[7]Of this and the opportunity of a similar appointment by Mr. Wheaton, our Minister at Berlin, I was unable to avail myself, from increasing illness.
[7]
Of this and the opportunity of a similar appointment by Mr. Wheaton, our Minister at Berlin, I was unable to avail myself, from increasing illness.
LETTER X.
If the water in Lake George were turned to meadow, and its numberless tall islands left standing as hills, it would be very like the natural scenery from Liege to Aix la Chapelle. The railroad follows the meadow level, and pierces these little mountains so continually, that it has been compared to a needle passing through the length of a corkscrew. Liege was a scene of Quentin Durward, you will remember, and at present is the gunsmithery of Europe, but it graces the lovely scenery around it, as a blacksmith in his apron would grace a ball-room, and I was not tempted to see much more of it than lay in the bottom of a bowl of soup. No bones of Charles the Bold, promised in the guide-book, nor tusk nor armour of the “Wild Boar of Ardennes.” Scott was never here, and his descriptions of town and castle were, of course, imaginary.
A river is much more of an acquaintance than a mountain, and I never see one for the first time, without a mental salutation, especially if I have heard of it before. The Vesdre would scarce be called a river in our country, but it is a lovely little stream, that has seen a world of romance, what with love and war, and it runs visibly dark from the closeness of the hill-sides to it, and with a more musical ripple (if you please,) for the spirits that haunt it. We got but a glimpse of the Meuse, crossing it at Liege, but we tracked the Vesdre for some distance by railroad. Of course it quite knocks a novel on the head to be dragged through its scenes by a locomotive, and if you care much for Quentin Durward, you had better not railroad it, from Brussels to the Rhine.
We were stopped an hour to show our credentials on the frontier of Prussia, and here (at Aix la Chapelle) I had intended to make a day’s halt. It rained in torrents, however. I pulled out my guide-book, and balanced long between staying dry in the rail-cars, and going wet to see the wonders. Here are to be seen the swaddling-clothes of our Saviour, the robe of the Virgin Mary, the shroud of John the Baptist, some of the manna of the Israelites in the wilderness, a lock of the Virgin’s hair, and the leathern girdle of the Saviour. Here, also, is to be seen (with more certainty) the tomb of Charlemagne. The church towers, which cover these marvellous sights, loomed up through the shower, but my usual philosophy of “making the most of to-day” gave way for once. Promising myself to see the wonders of Aix on my return, I ordered my baggage into the cars, and rolled away through the rain, to the fragrant-named city of Cologne.
I got my first glimpse of the Rhine through the window of an omnibus. From so prosaic a look-out, I may be excused for remarking, (what I might not have done, perhaps, from the embrasure of a ruined castle,) that it was a very ordinary looking river, with low banks, and of about the breadth of the Susquehannah at Owego. A party of beer-drinkers, bearded and piped, sitting under a bower of dried branches in front of a tavern, were all that I could see at the moment that looked either picturesque or poetical. This was on the way from the rail-road station to the Hotel at Cologne. As it was the only view I had of the Rhine that does not compel admiration, I seize the opportunity to disparage it.
Indoingthe curiosities of Cologne with a guide and a party, I found nothing not thrice told in the many books. Fortunately for the traveller, things newly seen are quite as enjoyable, though ever so far gone beyond a new description. I relished exceedingly my ramble through the narrow streets, and over the beautiful cathedral, and I puckered my lips with due wonder at the sight of the bones of the “Eleven Thousand Virgins” in the Convent of St. Ursula. Alas, that, of any thing loveable, such relics may have been a part! There was no choice, I thought, between the skulls—yet there must have been differences of beauty in the flesh that covered them.
I was lucky enough to bring the moonlight and my eyes to bear on the cathedral at the same moment—the half-filled horn of the Queen of Stars pouring upon the fine old towers, a light of beautiful tenderness, while I strolled around them once more in the evening. The cathedral of Cologne looks, indeed, a lovely confusion. And quite as lovely, I fancy, to eyes that have no knowledge of how window and pinnacle put their Gothic legs, ultimately, to the ground. I believe in Gothic. I am sure, that is to say, that these interlaced points and angles have a harmony in which lies architectural strength; and with this unexamined creed in my mind, like capital in bank, I give to impressions of beauty, unlimited credit. This is sometimes the kind of trust with which we admire poetry. There is many a strain of Byron’s, learned by heart for the music that it floats with, the meaning alone of which would not have immortalized it for a nameless poet.
“The castled crag of Drachenfels,”
for example. The noble Cathedral of Cologne, however, like others in Germany, stands knee-deep in common houses stuck against the wall—a pitiful economy that makes more of a blot on their national taste than all the “cologne” of “Jean Maria Farina” will ever wash away. And, apropos, it was easier to forget the proper sovereign of Cologne than the great prince of essences, and I stepped into his shop in passing, and breathed for once without a doubt, the atmosphere of the genuine “Farina.” It was a great warehouse of perfume—boxes and baskets piled up in pyramids of sweetness—the sight of so much, however, most effectually overpowering my desire for the single bottle. Luxuries, to be valuable in this world of small parcels, should be guardedly shown to the enjoyer.
After a little pondering upon the Rhine while sitting on one of the stone posts of the wharf, I started for a moonlight ramble through the streets. I felt somewhat lonely at that moment—in a city of 80,000 inhabitants without a soul to speak to—but I feel,now, as if there was a link of music between me and an unknown player at Cologne, for I stood under a window and listened to what seemed an improvisation upon the piano, but done by a hand that sought nothing from the instrument but melody in tune with sadness. Commonly, in listening long to music, one has to suspend his heart at intervals, and wait for a return to the chord from which the player has wandered; but in the varied and continuous harmonies of this unseen hand, there was no note or transition for which my mood was not instinctively ready. It was evidently a performer whose fingers syllabled his thoughts in music, and one, too, who had no listener but myself. The street was still, and all around seemed to be buried in sleep, not a light to be seen, except through the crack of the shutters which concealed the musician. A few minutes after twelve the sounds ceased and the light departed, but the music was apt and sweet enough to be remembered as an angel’s ministration.
The day that had, among its errands, the duty of showing me the Rhine, made its obeisance in sober grey, a half hour before sunrise. I arose unwillingly, as one does, so early, whatever is to befal; but the steamer was to start at 6, and steamers are punctual, even on the track of Childe Harold. Following my baggage to the water-side, I found myself on board a boat which would hardly pass muster as a ferry boat to Staten Island—decks wet, seats dirty, and all hands, apparently, smoking pipe while the passengers came on board. Many kinds of people were hurrying over the plank, however. A young man who chose to sit in his travelling carriage while it was drawn from the hotel by men’s hands, attracted some notice, and it was soon whispered about that he was Prince Napoleon, nephew to the Emperor. He was a pale discontented looking youth, apparently twenty-two or twenty-five, and his servants waited on him with an impassive doggedness of servility, that made its comment on the temper of the master. The cashmeres thickened, and spurs and moustaches, students’ caps and pedestrians’ knapsacks, soon crowded the decks in most republican condition. I looked around, of course, in the hope of seeing some one to whom I could say, of the beautiful scenery, “how beautiful,” and, as my fellow travellers had passed under my eye, I had mentally ticketed them as one generally does—possible acquaintances, probable or impossible. And, among those who looked to me both possible and desirable acquaintances, were three Englishmen, whose manners and countenances at once took my fancy, and who, on exchanging cards with me at night, gave me names that I had long been familiar with—three of the most distinguished young artists of England. Somehow, in all the countries where I have travelled and made chance acquaintances, artists have been, of all the people I have met, the most attractive and agreeable.
I was taking a turn on the wharf, for the sake of a few minutes of dry footing before the boat should draw in her plank, when, to my surprise, I heard my name, with a feminine ‘good morning,’ from a window overhead. Looking up, I spied a lady, leaning out in shawl and night-cap and smoking a cigar! I immediately recognised her as a handsome person whom I had chanced to sit beside at atable d’hôte, at Brussels, and who had the enviable gift of speaking two foreign languages, French and English, absolutely as well as her own. She was a German. From the soup to the pudding (two-thirds of a hotel-dinner) I had supposed I was listening to an English woman, and as we had French and Germans at table, and her German husband among them, her accomplishments as a practical linguist were put to the test and remarked upon. She certainly presented (to the rising sun and me) rather a startlingtableau—one long lock of hair escaping from her cap, ribbons flying,et cetera—but she removed her cigar so carelessly for the convenience of smiling, and showed so little thought of caring about the impression she might make in such trying dishabille, that I rather admired my new view of her, on the whole. The same show from the window of the Astor hotel, in New York, would perhaps be thought odd.
LETTER XI.
TO ANY LADY SUBSCRIBER WHO MAY WISH FOR GLEANINGS FROM THAT FIRST CONCERT OF JENNY LIND WHICH THE CRITICS OF THE DAILY PAPERS HAVE SO WELL HARVESTED.
Highland Terrace, Sept. 21, 1850.
Dear Madam—My delight at Jenny Lind’s First Concert is sandwiched between slices of rural tranquillity—as I went to town for that only, and returned the next day—so that I date from where I write, and treat to sidewalk gossip in a letter “writ by the running brook.” Like the previous “Rural Letters” of this series, the present one would have made no special call on your attention, and would have been addressed to my friend and partner—but, as he accompanied me to the concert, I could not with propriety write him the news of it, and I therefore address myself, without intermediation, to the real reader for whom my correspondence is of course always intended. Not at all sure that I can tell you anything new about the one topic of the hour, I will, at least, endeavor to leave out what has been most dwelt upon.
On the road to town there seemed to be but one subject of conversation, in cars and steamers; and “Barnum,” “Jenny Lind,” and “Castle Garden,” were the only words to be overheard, either from passengers around, or from the rabble at platforms and landing places. The oddity of it lay in the entire saturation of the sea of public mind—from the ooze at the bottom, to the “crest of the rising swell”—with the same un-commercial, un-political, and un-sectarian excitement. When, before, was a foreign singer the only theme among travellers and baggage porters, ladies and loafers, Irishmen and “colored folks,” rowdies and the respectable rich? By dint of nothing else, and constant iteration of the three syllables “Jenny Lind,” it seemed to me, at last, as if the wheels of the car flew round with it—“Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind” in tripping or drawling syllables, according to the velocity.
The doors were advertised to be open at five; and, though it was thence three hours to the beginning of the concert, we abridged our dinner (your other servant, the song-king and myself,) and took omnibus with the early crowd bound downwards. On the way, I saw indications of a counter current—(private carriages with fashionables starting for their evening drive out of town, and several ruling dandies of the hour strolling up, with an air of leisure which was perfectly expressive of no part in the excitement of the evening)—and then I first comprehended that there might possibly be a small class of dissenters. As we were in time to see the assembling of most of the multitude who had tickets, it occurred to me to observe the proportion offashionablesamong them, and, with much pains-taking, and the aid of an opera-glass, I could number buteleven. Of the Five Hundred who give “the ton,” this seemed to be the whole representation in an audience of six thousand—a minority I was sorry to see, as an angel like Jenny Lind may well touch the enthusiasm of every human heart, while, as a matter of taste, no more exquisite feast than her singing was ever offered to the refined. There should, properly, have been no class in New York—at least none that could afford the price of attendance—that was not proportionately represented at that Concert. The songstress, herself, as is easy to see, prefers to be the “People’s choice,” and would rather sing to the Fifty Thousand than to the Five Hundred—but she touches a chord that should vibrate far deeper than the distinctions of society, and I hope yet to see her as much “the fashion” as “the popular rage” in our republican metropolis.
Sept. 21, 1851
Jenny’s first coming upon the stage at the Concert has been described by every critic. Several of them have pronounced it done rather awkwardly. It seemed to me, however, that the language of curtesies was never before so varied—never before so eloquently effective. She expressed more than the three degrees of humility—profound, profounder profoundest—more than the three degrees of simplicity—simple, simpler, simplest. In the impression she produced, there was conviction of the superlative of both, and something to spare. Who, of the spectators that remembered Steffanoni’s superb indifference to the public—(expressed by curtesies just as low when making her first appearance to sing the very solo that Jenny was about to sing)—did not recognize, at Castle Garden, that night, the eloquent inspiration there might be, if not the excessive art, in a curtsey on the stage? I may as well record, for the satisfaction of the great Good-as-you—(the “Casta Diva” of our country)—that Jenny’s reverence to this our divinity, the other night, was not practised before Kings and Courts. I was particularly struck, in Germany, with the reluctant civility expressed by her curtesies to the box of the Sovereign Grand Duke, and to the audience of nobles and gamblers. In England, when the Queen was present, it seemed to me that Jenny wished to convey, in her manner of acknowledging the applause for her performance of La Somnambula, that her profession was distasteful to her. In both these instances, there was certainly great reserve in her “making of her manners”—in this country there has, as certainly, been none.
The opening solo of “Casta Diva” was well selected to show thequalityof Jenny Lind’s voice, though the dramatic effect of this passage of Bellini’s opera could not be given by a voice that had formed itself upon her life and character. Pure invocation to the Moon, the Norman Deity, as the two first stanzas are, the latter half of the solo is a passionate prayer of the erring Priestess to her unlawful love; and, to be sung truly, must be sung passionately, and with the cadences of love and sin. On Jenny’s lips, the devout purity and imploring worship and contrition, proper to the stanzas in which the Deity is addressed, arecontinued throughout; and the Roman, who has both desecrated and been faithless to her, is besought to return and sin again, with accents of sublimely unconscious innocence. To those who listened without thought of the words, it was a delicious melody, and the voice of an angel—for, in its pathetic and half mournful sweetness, that passage, on such a voice, goes straight to the least expectant and least wakeful fountain of tears—but it was Jenny Lind, and not Norma, and she should have the air set to new words or to an affecting and elevated passage of Scripture.
And it strikes me, by the way, as a little wonderful—Jenny Lind being what she is, and the religious world being so numerous—that the inspired Swede, in giving up the stage, has not gone over to sacred music altogether. It would have been worthy of her, as well as abundantly in her power, to have created a Sacred Musical Drama—or, at least, so much of one, as thesinging the songs of Scripture, in costume and character. Had the divine music of Casta Diva, the other night, for instance, been the Lamentation of the Daughter of Jeptha, and had a background of religious reverence given to the singer its strong relief, while the six thousand listeners were gazing with moist eyes upon her, how immeasurably would not the effect of that mere Operatic music have been heightened! With a voice and skill capable of almost miraculous personation, and with a character of her own which gives her the sacredness of an angel, she might truly “carry the world away,” were the music but equal to that of the popular operas. Is it not possible to originate this in our country? With hundreds of thousands of religious people ready to form new audiences, when she has sung out her worldly music, will not the pure-hearted, humble, simple, saint-like and gifted Jenny commence a new career ofSacredMusic, on this side the water? Some one told me, once, that he had heard her sing, in a private room, that beautiful song, “I know that my Redeemer liveth!” with feeling and expression such as he had never before thought possible. What a field for a composer is the Bible! For how many of its personages—Mary, Hagar, Miriam, Ruth—might single songs be written, that, sung in the costume in which they are usually painted, and with such action as the meaning required, would give boundless pleasure to the religious! The class is well worth composing for, and they are well worthy of the service of asequestrated choirof the world’s best singers—of whom Jenny Lind may most triumphantly be the first.
That Jenny Lind sings like a woman with no weaknesses—that there is plenty of soul in her singing, but no flesh and blood—that her voice expresses more tender pity than tender passion, and more guidance in the right way than sympathy with liability to the wrong—are reasons, I think, why she should compare unfavorably with the impassioned sinners of the opera, in opera scenes and characters. Grisi and Steffanoni give better and more correct representations of “Norma,” both musical and dramatic, than she—and naturally enough. It is wonderful how differently the same music may be correctly sung; and how the quality of the voice—which is inevitably an expression of the natural character and habits of mind—makes its meaning! It is one of the most interesting events to have seen Jenny Lind at all—but, her character and her angelic acts apart, a woman “as is a woman” may better sing much of the music she takes from operas.
Of the “Flute Song” and the “Echo Song” the papers have said enough, and I will save what else I have to say of the great-souled maiden, till I get back to my quarters in the city and have heard her again.
Pardon the gravity of my letter, dear Madam, and believe me
Your humble servant.
LETTER XII.
TO THE LADY-SUBSCRIBER IN THE COUNTRY.
New York Sept. 1850.
One prefers to write to those for whom one has the most to tell, and I have an ink-stand full of gossip about the great Jenny, which, though it might hardly be news to those who have the run of the sidewalk, may possibly be interesting where the grass grows. Nothing else is talked of, and now and then a thing is said which escapes the omniverous traps of the daily papers. Upon the faint chance of telling you something which you might not otherwise hear without coming to town, I put my ink-stand into the clairvoyant state, and choose you for the listener with whom to put it “in communication.”
Jenny has an imperfection—which I hasten to record. That she might turn out to be quite too perfect for human sympathy, has been the rock ahead in her navigation of popularity. “Pretend to a fault if you haven’t one,” says a shrewd old writer, “for, the one thing the world never forgives is perfection.” There was really a gloomy probability that Jenny would turn out to be that hateful monstrosity—a woman without a fault—but the suspense is over.She cannot mount on horseback without a chair!No lady who is common-place enough to love, and marry, and give her money to her husband, ever climbed more awkwardly into a side-saddle than Jenny Lind. The necessity of finding something in which she was surpassed by somebody, has been so painfully felt, “up town,” that this discovery was circulated, within an hour after it was observed, to every corner of the fashionable part of the city. She occupies the private wing of the New-York Hotel, on the more secluded side of Washington Place, and a lady eating an ice at the confectioner’s opposite, was the fortunate witness of this her first authenticated human weakness. Fly she may! (is the feeling now,) for, to birds and angels it comes easy enough—but she is no horsewoman! Fanny Kemble, whom we know to be human, beats her at that!
Another liability of the divine Jenny has come to my knowledge, though I should not mention it as a weakness without some clearer light as to the susceptibilities of the angelic nature. It was mentioned to a lady-friend of mine, that, on reading some malicious insinuations as to the motives of her charities, published a few days since in one of the daily papers of this city, she wept bitterly. Now, though we mourn that the world holds a man who would so groundlessly belie the acts of a ministering angel, there is still a certain pleasure in knowing that she, too, is subject to tears. We love her more—almost as much more as if tears were human only—because injustice can reach and move so pure a creature, as it can us. God forbid that such sublime benevolence, as this munificent singing girl’s, should be maligned again—but so might Christ’s motive in raising Lazarus have been misinterpreted, and we can scarce regret that it has once happened, for, we know, now, that she is within the circle in which we feel and suffer. Sweet, tearful Jenny! She is one of us—God bless her!—subject to the cruel misinterpretation of the vile, and with a heart in her angelic bosom, that, like other human hearts, needs and pleads to be believed in!
I made one of the seven thousand who formed her audience on Saturday night; and, when I noticed how the best music she gave forth during the evening was least applauded—the Hon. Public evidently not knowing the difference between Jenny Lind’s singing and Mrs. Bochsa Bishop’s, nor between Benedict’s composition and Bellini’s—I fell to musing on the secret of her charm over four thousand of those present—(allowing one thousand to be appreciators of her voice and skill, and two thousand to be honest lovers of her goodness, and the remaining four thousand, who were also buyers of five-dollar tickets, constituting my little problem.)
I fancy, the great charm of Jenny Lind, to those who think little, is, that she stands before them as an angel in possession of a gift which is usually entrusted only to sinners. That God has not made her a wonderful singerand there left her, is the curious exception she forms to common human allotment. To give away more money in charity than any other mortal and still be the first of primas donnas! To be an irreproachably modest girl, and still be the first of primas donnas! To be humble, simple, genial, and unassuming, and still be the first of primas donnas! To have begun as a beggar-child, and risen to receive more adulation than any Queen, and still be the first of primas donnas! To be unquestionably the most admired and distinguished woman on earth, doing the most good and exercising the most power, and still be a prima donna that can be applauded and encored! It is thecombination, of superiorities and interests, that makes the wonder—it is the concentrating of the stuff for half-a-dozen heroines in one simple girl, and that girl a candidate for applause—that so vehemently stimulates the curiosity. We are not sufficiently aware, I have long thought, that the world is getting tired of single-barrelled greatness. You must be two things or more—a revolver of genius—to be much thought of, now. There was very much such a period in Roman history. Nero found it by no means enough to be an Emperor. He went on the stage as a singer. With the world to kill if he chose, he must also have the world’s willing admiration. He slept with a plate of lead on his stomach, abstained from all fruits and other food that would affect his voice, poisoned Britannicus because he sang better than himself, and was more delighted when encored than when crowned. So sighed the Emperor Commodus for a two-story place in history, and went on the stage as a dancer and gladiator. Does any one suppose that Queen Victoria has not envied Jenny Lind? Does Washington Irving, as he sits at Sunnyside, and watches the sloops beating up against the wind, feel no discontent that he is immortal only on one tack? No! no! And it is in America that the atmosphere is found (Oh prophetice pluribus unum!) for this plurality of greatness. Europe, in bigotry of respect for precedent, forgets what the times may be ready for. Jenny Lind, when she gets to the prompt, un-crusted and foreshadowing West of this country, will find her six-barrelled greatness for the first time subject to a single trigger of appreciation. Queens may have given her lap-dogs, and Kings may have clasped bracelets on her plump arms, but she will prize more the admirationfor the whole of her, felt here by awhole people. It will have been the first time in her career, (if one may speak like a schoolmaster,) that the heaven-written philactery of her worth will have been read without stopping to parse it. Never before has she received homage so impulsive and universal—better than that, indeed, for like Le Verrier’s planet, she was recognised, and this far-away world was vibrating to her influence, long before she was seen.
One wonders, as one looks upon her soft eyes, and her affectionate profusion of sunny hair, what Jenny’sheartcan be doing, all this time? Is fame a substitute for the tender passion? She must have been desperately loved, in her varied and bright path. I saw a student at Leipsic, who, after making great sacrifices and efforts to get a ticket to her last concert at that place, gave it away, and went to stroll out the evening in the lonely Rosenthal, because he felt his happiness at stake, and could not bear the fascination that she exercised upon him. Or, is her rocket of devotion divided up into many and more manageable little crackers of friendship? Even that most impassioned of women, Madam George Sand, says:—“Si l’on rencontrait une amitié parfaite dans toute sa vie, on pourrait presque se passer d’amour.” Do the devoted friendships, that Jenny Lind inspires, make love seem to her but like the performance, to one listener, of a concert, the main portion of whose programme has hitherto been sufficient for so many? We would not be disrespectful with these speculations. To see such a heaven as her heart untenanted, one longs to write its advertisement of “To Let.” Yet it would take polygamy to match her; for, half-a-dozen poets, two Mexican heroes, several dry-goods merchants, and a rising politician, would hardly “boil down” into a man of gifts enough to be worthy of her. The truth is, that all “institutions” should be so modified as not to interfere with the rights of the world at large; and, matrimony of the ordinary kind—(which would bestow her voice like a sun dial in a grave)—would rob the Public of its natural property in Jenny Lind. But an “arrangement” could be managed with no unreasonable impoverishment of her husband; for, a month of her time being equal to a year of other people’s, her marriage contract might be graduated accordingly—eleven months reserved to celibacy and fame. It is a “Procrustes bed,” which cuts all love of the same length, and what “committee of reference” would not award a twelfth of Jenny Lind as an equivalent consideration for the whole of an average husband?
Doubting whether I should ever venture upon so delicate a subject again, I will make a good round transgression of it, by recording a little bit of gossip, to show you that the fond Public is capable of its little jealousy, like other lovers. There is a Swedish settlement in Michigan, which, on Jenny’s arrival, sent a committee of one—a young Swedish officer who had given up his epaulettes for the plough—to ask a contribution for the building of a church. Jenny promptly gave five hundred dollars, and the deputation was very contented with that—but added the trifling request for a doxology in the shape of a Daguerreotype of the donor. Willing as a child to give pleasure to the good, the sweet nightingale drove straight to Brady’s, allowed the happy sun to take her portrait, and gave it to her countryman. But now comes the part of it which the enamoured Public does not like—for, the Committee stays on! Instead of going home to set those carpenters to work, he is seen waiting to help Jenny into her carriage after the concerts, and, in the comments made upon this, his looks are pulled to pieces in a way that shows how any approach to a monopoly of her is jealously resented. Fancy the possibility of a small settlement in Michigan having such a “new settler” as Jenny Lind!
There is an indication that Providence intended this remarkable woman for a citizen of no one country, in the peculiar talent she possesses as a linguist. A gentleman who resided in Germany when she was there, told me yesterday that one of the delights the Germans found, in her singing and in her society, was the wonderful beauty of her pronunciation of their language. It was a common remark that she spoke it “better than a German,” for, with her keen perception and fine taste, she threw out the local abbreviations and corruptions of the familiar dialect, and, with her mastery of sound, she gave every syllable its just fulness and proportion. She is perfect mistress of French, and speaks English very sweetly, every day making rapid advance in the knowledge of it.
Several of our fashionable people are preparing to give large parties, as soon as the fair Swede is willing to honor them with her company, but she is so beset, at present, that she needs the invisible ring of Gyges even to get a look at the weather without having “an audience” thrown in. She can scarce tell, of course, what civilities to accept, or who calls to honor her or who to beg charity, but her unconquerable simplicity and directness serve to evade much that would annoy other people.
LETTER XIII.
TO THE LADY SUBSCRIBER IN THE COUNTRY.
Dear Madam,—It is slender picking at the feast of news, after the Daily Papers have had their fill, and, if I make the most of a trifle that I find here or there, you will read with reference to my emergency. Put yourself in my situation, and imagine how all the best gossip of the village you live in, would be used up before you had any chance at it, if you were at liberty to speak but once in seven days!
The belated Equinox is upon us. Jenny Lind, having occasion for fair weather when she was here, the Sun dismissed his storm train, and stepped over the Equator on tiptoe, leaving the thunder and lightning to sweep this part of the sky when she had done with it. She left for Boston and the deferred storm followed close upon her departure, doing up its semi-annual “chore” with unusual energy. The cobwebs of September were brushed away by the most vivid lightning, and the floor of heaven was well washed for Jenny’s return. October and the New York Hotel are now ready for her.
Pray what do the respectable trees, that have no enthusiasms, think of our mania for Jenny Lind? The maniacs here, in their lucid intervals, moralize on themselves. Ready as they are to receive her with a fresh paroxysm next week, the most busy question of this week is, “what has ailed us?” I trust the leisurely observer of “The Lorgnette” is watching this analysis of a crazy metropolis by itself, and will give it us, in a separate number; for it will describe a curious stage of the formation of musical taste in our emulous and fast-growing civilization. I think I can discern an advanced step in the taste of my own acquaintances, showing that people learn fast by the effort to define what they admire. But, of course, there is great difference of opinion. The fashionables and foreigners go “for curiosity” to the Lind Concerts, but form a steady faction against her in conversation. The two French Editors of New York, and the English Editor of theAlbion—(unwilling, perhaps, to let young and fast America promote to afullangel, one who had only beenbrevettedan angel in their older and slower countries)—furnish regular supplies of ammunition to the opposition. You may hear, at present, in any up-town circle, precisely what Jenny Lind isnot—as convincingly as the enemies of the flute could show you that it was neither a clarionet nor a bass viol, neither a trombone nor a drum, neither a fife, a fiddle, nor a bassoon. The only embarrassment her dissecters find, is in reconciling the round, full, substantial body of her voice, with their declarations that she soars out of the reach of ordinary sympathy, and is aerially incapable of expressing the passion of the every day human heart. “She sings with mere organic skill, and without soul,” says one, while another proves that she sings only to the soul and not at all to the body. Between these two opposing battledoors, the shuttlecock, of course, stays where Barnum likes to see it.
The private life of the great Jenny is matter of almost universal inquisitiveness, and the anecdotes afloat, of her evasions of intrusion, her frank receptions, her independence and her good nature, would fill a volume. She is so hunted that it is a wonder how she finds time to remember herself—yet that she invariably does. Nothing one hears of her is at all out of character. She is fearlessly direct and simple in every thing. Though “The People” are not impertinent, the bores who push their annoyances under cover of representing this her constituency, are grossly impertinent; and she is a sagacious judge of the difference between them. A charming instance of this occurred just before she left Boston. Let me give it you, with a mended pen and a new paragraph.
Jenny was at home one morning, but, having indispensable business to attend to, gave directions to the servants to admit no visiters whatever. Waiters and maids may be walked past, however, and a fat lady availed herself of this mechanical possibility, and entered Jenny’s chamber, declaring that she must see the dear creature who had given away so much money. Her reception was civilly cold, of course, but she went into such a flood of tears, after throwing her arms round Jenny’s neck, that the nightingale’s heart was softened. She pleaded positive occupation for the moment, but said that she should be at leisure in the evening, and would send her carriage for her weeping admirer if she could come at a certain hour. The carriage was duly sent, but it brought, not only the fat lady, butthree morefemale admirers, of most unpromising and vulgar exterior. They were shewn into the drawing-room, and, in a few minutes, Jenny entered from an adjoining room, followed by half-a-dozen professional persons, with whom she had been making some business arrangements.
“How is this?” said the simple Swede, looking around as she got into the room; “here are four ladies, and I sent for but one!”
They commenced an apology in some confusion.
“No, ladies! no!” said Jenny; “your uninvited presence here is an intrusion. I cannot send you away, because you have no escort; but your coming is an impertinence, and I am very much troubled with this kind of thing.”
The three intruders chose to remain, however, and taking seats, they stayed out their fat friend’s visit—Jenny taking no further notice of them till their departure. As they got up to go, the singer’s kind heart was moved again, and she partly apologised for her reception of them, stating how her privacy was invaded at all hours, and how injurious it was to her profession as well as her comfort. And, with this consolation, she sent them all home again in her carriage.
To any genuine and reasonable approach, Jenny is the soul of graciousness and kindness. An old lady of eighty sent to her the other day, pleading that she was about to leave town, and that her age and infirmities prevented her from seeing Miss Lind in public, but that she wished the privilege of expressing her admiration of her character, and of resting her eyes upon one so good and gifted. Jenny immediately sent for her, and, asking if she would like to hear her sing, sang to her for an hour and a half, with the simplicity of a child delighted to give pleasure. It is the mixture of this undiminished freshness and ingenuousness, with her unbending independence and tact at business, which show this remarkable creature’s gifts in such strong relief. Nature, who usually departs as Art and Honours come in, has stayed with Jenny.
Of course, the city is full of discontented stars that have been forced to “pale their intellectual fires” before this brighter glory, and lecturers, concert-singers, primas-donnas and dancers are waiting the setting of the orb of Jenny Lind. We are promised all sorts of novelties, at her disappearance, and of those, and of other events in this busy capital, I will duly write you.
THE REQUESTED LETTER
(TO THE LADY-READER IN THE COUNTRY.)
New York, Nov. —, 1850.
Dear Madam,—Your note, of some weeks since requesting “a more particular account of Jenny Lind as a woman,” I threw aside, at first, as one I was not likely to have the means of answering. Overrun as she is, in her few leisure moments, by numberless visits of ceremony, as well as of intrusion and impertinent curiosity, I felt unwilling to be one of the unremembered particulars of a general complimentary persecution, and had given up all idea of seeing Jenny Lind except over the heads of an audience. Fortunate chance has enabled me to see a little more of her than a ticket entitles one to, however, and, as this “little more” rather confirms and explains to me the superiority of her gifts, I may be excused for putting it into print as a debt due from herself to her celebrity.
Jenny Lind’s reception, of the two or three intellectual men into the wake of whose visit I had been accidentally invited to fall, was not with such manners as would be learned in society. It was like a just descended spirit, practising politeness for the first time, but with perfect intelligence of what it was meant to express. The freshness and sincerity of thoughts taken as they rise—the trustful deference due a stranger, and yet the natural cordiality which self-respect could well afford—the ease of one who had nothing to learn of courtesy, and yet the impulsive eagerness to shape word and manner to the want of the moment—these, which would seem to be the elements of a simple politeness, were all there, but in Jenny Lind, notwithstanding, they composed a manner that was altogether her own. A strict Lady of the Court might have objected to the frank eagerness with which she seated her company—like a school girl preparing her playfellows for a game of forfeits—but it was charming to those who were made at home by it. In the seating of herself, in the posture of attention and disposal of her hands and dress—(small lore sometimes deeply studied, as the ladies know!)—she evidently left all to nature—the thought of her own personal appearance, apparently never once entering her mind. So self-omitting a manner, indeed, for one in which none of the uses of politeness were forgotten, I had not before seen.
In the conversation of this visit of an hour, and in the times that I have subsequently observed Jenny Lind’s intercourse with other minds, I was powerfully impressed with a quality that is perhaps the key to her character and her success in life—asingularly prompt and absolute power of concentration. No matter what the subject, the “burning-glass” of her mind was instantly brought to a focus upon it, and her question or comment, the moment after, sent the light through the matter, with a clearness that a lawyer would admire. Although conversing in a foreign language, she comprehended everything by the time it was half expressed, and her occasional anticipation of the speaker’s meaning, though it had a momentary look of abruptness, were invariably the mile-stones ahead at which he was bound to arrive. In one or two instances, where the topics were rather more abstract than is common in a morning call, and probably altogether new to her, she summed up the scope and bearing of them with a graphic suddenness that could receive its impulse from nothing but genius. I have been startled, indeed, with this true swift-thoughtedness whenever I have seen her, and have analyzed it afterwards, and I have no hesitation in saying that the same faculty, exercised through a pen, would be the inspiration of genius. Jenny Lind, I venture to believe, is only not a brilliant writer, because circumstances have chained her to the wheel of a lesser excellence. Perhaps a vague consciousness that the perfection of this smaller gift was not the destiny of which she was most worthy, prompted the devotion of its gains to the mission which compensates to her self-respect. Her charities are given out, instead of thoughts “the world would not willingly let die.” Blessings are returned, instead of a fame to her. She moves those within reach of her voice, instead of covering all distance with the magnetic net-work which will electrify while the world lasts. The lesser service to mankind is paid in gold, the higher in immortality—but, fated to choose the lesser, she so uses the gold that the after-death profit will be made up to her in heaven. Jenny Lind choosing between gold by her voice or fame by her pen, has been atableauthe angels have watched with interest—I fancy the “knockers” would rap twice to affirm!
But I doubt, after all, whether Sweden has yet lost the poetess or essayist that Song has thus misled or hindered. She says very frankly that she shall not sing much longer—only till this mission of benevolence is completed—and what then is to be the sphere of her spirit of undying activity? There is no shelf for such a mind. There is no exhaustion for the youth of such faculties. I am told she has a wonderful memory, and—for one work alone—fancy what reminiscences she might write of her unprecedented career! Having seen everything truthfully—estimated persons of all ranks profoundly—been intimate with every station in life, from the Queen’s to the cottager’s—studied human allotment behind its closest curtains, and received more homage than any living being of her time—what a book of Memories Jenny Lind might give us! If she were to throw away such material, it seems to me, she would rob the eye of more than she has given to the ear.
The more one sees of Jenny Lind, the more one is puzzled as to her countenance. One’s sight, in her presence, does not seem to act with its usual reliable discretion. Like the sinner who “went to scoff and remained to pray,” the eye goes to find her plain, and comes back with a report of her exceeding beauty. The expression, as she animates, positively alters the lines; and there is an expansion of her irregular features to a noble breadth of harmony, at times, which, had Michael Angelo painted her, would have given to Art one of its richest types of female loveliness. Having once seen this, the enchantment of her face has thrown its chain over you, and you watch for its capricious illuminations with an eagerness not excited by perpetual beauty. Of course, she never sees this herself, and hence her evident conviction that she is plain, and the careless willingness with which she lets painters and Daguerreotypists make what they please of her. I noticed, by the way, that the engraved likenesses, which stick in every shop-window, had not made the public acquainted with her physiognomy, for, in a walk of two or three miles in which I had the happiness of bearing her company, on a Sunday, and when the streets were crowded with the comers from church, there was no sign of a single recognition of her. It seemed the more strange, as many passed who, I knew, were among her worshippers, and any one of whom would confidently give a description of her features. So do not be sure that you know how Jenny Lind looks, even when you have seen her Daguerreotypes and heard her sing.
In reading over what I have hastily written, I find it expresses what has grown upon me with seeing and hearing the great Songstress—a conviction that her present wonderful influence is but the forecast shadow of a different and more inspired exercise of power hereafter. Her magnetism is not all from a voice and a benevolent heart. The soul, while it feels her pass, recognizes the step of a spirit of tall stature, complete and unhalting in its proportions. We shall yet be called upon to admire rarer gifts in her than her voice. Deference and honor to her, meantime!
And with this invocation, I will close!