duet from the _Turco in Italia_, with Belletti; and, then (after a new Song by Benedict, called ‘Take this Lute’), the Norwegian Echo Song, accompanying herself.

So far she was on old ground; but, at the second concert, a very different and a vital departure was made. It was her first singing of the _Messiah_, in which, in later years, she proved herself incomparable.

The excitement of expectation was intense. On August 19th, the _Times_ critic[162] reports that as he writes his despatch, on Saturday 17th,

“The rehearsal for the _Messiah_ is now proceeding at the Philharmonic
Hall, the precincts of which are besieged by a mob anxious to obtain a
glimpse of Jenny Lind. The greatest curiosity prevails about this
performance; for Mdlle. Lind has never sung in an Oratorio of Handel’s
since her arrival in this country. Monday night will show whether she
will achieve the same success in the _Messiah_ as in the _Creation_,
and the _Elijah_.”

As to the rehearsal, he records with warm commendation that,

“Mdlle. Lind was, as usual, the first to arrive, the last to depart,
and the most attentive to her own music, and to the indications of the
conductor. If every one were as painstaking and zealous at rehearsals
as Mdlle. Jenny Lind, the critic would have much less to complain of.”

On the 20th, the critic telegraphs the result for the _Times_ of August 21st.

“Jenny Lind’s singing surpassed anticipation. Her energy, and
brilliant execution of ‘Rejoice greatly’; her expression in ‘He shall
feed His flock’; her tenderness in ‘How beautiful are the feet’; her
fervid devotion in ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’; and her fine
rendering of the last air, ‘If God be for us,’ which made it a new and
unexpected feature, raised unbounded enthusiasm. In the Recitatives,
besides the excellence of her vocalisation, the pointed, articulate
manner in which she pronounced the English words, excited general
admiration.”

After praising Belletti, and the chorus, and criticising the band, he tells how, at the close, the National Anthem was sung,

“Jenny Lind giving the two principal verses. The scene that ensued
defies description. The walls of the building reverberated with
cheers. Hats, sticks, handkerchiefs were waved in every direction. The
platform of the orchestra was covered with bouquets and wreaths, many
of which fell upon the head and the shoulders of the songstress. It
was a leave-taking such as even Jenny Lind has rarely experienced.”

In the _Times_ of the 22nd, Mr. Davison contributes a detailed criticism of her delivery of the numbers in _Messiah_. He has much to say, which comes with the authority of a most skilful and experienced judgment.

“Mdlle. Lind’s performance, in the _Messiah_, has,” he considers,
“enhanced, if possible, her reputation. ‘Rejoice greatly’ is a
veritable _Bravura_, not a mere senseless display of roulades and
_fioriture_, but a gush of melody in which the exultant feeling of the
text is expressed with a power that springs from inspiration. The
elaborate divisions of the Song demand the greatest flexibility, while
its peculiar vocal character can only be expressed by a voice at once
strong and brilliant, combined with a free command of the upper notes.
These physical requisites are among the peculiar gifts of Mdlle. Jenny
Lind, whose well-known intelligence and reverence for the text enabled
her to employ them with the finest effect.”

“The air ‘He shall feed His flock’ requires a simplicity which derives
effect from the innate and unobtrusive beauty of the music. This
divine melody fell from her lips like soft water from a spring. The
reading of the words was perfect; and the shake at the end,—the
legitimate and only ornament introduced—was executed with a finished
neatness and a command over the _sotto voce_ which afforded the
fullest satisfaction to the ear.”

Again,

“‘For now is Christ risen’ had in it something of positive
inspiration. The termination—strictly according to the text without
even a concluding shake—was far more effective than all the singer’s
art could have made it, exercised without that feeling of veneration
which teaches that to touch such music is to spoil it.”

In conclusion, he considers that—

“The depth and sublimity of the music exhibited Mdlle. Lind’s talents
in a totally new light.”

So triumphant was the first historical opening on the field with which she so intimately identified herself in later years. It was a wonderful passage from the atmosphere of the _Figlia_ to that of the _Messiah_; but the English knew, now, at what level her supreme gifts lay; and they welcomed her on to the ground of their famous Oratorio with a heartiness of recognition which she cordially recognised. It was to the English that she specially loved to sing the music of the Oratorio.

Her last day at Liverpool was taken up with visits to view the new wing of the Southern and Toxteth Hospital, due to her last year’s singing; and with receiving there a silver tea-kettle and a pair of silver candlesticks.

_Mademoiselle Lind from a photograph by Kilburn Aug^t. 1850._
]

On the evening before sailing, her Swedish heart was at work; she could not let herself go on this new and strange experiment without desiring the sanction and the blessing of the “old folk at home.” Back to father and mother her thoughts were travelling; she must feel herself covered by their authority; she must let her last words be to them. So, on the evening before the start, she sat down and wrote the following letter, with its buoyant hope, with its tender daughterly humility.

The daguerreotype, to which she refers, is the one from which the picture on the opposite page is taken. It was engraved in the _Illustrated London News_ of the day: but the present picture is taken fresh from the old plate, which has, by diligent search, been recovered, and used.

“Liverpool, 20th Aug., 1850.

“MY DEAR PARENTS,

“May these lines find you in the enjoyment of good health. I have been
very well since I left Sweden, and am now starting for the New World.
For we leave to-morrow morning at half-past ten.

“I have been eight days in England, and have sung here in two
concerts, both of which have been most successful, and the English
public has greeted me as if I belonged to them. I am met everywhere
with heartiness and love. Oh, may I succeed in deserving them more and
more!

“I have been to see the steamer which will take us over to America,
and nothing grander of its kind, I should think, could be found in any
country. The vessel is 300 feet by 80, and is decorated so
magnificently that one can fancy oneself in a rich private house.

“I look forward to the sea—the ocean!

“When I have got across, I shall let you hear again. As my mother
wished to have a Daguerreotype of my poor features, I have sat for one
in London. I hope it will have succeeded. Farewell, good mamma and
papa! Think of me with friendliness, and give me now and then your
blessing, for a parents’ blessing is something good to travel with.
Let me hear occasionally how you are at Pommern.[163] Remember to look
into the books which I gave you, while stopping with you there—and may
the Lord Himself enlighten and bless you! Thus prays most sincerely

“Your attached “DAUGHTER.”

There is a quaint touch of parental authority in the last sentence of the letter, which blends curiously with the beautiful and childlike simplicity with which she asks for the parents’ blessing on her going-forth. The whole letter is a delightful foil to the following account of the wild popular excitement that was fermenting, at this moment, round the girl who was herself engaged in writing those plain, quiet, humble messages, so full of domestic affection and simple piety, to the two wondering parents in the old country.

_Jenny Lind’s Departure for America._[164]

“Liverpool, Wednesday night.

“Jenny Lind is gone—gone amid a scene of triumph which was not more a
tribute to her own surpassing work and talent, than to the art which
it is her honour to profess and to which she does so much honour. Ere
these few hasty lines are before the reader, this incomparable
songstress will have performed one-fourth of her voyage to the United
States, where, we are assured, a reception awaits her which will cast
in the shade even the splendid ovation which has just attended her
departure from among her European admirers.

“Fresh as I am from this magnificent display of public feeling and
sympathy, I can scarcely enter into details. With ears still deafened
with the booming of cannon, and the shouts of the thousands who were
assembled on either side of the Mersey, and eyes dazzled by the gay
effect of innumerable craft, which were illumined by the sunlight as
they ran to and fro on the river, or followed in the wake of the
_Atlantic_, I can scarcely give you a sober description of this
extraordinary scene.

“The authorities foresaw there would be a great demonstration, and
took their precautions accordingly. Fancy what must be the interest
excited by Jenny Lind, when the police thought it necessary to notify
to Mr. Barnum’s agent, that if the lady took her departure from the
quay at the hour generally expected, they could not ensure the safety
of life and limb. We doubt much whether any sovereign was compelled to
change the programme of his movements for such a reason. Yet so it
was; and much hurrying to and fro was there in consequence. Instead of
leaving at nine or ten o’clock, as had been arranged, Jenny Lind was
obliged to slip out privately at a quarter to eight, and go down all
manner of back streets to be able to get to the pier unperceived. In
this she was successful; and while the intending sightseers were
disposing of their muffins and coffee, the little woman whom they were
all going out to see had quietly gone on board the _Atlantic_ in a
river steamer; but not until after she had been annoyed (during a few
minutes’ stay on the pier) by a crowd of idlers who pressed round her
in the most rude manner, and could scarcely be kept off by the police.

“When at last the hundred and fifty passengers who had engaged all the
berths were received on board, with all their luggage, and had taken
leave of all their friends, and when the sound of a gun booming across
the water from the bows of the steamer announced that all was ready
for departure, what was certainly a ‘great scene’ commenced. The
immense floating mass began to move, and, as if by magic, all the
craft that had been playing about on the surface of the river, formed
into lines, and made a sort of procession. As the _Atlantic_ steamed
up from her moorings, past the Albert Docks, she turned her head
inshore, in the direction of the town, and slowly passed in front of
the magnificent line of quays, amidst the enthusiastic shouts of
thousands of human beings who lined the shore, not merely on the
Liverpool side, but also all along the Cheshire coast, from Birkenhead
onwards to the mouth of the great arm of the sea. Salutes were fired
from the shore, and were returned from the _Atlantic_; and the whole
scene,—such an army of craft of all sorts and kinds floating, with
pennants flying—such a shouting—such a roaring of cannon—such a bright
sunlight (which broke out suddenly, as if to afford presage of fair
weather)—was really one of the most extraordinary sights we ever
witnessed. Every eye was strained to get a sight of Jenny Lind. There
the little woman stood on the paddle-box, with her arm in that of
Captain West, and waving her handkerchief enthusiastically in return
for the greeting of the crowds who had assembled to witness her
departure.”

Such was her farewell, as she passed from the Old World to the New, travelling out over the unknown waters, to discover whether Music had power to draw towards her the hearts of these immense populations in far-away cities, with the same security with which it had knit to her the affections of all those to whom her voice had spoken, in the land that lay about her home. So she sails, wafted out, for her adventure, on the wings of all the favouring hopes with which it was possible for that Old World to send her forward. Those ringing cheers, those crowded boats, those fluttering handkerchiefs, those straining eyes, which followed her out of Liverpool, spoke to her of all the wonderful days in Europe that lay behind her—days that had never once failed to bring her their unceasing tribute of praise and welcome and love, as often as she invoked them, ever since she first babbled out her earliest speeches as a little child on the boards of the Stockholm Theatre.

And this unfailing triumph had never limited itself to a mere admiration. Always it had been an admiration that was transfigured, by its own inward force, into genuine affection. Always it had felt the power of her personality; and had understood her deeper motives, and her serious intention. She had never been wholly misunderstood in her desire that, by her Art, she should touch the finer issues of the religious consciousness, and enlarge the resources of a human charity.

All this was behind her, to forward and cheer her, as she tempted the new Atlantic seas. Nor did the promise of high fortune belie itself. The pledge was redeemed in a measure that ran over and over. It is not our present part to follow her in this adventure, nor to tell the familiar tale of the boundless enthusiasm that awaited her every step from the moment that she touched American shores. Our special part ends at this point, where the old European career, in its special sense, closes. Up till now, her Dramatic and Artistic life had developed, step by step and stage by stage, in an orderly sequence of gradations. She has now touched the final level on which her future career is to move; there is no new fashion it is to take. The platform of the concert-room is the ultimate spot of vantage from which she is to reach the world of men. It is needless to expand a record which would merely repeat in detail the same typical success. We have seen enough already to prove that, in her abandonment of the stage, she had not surrendered her chance of delivering her Artistic message. On the contrary, though her marvellous histrionic gift was put aside, she found a freedom of scope, a glad outlet, for her singing, which rather increased than diminished the exercise of her sway. The fervour that accompanied her concert-singing was in no degree less than that which, of old, had besieged the doors of the theatres. The opportunities which it offered her for beneficence were, at least, as magnificent as before. Moreover, in the Oratorio, she more and more found the most congenial and adequate of all the fields in which she could exercise the full force of her powers, and attain the noblest realisation of her ideal.

We send her out, then, on her American visit, with no sense that her career, in touching its final level, has less triumph in store for her than any of the steps which led to it. We shall leave her to go ever forward, still encouraged, from New York to Savannah, with the same passion of devotion, the same thrill of a unique experience, which she had evoked already in Stockholm and Berlin, in Vienna and London.

But, though we do not follow her steps farther, we cannot part with her without recording a message or two which she herself sends back, as from the new land, to those who watch after her in the old countries. And the messages are to those who have been our companions through this book; and we shall be glad to feel that they receive good news from her, and that they and she are still undivided, though the Atlantic rolls between.

And as her last letter, at the moment of leaving Europe, had been written to her parents, so let the first that we quote from America be due to the same filial loyalty. It gives her simple enjoyment and wonder at the great voyage.

“Boston, 27th September, 1850.

“MY DEAR PARENTS,

“It does seem strange to be so far from home, so far from Europe! I
trust these lines find you in perfectly good health. I take for
granted that you have been informed long ago of my safe arrival at New
York, 1st September.

“The voyage was in every respect extremely interesting. True, eleven
days on the sea is a good deal, but the sight of the ocean, under all
its various aspects, was oh! so grand!—the rising and setting of the
sun, moonlight, the new stars, the rainbows, the phosphorus, porpoises
and seals, storm, fog, and then again a surface calm as a mirror. All
these changes we could watch in turn. We had a magnificent boat, and a
particularly clever, attentive, and charming Captain. I was not ill in
the least, but kept wonderfully well all the time. I went on deck to
have a look at the storm; it was splendid! We lay deep sunk in the
trough of the waves, the colossal ship floating like a tiny eggshell
on the immeasurable expanse of the waters. The ship’s guns were flung
hither and thither, ropes as thick as my waist came sweeping in piles
across the deck, the waves, as high as big houses, of the most
intensely beautiful light green, dashing towards the bridge with such
violence as to overthrow and injure three sailors and one of the
officers. After the storm, which lasted twenty-four hours, it turned
fine, and then we had all kinds of glorious sights.

“I sat up, quite on the very edge of the prow, close to the old man
blowing his horn (the ‘old man,’ I must add, was of wood!), with a few
friends and the Captain, who made it their business to take care of
me, and I really felt elated by the superb spectacle before me.

“We gave a concert (on the ocean!) for the crew, and once or twice we
had a merry bit of dancing; and in this way time flew by quickly
enough.

“New York, as to its situation, reminds me very much of Stockholm.

“I was met with quite an astonishing reception. I have already given
six concerts there, in a hall with room for 11,000 people; it has been
crowded each time, and we shall most likely be able to give about
forty to fifty concerts in New York alone.

“Here everything is done on a large scale. The first ticket sold the
day before yesterday in this city for to-day’s concert (the first one
given here) was sold for as much as——625 _dollars_! The tickets, you
must know, were sold by auction. It is amazing what heaps of money
they seem to have here.

“My health is, as usual, thank God, in excellent condition; my voice
is fresh and strong, and I am looking forward extremely to some plan—
after this ‘_tournée_’ is over—for enjoying peace and rest; for,
indeed, in these two matters, so precious to us, human beings, I seem
to be given but a very small share, torn and bothered as I am from
morning to night. Still, it is touching to see such goodwill and
kindness; people seem not to know how to do enough to show their
favour and the genuine interest they take in me.

“I wish I could send home to Pommern some of the lovely flowers and
the splendid fruit which are continually sent to me. The peaches are
delicious, and grow here in great abundance. We have still warm
weather, and ever a divinely blue sky.

“_October 1st_—Time does pass! I shall now soon be thirty years of
age! How happy I am to become an ‘ould hag’! Every day I see round me
numbers of new faces,—so many, in fact, that I find it a bore—but I am
going to try and terminate my engagement as quickly as possible—
_perhaps_ in a year! When we meet I shall have heaps to tell you,
which now I have no time to relate. It is already more than three
months since I was taking part in the country dances round the maypole
at Pommern. It does seem so strange!

“I wish I could soon hear that you both are well. Now, pray do take
care of yourselves, so that still many a green spring and many a
chirping bird may gladden your soul! Rest assured that all I have said
or written has been done with the truest and best intentions; and pray
remember with tenderness your far-distant

“DAUGHTER.”

That letter will, certainly, bring relief, and joy to the little house at Pommern, where she had so lately “danced round the maypole.” She, like her own favourite skylark, is ever—

“True to the kindred points of heaven, and home.”

The next of the letters repeats how freely and cheerfully things are going. It is written from Boston, on October 2nd, 1850, to her Guardian, Herr Munthe.

“I have given eight concerts, and hitherto the success has been
unparalleled. I devoted the first two in New York to charities,
because they had raised such enormous prices (by auction)—that I
considered this to be a plain duty. My agreement with Mr. Barnum has
been quite altered; and Mr. Barnum has shown, and is still showing
himself, extremely generous, and reasonable; and seems to have made it
his first object to see me satisfied. I understand that we rarely make
less than $10,000 at a concert. Hitherto the receipts have varied
between $12,000, $14,000, $16,000! And thus my share for six concerts
is about $30,000!”

Good news, this, for the kindly old judge at home! His warm heart would kindle over the triumphant success, even though he foresaw a big job ahead for his prudence and his wits, when it came to the dispensing of these vast sums in accordance with the scruples and the anxieties of her beneficence.

On November 8th she wrote again from Boston to her Guardian a letter full of her characteristic temper.

“It is indeed a great joy, and a gift from God, to be allowed to earn
so much money and afterwards to help one’s fellow-men with it. This is
the highest joy I wish for in this life; everything else has
disappeared from the many-coloured course of my path on earth. Few
know, though, what a beautiful and quiet inner life I am living. Few
suspect how unutterably little the world and its splendour have been
able to turn my mind giddy. Herrings and potatoes—a clean
wooden-chair, and a wooden-spoon to eat milk-soup with—that would make
me skip like a child, for joy! And this—without the slightest trace of
exaggeration, or that sort of thing.

“Benedict and Belletti are kind and pleasant. Benedict and I play nice
little duets on the piano, and the time goes quickly and happily.

“The bird-song, ‘I know not why I am singing,’ and Herr Berg’s song
with the long-sustained notes, and the Norwegian echo-song—these are
the standing pieces which I must sing at every concert.”

This speaks straight from her heart. It holds in it her deepest motives— motives, strong from the first, but which have gained in strength as she developed. Her original sense that her singing was God-given has been intensified by the more positive religious influences which had flowed in upon her through her English Evangelical friends, and expresses itself, now, in the desire for inner peace in the quiet recesses of the soul: while the hope of beneficent service to her fellow-men has become absorbing. Still, with all the growth, there is no change whatever in the “Jenny” who would “skip for joy over the herring and the potatoes, and the clean wooden-spoon” That declaration is instinct with her very breath. She never lost, either the spontaneous simplicity of plain living, or the buoyant gleefulness of the dancing child.

And, now, to part with her best friends with whom we have seen her spend such happy days, and to whom she pours out her fondest affections—the Wichmanns. They are not forgotten in the novel whirl of American affairs.

“My dearly beloved Amalia,” she writes from Philadelphia on December
5th, 1850, to Madame Wichmann, “I feel so great a desire to write you
some lines that I cannot keep silence any longer. I long to know how
you all fare; and would like, too, to tell you something about myself;
for I know well how great an interest you take in my fate. I will no
longer restrain myself; for I find my thoughts all flying to you with
such love and confidence that I feel grateful and happy in the mere
act of communing in spirit with you. And, surely you have not
forgotten me!

“What are they doing in Germany? I am in great anxiety over the
situation there. Will there really be war? Where will you go in that
case? For God’s sake, write me a line about that.

“If all goes ill in Europe you might come to America, and fetch me
away. How is Otto?[165] Is he stronger? I was so glad to see him in
Baden; and fancied that in him I saw you all.

“... I and all of us are extremely well. My head is quite
re-established: and my voice is better than ever. The climate here is
very good. Nearly the whole autumn we have had a clear blue sky, such
as we had at Meran, when it was at its best....

“Mr. Barnum behaves extremely well towards me: and I could not wish
for anything better.

“In the month of July we hope to be back in Europe, for we hope to see
the Great Exhibition. Ah! if _you_ were to come there! You, Amalia,
have never been in London; how interesting it would be to see it!
Think it over, dearly beloved Frau!

“If you see Taubert, tell him, please, that they will not listen here
to anything but his song ‘I must be singing.’ Since I got a very nice
translation of it in English, I have to sing it at every concert.
Greetings to all my friends—Herr Taubert—Professor Werder—Magnus—
Madame Mendelssohn, etc.

“I wept for joy the other day, when the Prussian Envoy, Herr von
Gerolt, brought us greetings from Her Majesty the Queen of Prussia.
When next you meet His Excellency Herr von Redern, pray tell him how
truly grateful I feel for this mark of Her Majesty’s sympathy. Greet
him at the same time.

“Faithful love to you all!
“From yours ever gratefully,
“JENNY.”

So we leave this sweet and delightful friendship which played so deep a part in her early years of European success. It has remained her constant support throughout—a harbour, in which she never failed to find refuge and peace.

One thread out of her old life, which we have already tracked into the new, is alas! soon to be slit. It is a thread woven deep indeed into the tissue of her memory and her soul. The long and curious story of her mother which we have followed through so many incidents, ends at last during the American trip with the news of Fru Lind’s death. What a strange and unanticipated change had come over the scenes of poor Fru Lind’s life since, pinched and driven by the hard days, unsuccoured and unsustained, she had been forced to put out her new-born child with the Parish Clerk of Ed-Sollentuna, and turn from her hurried sickness and nursing to fight her way alone against a baffling world! “That child will bring you help! mark my word,” the old grandmother had said to her: but she little knew the full and wonderful sense in which those words would prove themselves true. Now, in 1851, lifted out of all anxiety by that child’s help, transplanted into a kindly and peaceful home which the child had given her, in company with the husband whom, in spite of all his weakness in those earlier times when she had to struggle on alone, she loved with an affection that he warmly returned, she could sit and rest among the quiet country-sights, and could sweeten her sourer humours, and could soften her asperities, and could come to kinder terms with the human earth about her, as she caught all the echoes of that praise with which the wide world outside was welcoming that child of hers, once so forlorn, of whom, with all her tough bitterness of disposition, she had always been so proud; and could hear of the uncounted wealth which was being poured in upon her, in measures that must have made her breathless as she listened to their tale. No fairy godmother could have worked a more marvellous transformation; and yet all had been done by the earnest, intelligent, devoted steadiness, the “incredibly hard work,” of that tiny scrap of a child who once sat in the porter’s window at the Widows’ Home, and sang away to her cat “with the blue ribbon round its neck”; and who, now, knew not how to escape from the thousands who thronged to hear her in lands beyond the sea where her name was already familiar and dear as a household word. She, by God’s grace, had done it: and now at the end of all, she is the very same “Jenny” who trotted off by her mother’s side to the Opera-House, to try their fortune with old Croelius. Still she loves to think of the “milk-soup and the wooden-spoon” that belonged to the old simple days of childhood; and her heart drew closer to her mother, now that the Atlantic rolled between them, than it ever could in the earlier days when the roughness of the surface-life harshened the home, and forbade those springs of gentleness to flow between a mother and daughter whom so much held estranged. Certainly, it was with a bitter pang that Jenny Lind heard, in December 1851, of her mother’s death. Some words which she wrote about it in 1852 tell how “everything had become smooth and nice” between them; how her mother had become so much quieter and more reasonable; how she had hoped to “surround her old age with joy, and peace and tender care.” “Now it is too late! Peace be with her soul.”

Too late, perhaps, for all that she yet planned to do; but not too late to have done much to secure that “peace” to her declining days, which was the gift most sorely needed by that disturbed and harassed heart.

Perhaps, now that she has herself taken leave of her friends, we may give one last picture of her, as she was seen in the thick of her American work, by the sympathetic eyes of Mr. Parker Willis, an American author, whose reminiscences of ‘Famous Persons, and Famous Places’ were published in 1856.

He has most graphically described a typical day’s work in New York, with its mingled glow and grind.

“It was the morning after her last concert (in New York), and among
the business to be attended to, in the winding up of a visit to a city
where she had already given away $30,000 in charity, was the result
certified in the following report:—

“The undersigned, a committee named by Miss Lind to divide the
appropriation of the sum of $5,373·20 cents, the proceeds of a
morning concert, have distributed the said funds as follows:—

New York, Nov. 26, 1850.
C. S. Woodhule. B. Raird. R. B. Mintum. Wm. H. Aspinwall. John
Jay.
$
To the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor 1000
Widows with poor children 300
Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum 300
Female Assistance Society 300
Eastern Dispensary 250
Northern Dispensary 250
Eye and Ear Infirmary 250
Hebrew Benevolent Society 200
Prison Association 200
Destitute children of seamen 200
Homeless and destitute boys 100
Swedes and Norwegians in New York 273·20
Swedish Bibles and Testaments 200
Brooklyn Orphan Asylum 250
The poor of Williamsburg 100
The poor of Newark 100
The poor of Jersey City 100
Temperance societies 500
St. George’s Society 500
———————
5373·20
———————

“There was also another matter which formed an item in the ‘squaring
up’ of the New York accounts on that day. A paragraph had reached her
making mention of a Swedish sailor who had perished in endeavouring to
save the lives of passengers on the wreck of a vessel. Jenny Lind had
sent to the Swedish Consul to make enquiries whether he had left a
family. His widow and children were found by the Consul,[166] and
Jenny had sent him $500 for their use. This was mentioned by M.
Habicht to a lady, who mentioned it to us, and by this chance alone it
became public.

“But while all these sufferers were receiving her bounty, and she was
settling with banks and managers for the payments—what else was her
life made up of on that day?

“It was now half-past nine in the morning, and three servants of the
hotel and two of her own had been ordered to guard her room till she
could eat her breakfast. But well-dressed ladies cannot be stopped by
men-servants: and her drawing-room was already half full of visitors
on particular business who had crowded past insisting on entrance.”

He goes on to describe vividly the “lady-beggars,” to whom she hurriedly offered $20 or $30, as the shortest way to be rid of them; and how this is rejected with indignant protests. “We did not expect this pittance from _you_!” “Excuse me, I came for a donation, not for alms!” etc., etc. Then there are the “applicants for musical employment; passionate female admirers; a dozen ladies with albums; some who had worked things for her; one who had come indignantly to ask why a note containing a poem had not been answered.”

So the audience would go on; and Mr. Willis cannot wonder, that in the evening, when he goes to a party at a lovely villa ten miles from town to meet her, he should find her looking fatigued. But she received him with a merry inquiry as to where he came from, in reference to some spirit-séance, to which he had lately taken her. He told her in answer that they had been inquiring of a spirit whether Jenny Lind had any talent which she would have developed but for the chance possession of a remarkable voice? and if so, what was it?

“‘And the spirit said, it was working frocks for poor little children,
I suppose,’ was her immediate anticipation of the reply, uttered with
an expression of arch earnestness which confirmed us in the opinion we
have gradually formed, that a love of the comic and the joyous is the
leading quality in her temperament.

“During the time that we remained near her, there were constant
introductions. And in these she bandies no compliments. If a remark is
made which has no rebound in it, she drops it with a monosyllable, and
without ever gracing its downfall with an insincere smile. She affects
no interest which she does not feel; and puts an abrupt end to a
conversation which could only be sustained by mutual pretence of
something to say; she differs suddenly and uncompromisingly when her
sense of truth prompts her to do so; and repels, instead of even
listening silently to, complimentary speeches. At all times, she is
particularly honest and simple.”

He describes how he took leave of her:—

“She had withdrawn from the crowd, and was sitting in one of the deep
alcoves of the saloon; one of the trellised windows, which looked out
upon the park, formed a background to her figure. She sat in a posture
of careless and graceful repose, with her head bent on one side, her
eyes drooped, and her hands crossed before her, in the characteristic
habit which has been seized by the painters who have drawn her. There
was an expression of dismissed care replaced by a kind of childlike
and innocent sadness, which struck us as inexpressibly sweet, and
which we mentally treasured as another of those phases of expressive
beauty of which that strong face is capable. And as we looked on her,
there suddenly appeared through the window behind, half concealed by
her shoulder, the golden edge of the just-risen moon. It crept to her
cheek before she had changed the attitude in which she indolently
listened to her friend as he talked; and for a moment the tableau was
complete. It was so startling, and yet so apt and so consistent, that,
for an instant, it confused one’s thoughts.... But the taking of a
step forward disturbed it, ... and we could only then call her
attention to the bright orb lifting behind her. The moment after she
had said ‘Good-night,’ and was gone.”

That shall be our last vision of her. For we, too, must be saying Good-night, and be going.

LAST WORDS.

This Memoir of Jenny Lind has touched its appointed close, now that she has finally and for ever shaken herself free from that theatrical career into which she had been thrown from her very infancy, and within which she had developed and matured all her artistic capacities. We have seen how she had deliberately and spontaneously cast it all away behind her, at the very moment when her wonderful histrionic powers were at the very height of their fulfilment. We know that she did this in obedience to the rooted convictions of her innermost self—convictions which had grown up within her secret will until they had become an imperious call on her spirit which no resistance or plea from without could break down, and no alluring fame or promise of wealth could beguile. She had done it in spite of all the world could do to prevent it. And now that it was done, she has found, as we have seen, that the path of Art is open as ever to her. She still can exercise her allotted mission to mankind; still can appeal to men through her marvellous gift of song; still can wake to finest issues all the nobility and purity and joy that lie asleep in human souls until the kiss of music breaks their sealing slumber.

Such would be, for years to come, her public career, full as ever of magnificent opportunities triumphantly used. And, just in order to verify our words to the minds and imaginations of our readers, we will venture to give a rapid glance, before closing this volume, down the long line of musical events which marked the life that now lay ahead of her. But, first, we must recall one domestic fact of primary importance. The life ahead, however artistically continuous with the life which had preceded it, was now carried on under vitally changed conditions; for on the 5th February, 1852, at the house of Mr. S. Grey Ward in Boston, she was married, by Bishop Wainwright of New York, to Mr. Otto Goldschmidt. We remember the beginnings of their intimacy: how they had met again and again at Lübeck and Hamburg; how they were drawn together by the common memory of Mendelssohn; how close were their musical sympathies. So it was, that when it appeared probable that Julius Benedict would part company with her in the midst of the American tour, communications began to pass between her and Mr. Goldschmidt’s family, without his knowledge, pressing the expediency of his coming out to take up the part of pianist as soon as it was vacant. He was then still young, but she had an enthusiastic admiration of his talent, and especially delighted in his sympathetic power as an accompanist—a gift on which she set the highest value. “Whether he accompanies me,” she wrote to Judge Munthe in October, 1851, “or I accompany myself, it is absolutely the same thing.”

The venture was made, and with entire success. He arrived at the end of May, 1851, and brought to her, in the thick of the loud and racketting distractions, the touch of that serious Art which they had both learned to revere in the great master gone from them. He helped her to fight through the noisy turmoil that beset her. The intimacy quickly deepened, and in him she learned that she could find “all”—so she wrote—“that her heart ever yearned after and loved.” The letters that she sent home immediately after the marriage, on the 16th of February, to his parents and to her dear friend, Mrs. Stanley, who had known her so well in her old trouble, prove how profoundly her whole being, in all its deepest motives and aspirations, had gone out into this happy union. And we know a little, from our record of her career, all that it would mean to her. It meant that the old life of the wandering musician, carrying wares from east to west, with its homelessness, its isolation, its insecurity, was all to end. We know too, how she had hated the condition of the unattached and unsteady wandering—the lodging with its forlorn emptiness, the inn with its naked publicity. The friendships, formed by the way, warm and intense as they had been, could but be as passing gleams, as broken suggestions of that reposeful home for which her spirit pined. And now the release had come; she was lifted clean out of the tumult and the loneliness; she was received into the warmth of endearing affection, and into the happy honour of wifehood.

And this promise of good things with which this marriage opened to her was never to fail her. For the remaining thirty-five years of her life, whatever troubles they might bring with them to her, as to all, she was never to miss the sense of this sympathetic understanding, of this secure loyalty, of this delicate trust, always there at her side. With her rigorous idealism, with her artistic emotion, she could not be herself without putting to full proof the strength of the tie that bound them. And it bore every test with a quiet steadfastness which nothing could seriously weaken or disturb. It was knit fast by entire community of interests and tastes, as well as by the more intimate sympathies. Both shared the same religious convictions; both enjoyed the same type of work, of amusement, of society; both found their delight in the same circle of friends; each had a heart-whole admiration for the other’s gifts. Moreover, outward circumstances favoured their union from first to last; and no loss, or damage, or misfortune, broke for a moment the even tenor of their days. To those who had the privilege of intimacy within their inner household for the last twenty or thirty years, it seems difficult to imagine how any marriage could have brought to her more steadiness or smoothness of tone and harmony and habit.

With their marriage the American tour came to a close. They gave, together, during May, 1852, three farewell concerts in New York, and then, after lingering in England through June, for Mr. Goldschmidt to be introduced to her old friends there, they crossed to Hamburg; and after touring in Switzerland, etc. settled finally at Dresden in the autumn, where they remained for the next five years. It was there that a son was born to them in 1853, and a daughter in 1857.

In 1858 they were finally drawn to England, and decided on establishing their home there. After some years in Argyll Lodge, a villa looking out on Wimbledon Common, where their third child was born, they bought some ground and built a house, which was named Oak Lea, on the fringe of Wimbledon Park, at a spot where, in her early London seasons, she used to ride down with Mrs. Grote to picnic and listen to the nightingales. In 1874, finding themselves too remote from the musical life of London, they left Oak Lea and bought a house in Moreton Gardens, which was their home until her death.

Such, in briefest outline, was her married life; and even these few lines are enough to reveal the contrast between its steady quietude and fixity, and the old helter-skelter days of incessant disturbance.

And now let us sketch, with a like brevity, the record of the main musical engagements which occupied their married years, just to convince ourselves how richly she continued to fulfil her artistic career. In all the work here recorded she enjoyed the active co-operation, and often the leadership, of her husband.

She sang during the early half of 1854 in Dresden, Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, and Pesth. In 1855, after concerts in Hamburg and Bremen, she made a most brilliant tour from March to May in Holland, singing at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, the Hague, Haarlem, Dortrecht, and in Friesland. In the June of that year, she began her visits to the Lower Rhenish Festival at Düsseldorf, which she repeated in 1863 and 1866. From December, 1855, to June, 1856, she made a round of England, Scotland, and Wales, accompanied by a strong band of supporters—F. Lablache, Weiss, Ernst, Sainton, Swift, and Piatti—and had a most extraordinary success.

It was in the midst of this tour, on March 11, that together they gave a most famous concert in Exeter Hall, on behalf of the Nightingale Fund, to which they paid in the whole of the receipts—£1,872. In recognition of this, besides a special vote of thanks, they received as a memorial a beautiful bust of the Queen, presented to them, at the Mansion House, by the hand of the Lord Mayor.

In December, 1855, they gave a musical evening at Windsor Castle before the Queen; and both appeared at a royal performance in Buckingham Palace in May, 1856. In the June of that year, under the leadership of Sterndale Bennett, she introduced to England Schumann’s _Paradise and the Peri_ at a concert of the Philharmonic Society in the Hanover Square Rooms.

In 1857–58, besides singing at Dresden, Prague, Breslau, Königsberg, Danzig, and Posen, she made a momentous appearance in the _Messiah_, at Halle, for the completion of the Handel monument.

In 1859 she went round the chief Irish towns, assisted by Belletti and Joachim; while in 1861–62 she sang in concerts and oratorios in England and Scotland, with the assistance of Belletti, Sims Reeves, and Piatti; besides giving three oratorios, for charitable purposes, at Exeter Hall during the time of the International Exhibition.

Besides these, _Elijah_, given on October 22nd, on behalf of “London Over the Border,” and in special succour of a hard-pressed and persecuted clergyman struggling with the misery of North Woolwich, roused an immense enthusiasm. “What was written of this remarkable exhibition,” says _The Times_ in its notice of the performance, “years ago, might be re-written now without a syllable to withdraw, without an epithet of admiration to change or modify.”

In May and July of 1863 she took part in the historic revival of Handel’s music to the _Allegro_ and the _Penseroso_ of Milton, and this music she sang again in the autumn at Liverpool and Manchester.

In the years that followed she would sing whenever a special occasion arose. It might be in the _Messiah_ for the Clergy Fund Corporation in January, 1865; or at Cannes at her one Concert on French soil in 1866, for the Civic Hospital; or the Musical Festival at Hereford in 1867; or in Mr. Goldschmidt’s _Ruth_ in 1869, in Hamburg and London; and again at Düsseldorf and in London in 1870 and 1871. She took an intense interest in this oratorio of her husband’s. In April, 1871, it is pleasant to see her take part in one more concert with Madame Schumann at No. 14, Hyde Park Gardens. In May, 1873, she sang in Northumberland House before it was swept away by the new improvements; and after helping the Turkish Refugee Fund in February, 1877, and singing on behalf of the Albert Institute in a Royal Concert at Windsor in May, 1880, she made her last public appearance at a concert given for the Railway Servants’ Benevolent Fund at the Spa, Malvern Hills, on July 23rd, 1883. From 1876 to 1883 her main musical interest lay in leading and training the soprani of the Bach Choir; while from 1883 to 1886 she threw all her energies into her work for the School of Singing, in the Royal College of Music.

Such was the after-life. And we part from her, then, in midcareer, in the full confidence that all will be well with her, and that half her triumph as an Artist is to come.

Yes! The voice—the perfected use of the voice—will remain to enthral and to exalt. But yet, we must confess that something is gone, which will never be again—the freedom of the Actress to place at the disposal of her voice all the resources of her imaginative passion. This is gone for ever; and the question may still haunt us, Did she never regret the decision taken? Those accumulated stores of experience gained from childhood, exercised and trained by twenty years of work and of success— was it nothing to her that these were thrown to the winds? Did not the gift itself within her, so instinctive, so deep, stir at times and yearn for an outlet? Did she never, in all the long years, feel for the warmth and the inspiration of some heroic hour, when she had drawn men, spell-bound, into the sway of the passion to which she alone could give expression? Is it possible that any one should possess the power, and not, at times, desire to use it?

The answer is absolute. No traces of such a regret are recorded, even by those most intimate with her, to have ever crossed her mind. Far from falling under even the passing influence of such a regret at the step once taken, she does not appear to have been even moved by the impulse from within now and again just to liberate her pent-up skill. Not that she recoiled from the Stage itself with any repugnance or moral condemnation. On the contrary, she would often go to the play; and would take an interest in this or that new actor or actress. She was, on these occasions, a rather merciless critic; and she would be very severe on any defect in technical training, or any stupidity of mannerism. All this came from her genuine appreciation of dramatic Art: she still recognised its high capabilities; she had not withdrawn her sympathies from it. And yet it never crossed her imagination that she might herself find joy in wielding the strange dominion again. She found a childlike delight in private, sometimes, in letting loose her marvellous gift of merry mimicry. Once, for instance, when quite alone with an intimate Swedish friend, she began to revel in making her laugh with the most whimsical imitations of the various celebrities of the Stage at that day; and, after overflowing with brilliant fun over it, she exclaimed: “You see, I have not lost my old art!” as if she was glad to feel it was there. But, nevertheless, nothing seemed ever to suggest to her: “Would you not love to exercise that art as of old?”