June 13.Last nightNozze di Figaro. Mr. and Mrs. McHenry sent five bouquets. Splendid performance.15.Dined at Duchess of Somerset's.16.Dined with Mr. and Mrs. McHenry. Stebbins—Vanderbilts.18.Don Giovanni.Checks from Mr. Cowen. Banker came to see us. Duke of Newcastle—Sir George Armitage.20.Benedict's Morning Concert, St. James' Hall.Encore"Beware"—Don Giovanniin the evening.21. Sunday.Dined with Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Major Stackpoole, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest and others. RehearsedLa Figula.Monday.Rehearsal ofLa Figula. In the evening went to hear Patti. Didn't like Patti. Received letter from Colonel Stebbins from Queenstown.Tuesday.RehearsedLa Figula. Called at Langham on Godwin—all came out in the evening.Wednesday 24.Morning performance ofLe Nozze—got home at 6.P.M.Charity concert for Mr. Cowen at 8.30 at Dudley House.Thursday.Rehearsal ofLa Figula. Concert in the evening at Lady Fitzgerald's.Monday.Louise and I went to drive. Do not learn anything definite about the future—where I am to be next winter—no one knows. I do not see any settled home for me any more. Sometimes I am satisfied to have it so—at others—get nervous and uneasy and discontented. Yet I have lost interest in going home—it will be so short a visit—so soon a separation—then to some other stranger place—new friends—new faces—I want the old. The surface of life does not interest me.Tuesday.Dined at Langs'—large party.Wednesday 15.Went to Crystal Palace—Mapleson's Benefit. The whole performance closed with the most magnificent display of Fireworks I ever saw—most marvellous.16.Don Giovanni—full house—great success in the part—Duchess and Lady Rossmore threw splendid bouquets—house very enthusiastic—papers fine—Mrs. McHenry and Mr. Sampson came down—Duke of Newcastle and Major Stackpoole—Miss Jarrett.Monday. Le Nozze di Figaro.Tuesday. La Figula.Thursday.Went to theatre. Saw Nilsson and all the artists. Went to hear Patti inRomeo and Juliette—Strakosch gave us the box. Strakosch introduced Rothschilds.Friday.Le Nozze di Figaro.Baron Rothschilds, Sir George Armitage came around.Saturday.Sir George breakfasted with Louise. Rothschilds called—letter from Mr. Stebbins.Sunday morning.Dr. Kellogg of Utica called—spent several hours. Santley called—and McHenry in the evening.
June 13.Last nightNozze di Figaro. Mr. and Mrs. McHenry sent five bouquets. Splendid performance.
15.Dined at Duchess of Somerset's.
16.Dined with Mr. and Mrs. McHenry. Stebbins—Vanderbilts.
18.Don Giovanni.Checks from Mr. Cowen. Banker came to see us. Duke of Newcastle—Sir George Armitage.
20.Benedict's Morning Concert, St. James' Hall.Encore"Beware"—Don Giovanniin the evening.
21. Sunday.Dined with Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Major Stackpoole, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest and others. RehearsedLa Figula.
Monday.Rehearsal ofLa Figula. In the evening went to hear Patti. Didn't like Patti. Received letter from Colonel Stebbins from Queenstown.
Tuesday.RehearsedLa Figula. Called at Langham on Godwin—all came out in the evening.
Wednesday 24.Morning performance ofLe Nozze—got home at 6.P.M.Charity concert for Mr. Cowen at 8.30 at Dudley House.
Thursday.Rehearsal ofLa Figula. Concert in the evening at Lady Fitzgerald's.
Monday.Louise and I went to drive. Do not learn anything definite about the future—where I am to be next winter—no one knows. I do not see any settled home for me any more. Sometimes I am satisfied to have it so—at others—get nervous and uneasy and discontented. Yet I have lost interest in going home—it will be so short a visit—so soon a separation—then to some other stranger place—new friends—new faces—I want the old. The surface of life does not interest me.
Tuesday.Dined at Langs'—large party.
Wednesday 15.Went to Crystal Palace—Mapleson's Benefit. The whole performance closed with the most magnificent display of Fireworks I ever saw—most marvellous.
16.Don Giovanni—full house—great success in the part—Duchess and Lady Rossmore threw splendid bouquets—house very enthusiastic—papers fine—Mrs. McHenry and Mr. Sampson came down—Duke of Newcastle and Major Stackpoole—Miss Jarrett.
Monday. Le Nozze di Figaro.
Tuesday. La Figula.
Thursday.Went to theatre. Saw Nilsson and all the artists. Went to hear Patti inRomeo and Juliette—Strakosch gave us the box. Strakosch introduced Rothschilds.
Friday.Le Nozze di Figaro.Baron Rothschilds, Sir George Armitage came around.
Saturday.Sir George breakfasted with Louise. Rothschilds called—letter from Mr. Stebbins.
Sunday morning.Dr. Kellogg of Utica called—spent several hours. Santley called—and McHenry in the evening.
I was greatly shocked by the heavy drinking in the 'sixties that was not only the fashion but almost the requirement of fashion in England. My horror when I first saw a titled and distinguished Englishwoman in the opera box of the Earl of Harrington (our friend of the charming luncheon party), call an attendant and order a brandy and soda will never be forgotten. It was the general custom to serve refreshments in the boxes at the opera, and bottles and glasses of all sorts passed in and out of these private "loges" the entire evening. Indeed, people never dreamed of drinkingwater, although they drank their wines "like water" proverbially. Such prejudice as mine has two sides, as I realise when I think of the landlady of our apartment which we rented during a later London season in Belgrave Mansions. When singing, I had to have a late supper prepared for me—something very light and simple and nourishing. Our good landlady used to be shocked almost to the verge of tears by my iniquitous habit of drinking waterpur-et-simplewith my suppers.
"Oh, miss," she would beg, "let me put a bit of sherry orsomethingin it for you! It'll hurt you that way, Miss! It'll make you ill, that it will!"
MAPLESON asked me to stay on the other side and sing in England, Ireland, and France at practically my own terms, but I refused to do so. I had made my English success and now I wanted to go home in triumph. My mother agreed with me that it was time to be turning homeward. So I accepted an engagement to sing under the management of the Strakosches, Max and Maurice, on a long concert tour.
I have only gratitude for the manner in which my own people welcomed my return. The critics found me much improved, and one and all gave me credit for hard and unremitting work. "Here is a young singer," said one, "who has steadily worked her way to the highest position in operatic art." That point of view always pleased me; for I contend now, as I have contended since I first began to sing, that, next to having a voice in the first place, the great essential is to work; and thenwork; and, after that, begin to WORK!
New York as a city did not please me when I saw it again. I had forgotten, or never fully realised, how provincial it was. Even to-day I firmly believe that it is undoubtedly the dirtiest city in the world, that its traffic regulation is the worst, and its cab service the most expensive and inconvenient. All this struck me with particular force when I came home fresh from London and Paris.
My contract with the Strakosches was for twenty-five weeks, four appearances a week, making a hundred performances in all. This tour was only broken by a short engagement under my old director Maretzek at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, an arrangement made for me by Max Strakosch when we reached that city in the spring; and, with the exception ofRobert le Diable,Trovatore, and one or two other operas, I spent the next three years singing in concert and oratorio entirely. It was not enjoyable, but it was successful. We went all over the country, North, South, East, West, and everywhere found an enthusiastic public. Particularly was this so in the South as far as I personally was concerned. The poor South had not yet recovered from the effects of the Civil War and did not have much money to spend on amusements, but, when at Richmond the people learned that I was Southern born, more than one woman said to me:
"Go? To hear you! Yes, indeed; we'll hang up all we have to go and hear you!"
One of my popular fellow-artists on the first tour was James M. Wehli, the English pianist. He was known as the "left-handed pianist" and was in reality better suited to a vaudeville stage than to a concert platform. His particular accomplishment consisted in playing a great number of pieces brilliantly with his left hand only, a feat remarkable enough in itself but not precisely an essential for a great artist, and, even as a pianist, he was not inspired.
My first appearance after my European experience was in a concert at the Academy of Music in New York. It was a real welcome home. People cheered and waved and threw flowers and clapped until I was literally in tears. I felt that it did not matter in theleast whether New York was a real city or not; America was a real country! When the concert was over, the men from the Lotus Club took the horses out of my carriage and dragged it, with me in it, to my hotel. And oh, my flowers! My American title of "The FlowerPrima Donna" was soon reestablished beyond all peradventure. Flowers in those days were much rarer than they are now; and I received, literally, loads and loads of camellias, and roses enough to set up many florist shops. Without exaggeration, I sent those I received bycartloadsto the hospitals. And one "floral offering" that I received in Boston was actually too large for any waggon. A subscription had been raised and a pagoda of flowers sent. I had to hire a dray to carry it to my hotel; and then it could not be got up the stairs but had to spend the night downstairs. In the morning I had the monstrous thing photographed and sent it off to a hospital. Even this was an undertaking as I could not, for some reason, get the dray of the night before; and had to hire several able-bodied men to carry it. I hope it was a comfort to somebody before it faded! It is a pity that this tribute on the part of Boston did not assume a more permanent form, for I should have much appreciated a more lasting token as a remembrance of the occasion. It must not be thought that I was unappreciative because I say this. I love anything and everything that blooms, and I love the spirit that offers me flowers. But I must say that the pagoda was something of a white elephant.
While thinking of Boston and my first season at home, I must not omit mention of Mrs. Martin. Indeed, it will have to be rather more than a mere mention, for it is quite a little story, beginning indirectlywith Wright Sandford. Wright Sandford was the only man in New York with a big independent fortune, except "Willie" Douglass who spent most of his time cruising in foreign waters. Wright Sandford was more of a friend of mine than "Willie" Douglass, and I used to haul him over the coals occasionally for his lazy existence. He had eighty thousand a year and absolutely nothing to do but to amuse himself.
"What do you expect me to do?" he would demand plaintively. "I've no one to play with!"
Whenever I was starting on a tour he would send me wonderful hampers put up by Delmonico, with the most delicious things to eat imaginable in them, so that my mother and I never suffered, at least for the first day or two, from the inconveniences of the bad food usually experienced by travellers. A very nice fellow was Wright Sandford in many ways, and to this day I am appreciative of the Delmonico luncheons if of nothing else.
When we wereen routefor Boston on that first tour,—a long trip then, eight or nine hours at least by the fast trains—there sat close to us in the car a little woman who watched me all the time and smiled whenever I glanced at her. I noticed that she had no luncheon with her, so when we opened our Delmonico hamper, I leaned across and asked her to join us. I do not exactly know why I did it for I was not in the habit of making friends with our fellow-travellers; but the little person appealed to me somehow in addition to her being lunchless. She was the most pleased creature imaginable! She nibbled a little, smiled, spoke hardly a word, and after lunch I forgot all about her.
In Boston, as I was in my room in the hotel practising,before going to the theatre, there came a faint rap on the door. I called out "Come in," yet nobody came. I began to practise again and again came a little rap. "Come in," I called a second time, yet still nothing happened. After a third rap I went and opened the door. In the dark hall stood a woman. I did not remember ever having seen her before; but I could hardly distinguish her features in the passage.
"I've come," said she in a soft, small voice, "to ask you if you would please kiss me?"
Of course I complied. Needless to say, I thought her quite crazy. After I had kissed her cheek she nodded and vanished into the darkness while I, much mystified, went back to my singing. That night at the theatre I saw a small person sitting in the front row, smiling up at me. Her face this time was somewhat familiar and I said to myself, "I do believe that's the little woman who had lunch with us on the train!" and then—"I wonder—couldit also be the crazy woman who wanted me to kiss her?"
During our week's engagement in Boston we were confronted with a dilemma. Max Strakosch came to me much upset.
"What are we going to do in Providence—the only decent hotel in the town has burned down," he said. "You'll have to stop with friends."
"I haven't any friends in Providence," I replied.
"Well, you'll have to get some," he declared. "There's no hotel where you could possibly stay and we can't cancel your engagement. The houses are sold out."
Presently a cousin of mine, acting as my agent on these trips, came and told me that a man had called on him at the theatre whose wife wished to "entertain" Miss Kellogg while she was in Providence!
The idea appalled me and I flatly refused to accept this extraordinary invitation; but those two men simply forced me into it. Strakosch, indeed, regarded the incident as a clear dispensation from heaven. "Nothing could be more fortunate," he said, "never mind who they are, you go and stay with them anyway. You've wonderful business waiting for you in Providence."
Well—I went. Yet I felt very guilty about accepting a hospitality that would have to be stretched so far. It was no joke to have me for a guest. I knew well that we would be a burden on any household, especially if it were a modest one. When I was singing I had to have dinner at half-past four at the latest; I could not be disturbed by anything in the morning and, besides, it meant three beds—for mother, myself, and maid. In Providence we arrived at a tiny house at the door of which I was met by the little woman of the train who was, as I had surmised, the same one who had wanted me to kiss her. Supper was served immediately. Everything was immaculate and dainty and delicious. Our hostess had remembered some of the contents of the Delmonico hamper that I had especially liked and had cooked them herself, perfectly.
She made me promise never to stay anywhere else than with her when I was in Providence and I never have. In all, throughout the many years that have intervened between then and now, I must have visited her more than twenty times. During this period I have been privileged to watch the most extraordinary development that could be imagined by any psychologist. When I first stopped with her there was not a book in the house. While everything was exquisitely clean and well kept, it was absolutely primitive. On mysecond visit I found linen sheets upon the beds and the soap and perfume that I liked were ready for me on the dressing-table. She studied my "ways" and every time I came back there was some new and flattering indication of the fact. Have I mentioned her name? It was Martin, Mrs. Martin, and her husband was conductor on what was called the "Millionaire's Train" that ran between Boston and Providence. I saw very little of him, but he was a nice, shy man, much respected in his business connection. He was "Hezzy" and she was "Lizy"—short for Hezekiah and Eliza. They were a genuinely devoted couple in their quiet way although he always stood a trifle in awe of his wife's friends. She was about ten years older than I and had a really marvellous gift for growing and improving. After a while they left the first house and moved into one a little larger and much more comfortable. They had a library and she began to gather a small circle of musical friends about her. Her knowledge of music was oddly photographic. She would bring me a sheet of music and say:
"Please play this part—here; this is the nice part!" But she was, and is, a fine critic. Some big singers are glad to have her approval. As in music so it was with books—the little woman's taste was instinctive but unerring. She has often brought me a book of poetry, pointed out the best thing in it, and said in her soft way:
"Don't you think this is nice? Idothink it issonice! It's a lovely poem."
There was a young telegraph operator in Providence who had a voice. His name was Jules Jordan. Mrs. Martin took him into her house and practically brought him up. He, too, began to grow and develop and is now the head of the Arion Society, the big musicalassociation of Providence that has some of the biggest singers in the country in its concerts. Mrs. Martin entertains Jules Jordan's artistic friends and goes to the concert rehearsals and says whether they are good or not. She knows, too. "I am called the 'Singers'' friend," she said to me not very long ago. She criticises the orchestra and chorus as well as the solos, and she is right every time. I consider her one of the finest critics I know. As for the professional critics, she is acquainted with them all and they have a very genuine respect for her judgment. She is the sort of person who is called "queer." Most real characters are. If she does not like one, the recipient of her opinion is usually fully aware of what that opinion is. She has no social idea at all, nor any toleration for it. This constitutes one point in which her development is so remarkable. Most women who "make themselves" acquire, first of all, the social graces and veneer, the artificiality in surface matters that will enable them to pass muster in the "great world." She has allowed her evolution to go along different lines. She has really grown, not in accomplishments but in accomplishment; not in manners but in grey matter. Indeed, I hardly know how to find words with which to speak of Mrs. Martin for I think her such a wonderful person; I respect and care for her so much that I find myself dumb when I try to pay her a tribute. If I have dared to speak of her humble beginnings in the first little house it is because it seems to me that only so can I really do her justice as she is to-day. She is a living monument of what a woman can do with herself unaided, save by the force and the aspiration that is in her. Meeting her was one of the most valuable incidents that happened to me in the year of my home-coming.
It seems as if I spent most of my time in those days being photographed. Likenesses were stiff and unnatural; and I am inclined to believe that the picture of me that has always been the best known—the one leaning on my hand—marked a new epoch in photography. I had been posing a great deal the day that was taken and was dead tired. There had been much arranging; many attempts to obtain "artistic effects." Finally, I went off into a corner and sat down, leaning my head on my hand, while the photographer put new plates in his camera. Suddenly he happened to look in my direction and exclaimed:
"By Jove—if I could only—I'm going to try it anyway!" Then he shouted, "Don't move, please!" and took me just as I was. He was very doubtful as to the result for it was a new departure in photography; but the attempt was very successful, and other photographers began to try for the same natural and easy effect. Another time I happened to have a handkerchief in my lap that threw a white reflection on my face, and the photographer discovered from it the value of large light-coloured surfaces to deflect the light where it was needed. This, too, I consider, was an unconscious factor in the introduction of natural effects into photography. I never, however, took a satisfactory picture. People who depend on expression and animation for their looks never do. My likenesses never looked the way I really did—except, perhaps, one that a photographer once caught while I was talking about Duse, explaining how much more I admired her than I did Bernhardt.
In those concert and oratorio years I remember very few pleasurable appearances: but unquestionably one of the few was on June 15th, when the BeethovenJubilee was held and I was asked to sing as alternativeprima donnawith Parepa Rosa. Although I had done well in the Crystal Palace, I was not a singer who was generally supposed nor expected to fill so large a place as the American Institute Colosseum on Third Avenue, and many people prophesied that I could not be satisfactorily heard there. I asked my friends to go to different parts of the house and to tell me if my voice sounded well. Even some of my friends out in front, though, did not expect to hear me to advantage. But, contrary to what we all feared, my voice proved to have a carrying quality that had never before been adequately recognised. The affair was a great success. Parepa Rosa did not, as a matter of fact, have quite so big a voice as she was usually credited with having. She had power only toG. Above the staff it was a mixed voice. She could diminish to an exquisite quality, but she could not reinforce with any particular volume or vibration.
There was another occasion that I remember with a deep sense of its impressiveness:—that of the funeral of Horace Greeley, at which I sang. I knew Horace Greeley personally and recall many interesting things about him; but, naturally perhaps, what stands out in my memory is the fact that, a few days before he died, he came to hear me sing Handel'sMessiah, being, as he said afterwards, particularly touched and impressed by my rendering ofI know that my Redeemer liveth. When he came to die, the last words that he said were those, whispered faintly, as if they still echoed in his heart. It may have been because of this fact that it was I who was asked to sing at his funeral.
On my return from abroad I was, of course, wearing only foreign clothes and, as a consequence, foundmyself the embarrassed centre of much curiosity. American women were still children in the art of dressing. At one time I was probably the only woman in America who wore silk stockings and long gloves. People could not accustom themselves to my Parisian fashions. In Saratoga one dear man, whom I knew very well, came to me much distressed and whispered that my dress was fastened crooked. I had the greatest difficulty in convincing him that it was made that way and that the crookedness was the latest French touch. A recent fashion was that humped-up effect that gave the wearer the attitude then known and reviled as the "Grecian Bend." It was made famous by caricatures and jokes in the funny papers of the time, but I, being a new-comer so to speak, was not aware of its newspaper notoriety. Conceive my injured feelings when the small boys in the street ran after me in gangs shouting "Grecian Bend! Grecian Bend!"
Another point that hurt the delicate sensibilities of the concert-going American public was the fact that at evening concerts I wore low-necked gowns. On the other side the custom of wearing a dress that was cut down for any and every appearance after dark, was invariable, and it took me some time to grasp the cause of the sensation with my modestlydécolletéfrocks. People, further, found my ease effrontery, and my carriage, acquired after years of effort, "putting on airs." In spite of the cordiality of my welcome home, therefore, I had many critics who were not particularly kind. Although one woman did write, "who ever saw more simplicity on the stage?" there were plenty of the others who said, "Clara Louise Kellogg has become 'stuck up' during her sojourn abroad." As for my innocent desire to be properly and becomingly clothed,it gave rise to comments that were intended to be quite scathing, if I had only taken sufficient notice of them to think of them ten minutes after they had reached my ears. That year there was put on the millinery market a "Clara Louise" bonnet, by the way, that was supposed to be a great compliment to me, but that I am afraid I would not have been seen wearing at any price!
In this connection one champion arose in my defence, however, whose efforts on my behalf must not be overlooked. He was an Ohio journalist, and his love of justice was far greater than his knowledge of the French language. Seeing in some review that Miss Kellogg had "a largerrépertoirethan any livingprima donna," this chivalrous writer rushed into print as follows:
We do not of course know how Miss Kellogg was dressed in other cities, but upon the occasion of her last performance here we are positively certain that herrépertoiredid not seem to extend out so far as either Nilsson's or Patti's. It may have been that her overskirt was cut too narrow to permit of its being gathered into such a lump behind, or it may have been that it had been crushed down accidentally, but the fact remains that both of Miss Kellogg's rivals worerépertoiresof a much more extravagant size—very much to their discredit, we think ...
We do not of course know how Miss Kellogg was dressed in other cities, but upon the occasion of her last performance here we are positively certain that herrépertoiredid not seem to extend out so far as either Nilsson's or Patti's. It may have been that her overskirt was cut too narrow to permit of its being gathered into such a lump behind, or it may have been that it had been crushed down accidentally, but the fact remains that both of Miss Kellogg's rivals worerépertoiresof a much more extravagant size—very much to their discredit, we think ...
Aman whose name I never learned dropped a big, fragrant bunch of violets at my feet each night for weeks. Becoming discouraged after a while because I did not seek him out in his gallery seat, he sent me a note begging for a glance and adding, for identification, this illuminating point: "You'll know me by my boots hanging over!"
Who could disregard such an appeal? That night my eyes searched the balconies feverishly. He had not vainly raised my hopes; his bootswerehanging over, large boots, that looked as if they had seen considerable service. I sang my best to those boots and—dear man!—the violets fell as sweetly as before. I have conjured up a charming portrait of this individual, with a soul high enough to love music and violets and simple enough not to be ashamed of his boots. Would that all "sincere admirers" might be of such an ingenuous and engaging a pattern.
The variety of "admirers" that are the lot of a person on the stage is extraordinary. It is very difficult for the stage persons themselves to understand it. It has never seemed to me that actors as a class are particularly interesting. Personally I have always been too cognisant of the personalities behind the scenes to ever have any theatrical idols; but to a great many there is something absolutely fascinating aboutthe stage and stage folk. The actor appears to the audience in a perpetual, hazy, calcium glory. We are, one and all, children with an inherent love for fairy tales and it is probably this love which is in a great measure accountable for the blind adoration received by most stage people.
I have received, I imagine, the usual number of letters from "your sincere admirer," some of them funny and some of them rather pathetic. Very few of them were really impertinent or offensive. In nearly all was to be found the same touching devotion to an abstract ideal for which, for the moment, I chanced to be cast. Once in a while there was some one who, like a person who signed himself "Faust," insisted that I had "met his eyes" and "encouraged him from afar." Needless to say I had never in my life seen him; but he worked himself into quite a fever of resentment on the subject and wrote me several letters. There was also a man who wrote me several perfectly respectful, but ardent, love letters to which, naturally, I did not respond. Then, finally, he bombarded me with another type of screed of which the following is a specimen:
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, say something,—if it is only to rate me for my importunities or to tell me to go about my business! Anything but this contemptuous silence!"
But these were exceptions. Most of my "admirers'" letters are gems of either humour or of sentiment. Among my treasures is an epistle that begins:
"Miss Clara Louise KelloggMiss:Before to expand my feelings, before to make you known the real intent of this note, in fine before todisclose the secrets of my heart, I will pray you to pardon my indiscretion (if indiscretion that can be called) to address you unacquainted," etc.
"Miss Clara Louise Kellogg
Miss:
Before to expand my feelings, before to make you known the real intent of this note, in fine before todisclose the secrets of my heart, I will pray you to pardon my indiscretion (if indiscretion that can be called) to address you unacquainted," etc.
Isn't this a masterpiece?
There was also an absurdly conceited man who wrote me one letter a year for several years, always in the same vein. He was evidently a very pious youth and had "gotten religion" rather badly, for in every epistle he broke into exhortation and urged me fervently to become a "real Christian," painting for me the joys of true religion if I once could manage to "find it." In one of his later letters—after assuring me that he had prayed for me night and morning for three years and would continue to do so—he ended in this impressive manner:
"...And if, in God's mercy, we are both permitted to walk 'the Golden Streets,' I shall there seek you out and give you more fully my reasons for writing you."
"...And if, in God's mercy, we are both permitted to walk 'the Golden Streets,' I shall there seek you out and give you more fully my reasons for writing you."
Could anything be more entertaining than this naïve fashion of making a date in Heaven?
Not all my letters were love letters. Sometimes I would receive a few words from some woman unknown to me but full of a sweet and understanding friendliness. Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, then the centre of the stage scandal through her friendship with Henry Ward Beecher, wrote me a charming letter that ended with what struck me as a very pathetic touch:
"I am unwilling to be known by you as the defiant, discontented woman of the age—rather, as an humble helper of those less fortunate than myself——"
"I am unwilling to be known by you as the defiant, discontented woman of the age—rather, as an humble helper of those less fortunate than myself——"
I never knew Mrs. Tilton personally, but have often felt that I should have liked her. One of the dearestcommunications I ever received was from a French working girl, a corset maker, I believe. She wrote:
"I am but a poor little girl, Mademoiselle, a toiler in the sphere where you reign a queen, but ever since I was a very little child I have gone to listen to your voice whenever you have deigned to sing in New York. Those magic tone-flowers, scattering their perfumed sweetness on the waiting air, made my child heart throb with a wonderful pulsation...."
"I am but a poor little girl, Mademoiselle, a toiler in the sphere where you reign a queen, but ever since I was a very little child I have gone to listen to your voice whenever you have deigned to sing in New York. Those magic tone-flowers, scattering their perfumed sweetness on the waiting air, made my child heart throb with a wonderful pulsation...."
One of the favourite jests of the critics was my obduracy in matters of sentiment. It was said that I would always have emotional limitations because I had no love affairs like otherprime donne. Once, when I gave some advice to a young girl to "keep your eyes fixed upon your artistic future," or some such similar phrase, the press had a good deal of fun at my expense. "That" it was declared, "was exactly what was the matter with Clara Louise; she kept her eyes fixed upon an artistic future instead of upon some man who was in love with her!" I was rather a good shot, very fond of target shooting, and many jokes were also made on the supposed damage I did. One newspaper man put it rather more aptly. "Not only in pistol shooting," he said, "but in everything she aims at, ourprima donnais sure to hit the mark."
My "sincere admirers" were from all parts of the house, but I think I found the "gallery" ones most sincere and, certainly, the most amusing. Max Maretzek used to say that he had no manner of use for an artist unless she could fill the family circle. I am glad to be able to record that I always could. My singing usually appealed to the people.The Police Gazettealways gave me good notices! I love the family circle.As a rule the appreciation there is greater because of the sacrifices which they have had to make to buy their seats. When people can go to hear good music every night, they do not care nearly so much about doing it.
I wonder if anybody besides singers get such an extraordinary sense of contact and connection with members of their audiences? I have sometimes felt as if thought waves, reaching through the space between, held me fast to some of those who heard me sing. Who knows what sympathies, what comprehensions, what exquisite friendships, were blossoming out there in the dark house like a garden, waiting to be gathered? Letters—not necessarily love letters—rather, stray messages of appreciation and understanding—have brought me a similar sense of joy and of safe intimacy. After the receipt of any such, I have sung with the pleasant sense that a new friend—yes, friend, not auditor—was listening. I have suddenly felt at home in the big theatre; and often, very often, have I looked eagerly over the banked hosts of faces, asking myself wistfully which were the strangers and which mine own people.
It was not only in the theatre that I found "admirers." My vacations were beset with those who wanted to look at and speak to a genuineprima donnaat close range. Indeed, I had frequently to protect myself from perfectly strange and intrusive people. Often I have gone to Saratoga during the season. Saratoga was a fashionable resort in those days and I always had a good audience. One incident that I remember of Saratoga was a detestable train that invariably came along in the middle of my performance—the evening train from New York. I always had to stop whatever I was singing and wait for it to go by. One night I thought I would cheat it and timed mysong a little earlier so that I would be through before the train arrived. It just beat me by a bar; and I could hear it steaming nearer and nearing as I hurried on. As I came to the end there was a loud whistle from the locomotive;—but, for once, luck was on my side, for it was pitched in harmony with my final note! The coincidence was warmly applauded.
When on the road I not infrequently practised with my banjo at hotels. It was more practicable to carry about than a piano and, besides, it was not always an easy matter to hire a good piano. One time—also in Saratoga—I was playing that instrument preparatory to beginning my morning practice, when an old gentleman who had a room on the same floor, descended to the office in a fine temper. He was a long, slim, wiry old fellow, with a high, black satin stock about his bony neck, very few hairs on his little round head, deep sunken eyes, pinched features, and an extremely nervous manner.
"See here," he burst out in a cracked voice, as he danced about on the marble tiling of the office floor, "have you a band of nigger minstrels in the house, eh! Zounds, sir, there's an infernal banjo tum, tum, tumming in my ears every morning and I can't sleep. Drat banjoes—I hate 'em. And nigger minstrels—I hate 'em too. You must move me, sir, move me at once. That banjo'll set me crazy. Move me at once, d'ye hear?—or I'll leave the house!"
"Why, sir," said the clerk suavely, "that banjo player is not a nigger minstrel, at all, sir, but Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, who uses a banjo to practise with."
The hard lines in the old fellow's face relaxed, he looked sharply at the clerk and, leaning over the counter, remarked:
"What, Clara Louise Kellogg! W—why, I'll go up and listen! Zounds, man, she's my particular favourite. She's charmed me with her sweet voice many a time. D—— n it, give her another banjo! Tell her to play all day if she wants to! Clara Louise Kellogg, eh? H'm, well, well!"
He tottered off and, as I observed, after that so long as I stayed left the door of his room open down the hall so that he could hear my "tum, tum, tumming."
A very different, though equally ingenuous tribute to my powers was that given by an old Indian trapper who, when in Chicago to sell his hides, went to hear me sing and expressed his emotions to a newspaper man of that city in approximately the following language:
I have heard most of the sweet and terrible noises that natives make. I have heard the thunder among the Hills when the Lord was knocking against the earth until it passed; and I have heard the wind in the pines and the waves on the beaches, when the darkness of night was in the woods, and nature was singing her Evening Song and there was no bird nor beast the Lord has made, and I have not heard a voice that would make as sweet a noise as nature makes when the Spirit of the Universe speaks through the stillness; but that sweet lady has made sounds to-night sweeter than my ears have heard on hill or lake shore at noon, or in the night season, and I certainly believe that the Spirit of the Lord has been with her and given her the power to make such sweet sounds. A man might like to have these sweet sounds in his ears when his body lies in his cabin and his spirit is standing on the edge of the great clearing. I wish she could sing for me when my eyes grow dim and my feet strike the trail that no man strikes but once, nor travels both ways.
I have heard most of the sweet and terrible noises that natives make. I have heard the thunder among the Hills when the Lord was knocking against the earth until it passed; and I have heard the wind in the pines and the waves on the beaches, when the darkness of night was in the woods, and nature was singing her Evening Song and there was no bird nor beast the Lord has made, and I have not heard a voice that would make as sweet a noise as nature makes when the Spirit of the Universe speaks through the stillness; but that sweet lady has made sounds to-night sweeter than my ears have heard on hill or lake shore at noon, or in the night season, and I certainly believe that the Spirit of the Lord has been with her and given her the power to make such sweet sounds. A man might like to have these sweet sounds in his ears when his body lies in his cabin and his spirit is standing on the edge of the great clearing. I wish she could sing for me when my eyes grow dim and my feet strike the trail that no man strikes but once, nor travels both ways.
Surely among my friends, if not among my "sincere admirers," I may include Okakura, who came over here with the late John La Farge as an envoy from the Japanese Government to study the art of this country as well as that of Europe. His dream was to found some sort of institution in Japan for the preservation and development of his country's old, national ideals in art. His criticisms of Raphael and Titian, by the way, were something extraordinary. As for music, he had a marvellous sense for it. La Farge took him to a Thomas Concert and he was vastly impressed by the music of Beethoven. One might have thought that he had listened to Occidental classics all his life. But, for that matter, I know two little Japanese airs that Davidson of London told me might well have been written by Beethoven himself; so it may be that there is an obscure bond of sympathy, which our less acute ears would not always recognise, between our great master and the composers of Okakura's native land.
Okakura was only twenty-six when I first met him at Richard Watson Gilder's studio in New York, but he was already a professor and spoke perfect English and knew all our best literature. When Munkacsy, the Hungarian painter, came over, his colleague, Francis Korbay, the musician, gave him an evening reception, and I took my Japanese friend. It was a charming evening and Okakura was the success of the reception. When he started being introduced he was nothing but a professor. Before he had gone the rounds he had become an Asiatic prince and millionaire. He had the "grand manner" and wore gorgeous clothes on formal occasions.
Some years later I called on his wife in Tokio. I considered this was the polite thing for me to doalthough Okakura himself was in Osaka at the time. Okakura had an art school in Tokio, kept up with the aid of the Government, where he was trying to fulfil his old ambition of preserving the individuality of his own people's work and of driving out Occidental encroachments. At the school, where we had gone with a guide who could serve also as interpreter, I asked for Madame. My request to see her was met with consternation. I was asking a great deal—how much, I did not realise until afterwards. Before I could enter, I was requested to take off my shoes. This I considered impossible as I was wearing high-laced boots. Furthermore, we were having winter weather, very cold and raw, and nothing was offered me to put on in their place, as the Japanese custom is at the entrances of the temples. My refusal to remove my shoes halted proceedings for a while; but, eventually, I was led around to a side porch where I could sit on achair(I was amazed at their having such a thing) and speak with the occupants of the house as they knelt inside on their heels. Theshoji, or bamboo and paper screen, was pushed back, revealing an interior wonderfully clever in its simplicity. The furniture consisted of a beautiful brassier and two rare kakamonos on the wall—nothing more.
In came Madame Okakura in a grey kimono and bare feet. Down she went on her knees and saluted me in the prettiest fashion imaginable. We talked through the interpreter until her daughter entered, who spoke to me in bad, limited French. The daughter was an unattractive girl, with an artificially reddened mouth, but I thought the mother charming, like a most exquisite Parisienne masquerading as a "Japanese Lady."
Not long after my visit I saw Okakura himself and told him how much I had enjoyed seeing his wife. He gave me an annoyed glance and remained silent. I was nonplussed and somewhat mortified. I could not understand what could be the trouble, for he acted as if his honour were offended. In time I learned that the unpardonable breach of good form in Japan was to mention his wife to a Japanese!
So graceful, so delicate in both expression and feeling are the letters that I have received from Okakura, that I cannot resist my inclination to include them in this chapter,—although, possibly, they are somewhat too personal. On January 4, 1887, he wrote:
My dear Miss Kellogg:France lies three nights ahead of us. The returning clouds still seek the western shore and the ocean rolls back my dreams to you. Your music lives in my soul. I carry away America in your voice; and what better token can your nation offer? But praises to the great sound like flattery, and praises to the beautiful sound like love. To you they must both be tiresome. I shall refrain. You allude to the Eastern Lights. Alas, the Lamp of Love flickers and Night is on the plains of Osaka. There are lingering lights on the crown of the Himalayas, on the edges of the Kowrous, among the peaks of Hira and Kora. But what do they care for the twilight of the Valley? They stand like the ocean moon, regardless of the tempest below. Seek the light in the mansion of your own soul. Are you not yourself theSpirit Nightingale of the West? Are you not crying for the moon in union with your Emersons and Longfellows—with your La Farges and your Gilders? Or am I mistaken? I enclose my picture and submit the translation of the few lines on the back to youraxe of anger and the benevolence of your criticismas we say at home. I need a great deal of your benevolence and deserve more of youranger, as the lines sound so poor in the English. However they do not appear very grand in the original and so I submit them to your guillotine with a free conscience. The lines are different from the former, for I forget them—or care not to repeat.Will you kindly convey my best regards to Mrs. Gilder, for I owe so much to her, to say nothing of your friendship! Will you also condescend to write to me at your leisure?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Translation:—One star floats into the ocean of Night. Past the back of Taurus, away among the Pleiades, whither dost thou go? Sadly I watch them all. My soul wanders after them into the infinite. Shall my soul return, or—never?)
My dear Miss Kellogg:
France lies three nights ahead of us. The returning clouds still seek the western shore and the ocean rolls back my dreams to you. Your music lives in my soul. I carry away America in your voice; and what better token can your nation offer? But praises to the great sound like flattery, and praises to the beautiful sound like love. To you they must both be tiresome. I shall refrain. You allude to the Eastern Lights. Alas, the Lamp of Love flickers and Night is on the plains of Osaka. There are lingering lights on the crown of the Himalayas, on the edges of the Kowrous, among the peaks of Hira and Kora. But what do they care for the twilight of the Valley? They stand like the ocean moon, regardless of the tempest below. Seek the light in the mansion of your own soul. Are you not yourself theSpirit Nightingale of the West? Are you not crying for the moon in union with your Emersons and Longfellows—with your La Farges and your Gilders? Or am I mistaken? I enclose my picture and submit the translation of the few lines on the back to youraxe of anger and the benevolence of your criticismas we say at home. I need a great deal of your benevolence and deserve more of youranger, as the lines sound so poor in the English. However they do not appear very grand in the original and so I submit them to your guillotine with a free conscience. The lines are different from the former, for I forget them—or care not to repeat.
Will you kindly convey my best regards to Mrs. Gilder, for I owe so much to her, to say nothing of your friendship! Will you also condescend to write to me at your leisure?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Translation:—One star floats into the ocean of Night. Past the back of Taurus, away among the Pleiades, whither dost thou go? Sadly I watch them all. My soul wanders after them into the infinite. Shall my soul return, or—never?)
Vienna, March 4, 1887.My dear Miss Kellogg:The home of a traveller is in his sweet memories. Under the shadow of Vesuvius and on the waters of Leman my thoughts were always for America, which you and your friends have made so pleasant to me. Pardon me therefore if my pen again turns toward you. How kind of you to remember me! Your letter reached me here last night and I regret that I did not stay longer in Paris to receive it sooner. Will you not favour me by writing again?Europe is an enigma—often a source of sadness to me. The forces that developed her are tearing her asunder. Is it because all civilisations are destined to have their days and nights of Brahma? Or was the principle that organised the European nations itself a false one? Did they grasp the moon in the waters and at last disturb the image? I know not. I only feel that the Spirit of Unrest is standing beside me. War is coming and must come, sooner or later. Conflicting opinions chase each other across the continent as if the demons fought in the air before the battle of men began. The policy of maintaining peace by increasing thearmies is absurd. It is indeed a sad state of things to make such a sophism necessary. I am getting tired of this, though there is some consolation that there are more fools in the world than the Oriental.I have been rather disappointed in the French music. Perhaps I am too much prejudiced byThe Persian Serenadeto appreciate anything else. The acting was artificial and there was no voice which had anything of the Spirit Nightingale in it. You once told me that you intended to cross the Atlantic this summer. When? My dreams are impatient of your arrival. May you come soon and correct my one-sided impression of Europe!I am going to Rome after two or three weeks' stay in this place. That city interests me deeply, as yet the spiritual centre of the West, whose voice still influences the politics of Central Europe. In May I shall be at the Paris Salon and cross over to London in the early part of June.It snows every day in Vienna and I spend my time mostly with the old doctors of the University. Their talks on philosophy and science are indeed interesting, but somehow or other I don't feel the delight I had in your society in New York. Why?
Vienna, March 4, 1887.
My dear Miss Kellogg:
The home of a traveller is in his sweet memories. Under the shadow of Vesuvius and on the waters of Leman my thoughts were always for America, which you and your friends have made so pleasant to me. Pardon me therefore if my pen again turns toward you. How kind of you to remember me! Your letter reached me here last night and I regret that I did not stay longer in Paris to receive it sooner. Will you not favour me by writing again?
Europe is an enigma—often a source of sadness to me. The forces that developed her are tearing her asunder. Is it because all civilisations are destined to have their days and nights of Brahma? Or was the principle that organised the European nations itself a false one? Did they grasp the moon in the waters and at last disturb the image? I know not. I only feel that the Spirit of Unrest is standing beside me. War is coming and must come, sooner or later. Conflicting opinions chase each other across the continent as if the demons fought in the air before the battle of men began. The policy of maintaining peace by increasing thearmies is absurd. It is indeed a sad state of things to make such a sophism necessary. I am getting tired of this, though there is some consolation that there are more fools in the world than the Oriental.
I have been rather disappointed in the French music. Perhaps I am too much prejudiced byThe Persian Serenadeto appreciate anything else. The acting was artificial and there was no voice which had anything of the Spirit Nightingale in it. You once told me that you intended to cross the Atlantic this summer. When? My dreams are impatient of your arrival. May you come soon and correct my one-sided impression of Europe!
I am going to Rome after two or three weeks' stay in this place. That city interests me deeply, as yet the spiritual centre of the West, whose voice still influences the politics of Central Europe. In May I shall be at the Paris Salon and cross over to London in the early part of June.
It snows every day in Vienna and I spend my time mostly with the old doctors of the University. Their talks on philosophy and science are indeed interesting, but somehow or other I don't feel the delight I had in your society in New York. Why?
July 12, 1887.My dear Miss Kellogg:I am very glad to hear that you are in Europe. My duties in London end this week and I have decided to start for Munich next morning, thence to Dresden and Berlin. I am thus looking forward to the great pleasure of meeting you again and gathering fragrance from your conversation. Mrs. Gilder wrote to me that you were not quite well since your tour in the West and my anxiety mingles with my hopes. The atmosphere of English civilisation weighs heavily on me and I am longing to be away. It seems that civilisation does not agree with a member of an Eastern barbaric tribe. My conception of music hasbeen gradually changing. The Ninth Symphony has revolutionised it. Where is the future of music to be?Many questions crowd on me and I am impatient to lay them before you at Carlsbad. Will you allow me to do so?
July 12, 1887.
My dear Miss Kellogg:
I am very glad to hear that you are in Europe. My duties in London end this week and I have decided to start for Munich next morning, thence to Dresden and Berlin. I am thus looking forward to the great pleasure of meeting you again and gathering fragrance from your conversation. Mrs. Gilder wrote to me that you were not quite well since your tour in the West and my anxiety mingles with my hopes. The atmosphere of English civilisation weighs heavily on me and I am longing to be away. It seems that civilisation does not agree with a member of an Eastern barbaric tribe. My conception of music hasbeen gradually changing. The Ninth Symphony has revolutionised it. Where is the future of music to be?
Many questions crowd on me and I am impatient to lay them before you at Carlsbad. Will you allow me to do so?
Berlin. Kaiserhauf, July 24th.My dear Miss Kellogg:The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden glided dimly before me. Holbein was a disappointment. The Sistine Madonna was divine beyond my expectation. I saw Raphael in his purity and was delighted. None of his pictures is so inspired as this. Still my thoughts wandered amid these grand creations. They flitted past in a shower of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's twilight....To me your friendship is the boat that bears me proudly home. I wait with pleasure any line you may send me there. Wishing every good to you, I remain yours respectfully.
Berlin. Kaiserhauf, July 24th.
My dear Miss Kellogg:
The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden glided dimly before me. Holbein was a disappointment. The Sistine Madonna was divine beyond my expectation. I saw Raphael in his purity and was delighted. None of his pictures is so inspired as this. Still my thoughts wandered amid these grand creations. They flitted past in a shower of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's twilight....
To me your friendship is the boat that bears me proudly home. I wait with pleasure any line you may send me there. Wishing every good to you, I remain yours respectfully.
Kaiserhauf, July 28th, 1887.My Dear Miss Kellogg:Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address in Japan is Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me there I shall be so happy! The task which I have imposed upon myself—the preserving of historical continuity and internal development, etc.,—has to work very slowly. I must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be delighted to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that you have a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism. Surely your lotus must be opening to the dawn. European philosophy has reached to a point where no advance is possible except through mysticism. Yet they ignore the hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The Berlin University has thus been forced to return to Kant and begin afresh. They have destroyed but have no power toconstruct, and they never will if they refuse toseemore into themselves....Hoping you the best and the brightest, I amYours faithfully,Okakura Kakudzo.
Kaiserhauf, July 28th, 1887.
My Dear Miss Kellogg:
Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address in Japan is Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me there I shall be so happy! The task which I have imposed upon myself—the preserving of historical continuity and internal development, etc.,—has to work very slowly. I must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be delighted to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that you have a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism. Surely your lotus must be opening to the dawn. European philosophy has reached to a point where no advance is possible except through mysticism. Yet they ignore the hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The Berlin University has thus been forced to return to Kant and begin afresh. They have destroyed but have no power toconstruct, and they never will if they refuse toseemore into themselves....
Hoping you the best and the brightest, I am
Yours faithfully,Okakura Kakudzo.
And so I come to one of all these who was really a "sincere admirer," and a faithful lover, although I never knew him. It is a difficult incident to write of, for I feel that it holds some of the deepest elements of sentiment and of tragedy with which I ever came in touch.
I was singing in Boston when a man sent me a message saying that he was connected with a newspaper and had something of great importance about which he wanted to see me. He furthermore said that he wished to see me alone. It was an extraordinary request and, at first, I refused. I suspected a subterfuge—a wager, or something humiliating of that sort. But he persisted, sending yet another message to the effect that he had something to communicate to me which was of an essentially personal nature. Finally I consented to grant him the interview and, as he had requested, I saw him alone.
He was just back from the front where he had been war correspondent during the heart of the Civil War, and he told me that he had a letter to give to me from a soldier in his division who had been shot. The soldier was mortally wounded when the reporter found him. He was lying at the foot of a tree at the point of death, and the correspondent asked if he could take any last messages for him to friends or relatives. The soldier asked him to write down a message to take to a woman whom he had loved for four years, but who did not know of his love.
"Tell her," he said, speaking with great difficulty, "that I would not try even to meet her; but that I have loved her, before God, as well as any man ever loved a woman." He asked the reporter to feel inside his uniform for the woman's picture. "It is Miss Kellogg," he added, just before he died. "You—don't think that she will be offended if I send her this message—now—do you?"
He asked the correspondent to draw his sabre and cut off a lock of hair to send to me, and the reporter wrote down the message on the only scraps of paper at his disposal—torn bits scribbled over with reports of the enemy's movements, and the names of other dead soldiers whose people must be notified when the battle was over. And then the soldier—my soldier—died; and the correspondent left him the picture and came away.
The scribbled message and the lock of hair he put into my hands, saying:
"He was very much worried lest you would think him presumptuous. I told him that I was sure you would not."
I was weeping as he spoke, and so he left me.
OH, those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly uncomfortable to travel in the South and West at that time, but it was decidedly risky as well. Highway robberies were numerous and, although I myself never happened to suffer at the hands of any desperadoes, I have often heard first-hand accounts from persons who had been robbed of everything they were carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse James and his men were operating in the same region and the celebrated highway man himself was once in the train with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a glimpse of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were with him and, although they were behaving themselves peacefully enough for the time being, I think that most of the passengers were willing to give them a wide berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw something of a situation which might have developed dramatically. There was a "three card monte" gang working on the train. One of their number pretended to be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure victims into the game. I saw this particularly tough-looking individual disappear into the toilet room and come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play. I also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his right hip pocket: and I experienced a somewhat blood-thirstydesire that there might be a genuine excitement in store for us, but the alarm spread and nobody was snared that trip.
As there were frequently no through trains on Sundays, we had sometimes to have special trains. I never quite understood the idea of not having through trains on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides unfortunate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the Sabbath. But so it was. And once our "special" ran plump into a big strike of locomotive engineers at Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by the strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were stalled there for hours. At last an engineer from the East was found who consented to take our train through and there was much excitement while he was being armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of ammunition, for the strikers had threatened to shoot down any "scab" who attempted to break the strike. We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car to avoid the stones that might be thrown through the windows when we started; and when the train began to move slowly our situation was decidedly trying. We could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the engine gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his business and had been authorised to drive the engine at top speed to get us out of the trouble, so soon the noise of shooting and the general uproar were left behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed, but I, personally, never cared to come any closer to lawlessness than I was then.
There were some bright spots on these disagreeable journeys. One day as I was coming out of a hall in Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the concert we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew,an Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in London.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!"
"Did you see the advertisement?" I asked.
"No," he returned, "I'm just off the yacht that's lying out there in the Lake. I'm out looking into some mining interests, you know. I heard your voice from the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I'd take a run on shore and look you up."
But such pleasant experiences were the exception. The South in general was in a particularly blind and dull condition just then. The people could not conceive of any amusement that was not intended literally to "amuse." They felt it incumbent to laugh at everything. Mycheval de bataillewas the Polonaise fromMignon, at the end of which I had introduced some chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required a great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion of the house would appreciate it, of course, but on one occasion a detestable young couple thought the trills were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a trill they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle and, when there was a series of the chromatic trills, they nearly burst. The chromatics introduced by me were never written. They went like this:
Musical notation.
One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a whole evening for a singer. I recall one concert when I was obsessed by a man in the front row. He would not even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet thespoiling, or, perhaps, he was really bored and disgusted. At any rate, he kept his eyes fixed on a point high over my head and not with a beatific expression, either. He clearly did not think much of my work. Well—I sang my whole programme to that one man. And I was a failure. Charmed I ever so wisely, I could not really move him. But Ididmake him uncomfortable! He wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He must have felt that I was trying to win him over in spite of himself. I sometimes wonder if other singers do the same with obdurate auditors? Surely they must, for it is a sort of fetish of the profession that there is always one person present who is by far the most difficult to charm. In that clever playThe Concertthe pianist tells the young woman in love with him that he was first interested in her when he saw her in the audience because she did not cry. He played his best in order to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear roll down her cheek, he knew that he had triumphed as an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert and indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a programme from some one in the audience with a suggestion scribbled on the margin:
"Can't you sing something devilish for a change?"
I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a tight-rope exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well "The Evening Star" fromTannhauserand his performance frequently ended in a chill silence with a bit of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour and he used to come off the stage and say:
"That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd better do my bicycle act next?"
Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen From a photographClara Louise Kellogg as CarmenFrom a photograph
Times change and standards with them. The towns where they yearned for bicycle acts and "somethingdevilish" are to-day centres of musical taste and cultivation. I never think of the change of standards without being reminded of an old tale of my father's which is curious in itself, although I cannot vouch for it nor verify it. He said that somewhere in Germany there was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first hung, many years before, was pitched in the key ofCand which was found to ring, in the nineteenth century, according to our present pitch, at about ourBflat. The musical scientists said that the change was not in the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos who pitched them higher and higher to get a more brilliant tone.
My throat was very sensitive in those days. I took cold easily and used, besides, to be subject to severe nervous headaches. Yet I always managed to sing. Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capriciousprime donnewho consider themselves and their own physical feelings before their obligation to the public that has paid to hear them. While, of course, in fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider her own interests, I do believe that she cannot be too conscientious in this connection. InCarmenone night I broke my collar bone in the fall in the last act. I was still determined to do my part and went out, after it had been set, and bought material to match my costumes so that the sling the surgeon had ordered should not be noticed. And, for once fortunately, my audiences were either not exacting or not observing, for, apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact that I could not use my right arm. I could not help questioning whether my gestures were usually so wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible!Our experiences in general with physicians on the road were lamentable. As a result my mother carried a regular medicine chest about with her and all of my fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was the matter with them.
Another hardship that we all had to endure was the being on exhibition. It is one of the penalties of fame. Special trains were most unusual, and so wereprime donne, and crowds used to gather on the station platforms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse of us as we passed through.
And the food! Some of our trials in regard to food—or, rather, the lack of it—were very trying. Voices are very dependent on the digestion; hence the need of, at least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On one trip we really nearly starved to death for, of course, there were no dining-cars and the train did not stop at any station long enough to forage for a square meal. Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men in the company that, if he would get some "crude material" at the next stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he succeeded in securing a huge bundle of raw chops, a loaf of bread and some butter. There was a big stove at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the chops, made tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed, it seemed a feast after ten hours with nothing at all! Another time I got off our "special" to hunt luncheon and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train but could not make it. After a while the company discovered that they had lost me on the way and backed up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall never forget the battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the road in regard to my coloured maid, Eliza. She was a very nice and entirely presentable girl and he wouldnot let her have even a cup of tea in the dining-room. We had had a long, hard journey, and she was quite as tired as the rest of us. So, when I found her still waiting after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks to the effect that her presence at the table was much to be preferred to the men who had eaten there without table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with their knives.
"And what else did we have the war for!" I finally cried. How the others laughed at me. But Eliza was fed, and well fed, too.
I had always to carry my own bedclothes on the Western tours. When we first started out, I did not realise the necessity, but later, I became wiser. Cleanliness has always been almost more than godliness to me. Before I would use a dressing-room I nearly always had it thoroughly swept out and sometimes cleaned and scrubbed. This all depended on the part of the country we were in. I came to know that in certain sections of the South-west I should have to have a regular house-cleaning done before I would set foot in their accommodations. I missed my bath desperately, and my piano, and all the other luxuries that have become practical necessities to civilised persons. When I could not have a state-room on a train, my maid would bring a cup of cold water to my berth before I dressed that was a poor apology for a bath, but that saved my life on many a morning after a long, stuffy night in a sleeper.
The lesser hardships perhaps annoyed me most. Bad food, bad air, rough travelling, were worse than the more serious ills of fatigue and indispositions. But the worst of all was the water. One can, at a pinch, get along with poor food or with no food at all to speak of, but bad water is a much more serious matter. Evendirt is tolerable if it can be washed off afterwards. But I have seen many places where the water was less inviting than the dirt. When I first beheld Missouri water I hardly dared wash in it, much less drink it, and was appalled when it was served to me at the table. I gazed with horror at the brown liquid in my tumbler, and then said faintly to the waiter:
"Can't you get me some clear water, please?"
"Oh, yes," said he, "it'll be clearer, ma'am,but it won't be near so rich!"
And all the time I was working, for, no matter what the hardships or distractions that may come an artist's way, he or she must always keep at work. Singing is something that must be worked for just as hard after it is won as during the winning process. Liszt is supposed to have said that when he missed practising one day he knew it; when he missed two days his friends knew it; on the third day the public knew it. I often rehearsed before a mirror, so that I could know whether I looked right as well as sounded right; and,aproposof this, I have been much impressed by the fact that ways of rehearsing are very different and characteristic. Ellen Terry once told me that, when she had a new part to study, she generally got into a closed carriage, with the window open, and was driven about for two or three hours, working on her lines.
"It is the only way I can keep my repose," she said. "I only wish I had some of Henry's repose when studying a part!"
Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia From a photograph by Window & GroveSir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and OliviaFrom a photograph by Window & Grove
AFTER nearly three years of concert and oratorio and racketing about America on tours, it was a joy to go to England again for another season. The Peace Jubilee Association asked me to sing at their celebration in Boston that spring, but I went to London instead. The offer from the Association was a great compliment, however, and especially the wording of the resolution as communicated to me by the secretary.
"Unanimously voted:—That Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, the leadingprima donnaof America, receive the special invitation of the Executive Committee, etc."
The spring season in London was well along when we arrived there and, before I had been in the city a day, I began to feel at home again. Newcastle and Dr. Quinn called almost immediately and Alfred Rothschild sent me flowers, all of which made me realize that this was really England once more and that I was among old and dear friends.
I was again to sing under Mapleson's management. The new opera house, built on the site of Her Majesty's that had burned, was highly satisfactory; and he had nearly all of his old singers again—Titjiens, Nilsson, and myself among others. Patti and Lucca were still our rivals at Covent Garden; also Faure and Cotogni; and there was a pretty, young, new singer from Canada with them, Mme. Albani, who had a light, sweet voiceand was attractive in appearance. Our two innovations at Her Majesty's were Marie Roze from the Paris Opera Comique—later destined to be associated with me professionally and with Mapleson personally—and Italo Campanini. Campanini was the son of a blacksmith in Italy and had worked at the forge himself for many years before going on the stage, and was the hero of the hour, for not only was his voice a very lovely one, but he was also a fine actor. It was worth while to see his Don José. People forgot that Carmen herself was in the opera. Our other tenor was Capoul, the Frenchman, Trebelli-Bettini was our leading contralto and my friend Foli—"the Irish Italian from Connecticut"—was still with us.
Campanini, the idol of the town, was, like most tenors, enormously pleased with himself. To be sure, he had some reason, with his heavenly voice, his dramatic gift, and his artistic instinct; but one would like some day to meet a man gifted with a divine vocal organ and a simple spirit both, at the same time. It appears to be an impossible combination. When Mapleson told Campanini that he was to sing with me inLuciahe frowned and considered the point.
"An American," he muttered doubtfully. "I have never heard her—do I know that she can sing? I—Campanini—cannot sing with aprima donnaof whom I know nothing! Who is this Miss Kellogg anyway?"
"You're quite right," said the Colonel with the most cordial air of assent. "You'd better hear her before you decide. She's singing Linda to-night. Go into the stalls and listen to her for a few moments. If you don't want to sing with her, you don't have to."
That evening Campanini was on hand, ready to controvert the very idea of an Americanprima donnadaring to sing with him. After the first act he came out into the foyer and ran into the Colonel.
"Well," remarked that gentleman casually, winking at Jarrett, "can she sing?"
"Sing?" said Campanini solemnly, "she has the voice of a flute. It is the absolutely perfect tone. It is a—miracle!"
So, after all, Campanini and I sang together that season inLuciaand in other operas. While Campanini was a great artist, he was a very petty man in many ways. A little incident when Capoul was singingFaustone night is illustrative. Capoul, much admired and especially in America, was intensely nervous and emotional with a quick temper. Between him and Italo Campanini a certain rivalry had been developing for some time, and, whatever may be asserted to the contrary, male singers are much bitterer rivals than women ever are. On the night I speak of, Campanini came into his box during theSalve dimoraand set down to listen. As Capoul sang, the Italian's face became lined with a frown of annoyance and, after a moment or two, he began to drum on the rail before him as if he could not conceal his exasperation andennui. The longer Capoul sang, the louder and more irritated the tapping became until most of the audience was unkind enough to laugh just a little. Poor Capoul tried, in vain, to sing down that insistent drumming, and, when the act was over, he came behind the scenes and actually cried with rage.
On what might be called my seconddébutin London, I had an ovation almost as warm as my welcome home to my native land had been three years before. I had forgotten how truly the English people were my friends until I heard the applause which greeted me as I walkedonto the stage that night inLinda di Chamouix. Sir Michael Costa, who was conducting that year, was always an irascible and inflexible autocrat when it came to operatic rules and ideals. One of the points of observance upon which he absolutely insisted was that the opera must never be interrupted for applause. Theoretically this was perfectly correct; but nearly all good rules are made to be broken once in a while and it was quite obvious that the audience intended this occasion to be one of the times. Sir Michael went on leading his orchestra and the people in front went on clapping until the whole place became a pandemonium. The house at last, and while still applauding, began to hiss the orchestra so that, after a minute of a tug-of-war effect, Sir Michael was obliged to lay down his baton—although with a very bad grace—and let the applause storm itself out. I could see him scowling at me as I bowed and smiled and bowed again, nearly crying outright at the friendliness of my welcome. There were traitors in his own camp, too, for, as soon as the baton was lowered, half the orchestra—old friends mostly—joined in the applause! Sir Michael never before had broken through his rule; and I do not fancy he liked me any the better for being the person to force upon him this one exception.
I include here a letter written to someone in America just after this performance by Bennett ofThe London Telegraphthat pleased me extremely, both for its general appreciative friendliness and because it was arésuméof the English press and public regarding my former and my present appearance in England.