PATTI
One broiling afternoon--it was in August, 1893--a Great Western train
from London left me at a wee-bit station on the top of a Welsh
mountain. The station was called "Penwylt." It overlooked the Swansea
Valley, and stood about halfway between Brecon and the sea. When a
traveller alighted at Penwylt there was no need to ask why he did so.
He could have but one destination, and that was Craig-y-Nos Castle, the
home of Madame Patti. She was then Madame Patti-Nicolini; she
afterward became the Baroness Cederstroem. I shall use here the name by
which, for sixty years, she has been known to an adoring world. A
carriage from the castle was awaiting me, and quickly it bore me down
the steep road to the valley, a sudden turn showing the Patti palace
there on the banks of the Tawe. The Castle was two miles distant and a
thousand feet below the railway. An American flag was flying on the
tower. It flew there through the week of my visit, for was I not an
ambassador from the American Public to the Queen of Song?
Mr. Gladstone once told Madame Patti that he would like to make her
Queen of Wales. But she {58} was that already, and more. She was
Queen of Hearts the world over, and every soul with an ear was her
liege. And, literally, in Wales Patti was very like a queen. She
lived in a palace; people came to her from the ends of the earth; she
was attended with "love, honour, troops of friends"; and whenever she
went beyond her own immediate gardens the country folk gathered by the
roadside, dropping curtseys and throwing kisses to her bonny majesty.
Her greeting of me was characteristic of this most famous and fortunate
of women, this unspoiled favourite of our whirling planet. A group of
her friends stood merrily chatting in the hall, and, as I approached, a
dainty little woman with big brown eyes came running out from the
centre of the company, stretched forth her hands, spoke a hearty
welcome, and accompanied it with the inimitable smile which had made
slaves of emperors. She had the figure and vivacity of a girl. She
was fifty that year, but, there in broad daylight, looked fifteen or
twenty years younger. This is not an illusion of gallantry, but a
statement of fact.
There was a kind of family party at Craig-y-Nos. Stiffness and
dullness, and the usual country-house talk about horses and guns, golf
and fishing, did not prevail there. _La Diva's_ guests were intimate
friends, and chiefly a company of English girls who were passing the
summer with her. In the evening, when all assembled in the
drawing-room before going in to dinner, I found that we represented
five nationalities,--Italian, Spanish, French, English, {59} and
American. While we awaited the appearance of our hostess, the
gathering seemed like a polyglot congress.
As the chimes in the tower struck the hour of eight, a fairy vision
appeared at the drawing-room door,--Patti, royally gowned and jewelled.
The defects of the masculine intellect leave me incapable of describing
the costume of that radiant little woman. It belonged to one of her
operatic characters, I forget which one. But my forgetfulness does n't
matter. The sight brought us to our feet, bowing as if we had been a
company of court gallants in the "spacious days of great Elizabeth",
and we added the modern tribute of applause, which our queen
acknowledged with a silvery laugh. I remember only that the gown was
white and of some silky stuff, and that about _La Diva's_ neck were
loops of pearls, and that above her fluffy chestnut hair were
glittering jewels. With women it may be different, but mere man cannot
give a list of Patti's adornments on any occasion; he can know only
that they became her, and that he saw only her happy face. Before our
murmurs had ceased, Patti, who had not entered the room, but had merely
stood in the portal, turned, taking the arm of the guest who was to sit
at her right, and away we marched in her train, as if she were truly
the queen, through the corridors to the conservatory, where dinner was
served.
It was my privilege at the Castle table to sit at Madame Patti's left.
At her right was one whose friendship with her dated from the instant
of her {60} first European triumph. Heavens!--How many years ago? But
it was a quarter of a century less than it now is at the time of which
I am writing. The delight of those luncheons and dinners at
Craig-y-Nos is unforgettable. There was a notion abroad that these
meals were held "in state"; but they were not. There was merely the
ordinary dinner custom of an English mansion. The menu, though, was
stately enough, for the art of cookery was practised at Craig-y-Nos by
a master who had earned the right to prepare dinners for Patti. The
dining room was seldom used in summer for, handsome though that
apartment is, Patti, and her guests, too, for that matter, preferred to
be served in the great glass room which was formerly the conservatory
and was still called so. There we sat, as far as outlook goes, out of
doors; in whatever direction we gazed we looked up or down the Swansea
Valley, across to the mountains, and along the tumbling course of the
river Tawe. I was risking some neglect of my dinner, for I sat gazing
at the wood-covered cliffs of Craig-y-Nos (Rock-of-the-Night) opposite,
and listening to the ceaseless prattle of the mountain stream. Patti,
noticing my admiration of the view, said, "You see what a dreadful
place it is in which I bury myself."
"'Bury' yourself! On the contrary, here you are at the summit of
Paradise, and you have discovered the fountain of perpetual youth. A
'dreadful place', indeed! It's the nearest thing to fairy-land."
"But one of your countrymen says that I 'hide {61} far from the world
among the ugly Welsh hills.' He writes it in an American journal of
fabulous circulation, and I suppose people believe the tale."
Patti laughed at the thought of a too credulous public, and then she
added:
"Really, they write the oddest things about my home, as if it were
either the scene of Jack-the-Giant-Killer's exploits on the top of the
Beanstalk, or a prison in a desolate land."
After visiting Patti at Craig-y-Nos I wondered no more why this
enchanting woman sang "Home, Sweet Home" so that she fascinated
millions. Her own home was far from being "humble", but it was before
all things, a home. And she had earned it. There is not anywhere a
lovelier spot, nor was there elsewhere a place so remote and at the
same time so complete in every resource of civilization.
Dinner passed merrily. Merrily is exactly the word to describe it. Up
and down the table good stories flew, sometimes faster than one could
catch them. Nobody liked a good joke better than Patti, and when she
heard one that particularly pleased her she would interpret it to some
guest who had not sufficiently mastered the language in which it was
told. It was all sheer comedy, and after watching it, and hearing _La
Diva_ speak in a variety of tongues, I asked:
"I wonder if you have what people call a native tongue, or whether all
of them came to you as a gift of the gods."
"Oh, I don't know so many languages," she {62} replied, "only--let's
see--English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian."
"And which do you speak best, or like best?"
"I really don't know. To me there is no difference, as far as
readiness goes, and I suppose 'the readiness is all.'"
"Not quite all. But what is your favourite, if you have a favourite
among them?"
"Oh, Italian! Listen!"
And then she recited an Italian poem. Next to hearing Patti sing, the
sweetest sound was her Italian speech. Presently she said:
"Speaking of languages, Mr. Gladstone paid me a pretty compliment a
little while ago--nearly three years ago. I will show you his letter
to-morrow, if you care to see it."
Patti forgot nothing. The next day she brought me Mr. Gladstone's
letter. The Grand Old Man had been among her auditors at Edinburgh,
and after the performance he went on the stage to thank her for the
pleasure she had given him. He complained a little of a cold which had
been troubling him, and Patti begged him to try some lozenges which she
found useful. That night she sent him a little box of them. The old
statesman acknowledged the gift with this letter:
6, Rothesay Terrace,
Edinburgh.
October 22, 1890.
Dear Madame Patti:
I do not know how to thank you enough for your charming gift. I am
afraid, however, that the use {63} of your lozenges will not make me
your rival. _Voce quastata di ottante' anni non si ricupera_.
It was a rare treat to hear from your Italian lips last night the songs
of my own tongue, rendered with a delicacy of modulation and a fineness
of utterance such as no native ever in my hearing had reached or even
approached. Believe me,
Faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
This letter, naturally enough, gave conversation a reminiscent turn.
After some talk of great folk she had known, I asked Madame Patti what
had been the proudest experience in her career.
"For a great and unexpected honour most gracefully tendered," said she,
"I have known nothing that has touched me more deeply than a compliment
paid by the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII) and a
distinguished company, at a dinner given to the Duke of York and the
Princess May (the present King and Queen), a little while before their
wedding. The dinner was given by Mr. Alfred Rothschild, one of my
oldest and best friends. There were many royalties present and more
dukes and duchesses than I can easily remember. During the ceremonies
the Prince of Wales arose, and to my astonishment, proposed the health
of his 'old and valued friend, Madame Patti.' He made _such_ a pretty
speech, and in the course of it said that he had first seen and heard
me in Philadelphia in 1860, when I sang in 'Martha', and that since
then his own attendance at what he was good enough to call my
'victories in the realm of song' had been among his pleasantest {64}
recollections. He recalled the fact that on one of the occasions, when
the Princess and himself had invited me to Marlborough House, his wife
had held up little Prince George, in whose honour we were this night
assembled, and bade him kiss me, so that in after life he might say
that he had 'kissed the famous Madame Patti.' And then, do you know,
that whole company of royalty, nobility, and men of genius rose and
cheered me and drank my health. Don't you think that any little woman
would be proud, and ought to be proud, of a spontaneous tribute like
that?"
It is difficult, when repeating in this way such snatches of biography,
to suggest the modest tone and manner of the person whose words may be
recorded. It is particularly difficult in the case of Madame Patti,
who was absolutely unspoiled by praise. Autobiography such as hers
must read a little fanciful to most folk; it is so far removed from the
common experiences of us all and even from the extraordinary
experiences of the renowned persons we hear about usually. But there
was not a patch of vanity in Patti's sunny nature. Her life had been a
long, unbroken record of success,--success to a degree attained by no
other woman. No one else has won and held such homage; no one else had
been so wondrously endowed with beauty and genius and sweet simplicity
of nature,--a nature unmarred by flattery, by applause, by wealth, by
the possession and exercise of power. Patti at fifty was like a girl
in her ways, in her thoughts, her spirit, in her disinterestedness, in
her enjoyments. {65} Time had dimmed none of her charms, it had not
lessened then her superb gifts. She said to me one day:
"They tell me I am getting to be an old woman, but I don't believe it.
I don't feel old. I feel young. I am the youngest person of my
acquaintance."
That was true enough, as they knew who saw Patti from day to day. She
had all the enthusiasm and none of the affectations of a young girl.
When she spoke of herself it was with most delicious frankness and lack
of self-consciousness. She was perfectly natural.
She promised to show me the programme of that Philadelphia performance
before the Prince of Wales so long ago, and the next day she put it
before me. It was a satin programme with gilt fringe, and it was
topped by the Prince of Wales's feathers. At that Philadelphia
performance Patti made her first appearance before royalty. In the
next year she made her London debut at Covent Garden, as Amina in "La
Somnambula." The next morning Europe rang with the fame of the new
prima donna from America.
"I tried to show them that the young lady from America was entitled to
a hearing," said she, as we looked over the old programmes.
"And has 'the young lady from America' kept her national spirit, or has
she become so much a citizen of the world that no corner of it has any
greater claim than another upon her affections?"
"I love the Italian language, the American people, {66} the English
country, and my Welsh home," she said.
"Good! The national preferences, if you can be said to own any, have
reason on their side. Your parents were Italian, you were born in
Spain, you made your first professional appearance in America, you
first won international fame in England, and among these Welsh hills
you have planted a paradise."
"How nice of you! That evening at Mr. Alfred Rothschild's, the Prince
of Wales asked me why I do not stay in London during 'the season', and
take some part in its endless social pleasures. 'Because, your Royal
Highness,' I replied, 'I have a lovely home in Wales, and whenever I
come away from it I leave my heart there.' 'After all,' said the
prince, 'why should you stay in London when the whole world is only too
glad to make pilgrimages to Craig-y-Nos?' Was n't that nice of him?"
I despair of conveying any impression of the _naivete_ with which the
last five words were uttered. The tone expressed the most innocent
pleasure in the world. When Patti spoke in that way she seemed to be
wondering why people should say and do so many pleasant things on her
account. There was an air of childish surprise in her look and voice.
I said: "All good republicans have a passion for royalty. I find that
an article about a King, or a Queen, or a Prince is in greater demand
in the United States than anywhere else in the world. So tell me
something more about the Prince and Princess of Wales. I promise, as a
zealous democrat, that {67} no one on the far side of the Atlantic will
skip a word. Have the Prince and Princess visited Craig-y-Nos?"
"No. But they were coming here a couple of years ago. See--here is
the Prince's letter fixing the date. But it was followed by the death
of the Duke of Clarence, their eldest son, and then for many months
they lived in quiet and mourning, only appearing in their usual way
just before the wedding of the Duke of York (King George V). They sent
me an invitation to the wedding festivities. But alas! I could not
go. I had just finished my season and was lying painfully ill with
rheumatism. You heard of that? For weeks I suffered acutely. It's an
old complaint. I have had it at intervals ever since I was a child.
But about that royal wedding. When the Prince and Princess of Wales
learned that I was too ill to accept their gracious invitation,
they--well, what do you suppose they did next?"
"Something kind and graceful."
"They sent me two large portraits of themselves, bearing their
autographs and fitted into great gilt frames. You shall see the
portraits after dinner. They have the places of honour at Craig-y-Nos."
We had reached the coffee stage of dinner, and the cigars were being
passed. The ladies did not withdraw, according to the mediaeval (and
shall I say popular?) habit, but the company remained unbroken, and
while the gentlemen smoked, the ladies kept them in conversation.
Nowadays you would say they all smoked. Presently, some one {68}
proposed Patti's health, and we all stood, singing, "For She 's a Jolly
Good Fellow."
That put the ball of merriment in motion again. One of the young
ladies, a goddaughter of the hostess, carolled a stanza from a popular
ditty. At first I thought it audacious that any one should sing in the
presence of _La Diva_. It seemed sacrilege. But in another instant we
were all at it, piping the chorus, and Patti leading off. The fun of
the thing was infectious. The song finished, we ventured another, and
Patti joined us in the refrains of a medley of music-hall airs,
beginning with London's latest mania, "Daisy Bell, or a Bicycle Built
for Two", and winding up with Chevalier's "Old Kent Road" and the
"Coster's Serenade", Coborn's "Man That Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo",
and somebody else's "Daddy Would n't Buy me a Bow-Wow."
Patti turned with an arch look. "You will think our behaviour
abominable."
"No, I don't. I think it jolly. Besides, it's not everybody who has
heard you sing comic songs."
Her answer was a peal of laughter, and then she sat there, singing very
softly a stanza of "My Old Kentucky Home", and as we finished the
chorus she lifted a clear, sweet note, which thrilled us through and
through and stirred us to excited applause.
"What have I done?" Patti put the question with a puzzled air.
The reply came from the adjoining library: "High E." One of our number
had run to the piano.
{69}
Then I recalled what Sir Morell Mackenzie had told me a little while
before he died. We were chatting in that famous room of his in Harley
Street, and we happened to mention Madame Patti. "She has the most
wonderful throat I have ever seen," said Sir Morell. "It is the only
one I have ever seen with the vocal cords in absolutely perfect
condition after many years of use. They are not strained, or warped or
roughened, but as I tell you, they are perfect. There is no reason why
they should not remain so ten years longer, and with care and health
twenty years longer."
Remembering this, I asked Patti if she had taken extraordinary care of
her voice.
"I have never tired it," said she; "I never sing when I am tired, and
that means I am never tired when I sing. And I have never strained for
high notes. I have heard that the first question asked of new
vocalists nowadays is 'How high can you sing?' But I have always
thought that the least important matter in singing. One should sing
only what one can sing with perfect ease."
"But in eating and drinking? According to all accounts, you are the
most abstemious person in the world."
"No, indeed! I avoid very hot and very cold dishes, otherwise I eat
and drink whatever I like. My care is chiefly to avoid taking cold and
to avoid indigestion. But these are the ordinary precautions of one
who knows that health is the key to happiness."
"And practising? Have you rigid rules for that? One hears of
astounding exercise and self-denial."
{70}
"Brilliant achievements in fiction. For practising I run a few scales
twenty minutes a day. After a long professional tour I let my voice
rest for a month and do not practise at all during that time."
During my visit to Craig-y-Nos we usually spent our evenings in the
billiard rooms. There were two, an English room and a French one. In
the French room there was a large orchestrion which had been built in
Geneva for Madame Patti. It was operated by electricity and was said
to be the finest instrument of its kind. Our hostess would start it of
an evening, and the ingenious contrivance would "discourse most
eloquent music" from a repertoire of one hundred and sixteen pieces,
including arias from grand operas, military marches and simple ballads.
Music, of course, is the fascinator that Patti cannot resist. The
simplest melody stirs her to song. In the far corner from the
orchestrion she would sit in a big easy-chair, and hum the air that
rolled from the organ pipes, keeping time with her dainty feet, or
moving her head as the air grew livelier. Or she would send forth some
lark-like trill, or urge the young people to a dance, or a chorus, and
when every one was tuned to the full pitch of melody and merriment, she
would join in the fun as heartily as the rest. I used to sit and watch
her play the castanets, or hear her snatch an air or two from "Martha",
"Lucia", or "Traviata."
One night the younger fry were chanting negro melodies, and Patti came
into the room, warbling as if possessed by an ecstasy. "I love those
darky songs," said she, and straightway she sang to us, {71} with that
inimitable clarity and tenderness which were hers alone, "Way Down upon
the Suwanee River", "Massa's in the Col', Col' Ground", and after that
"Home, Sweet Home", while all of us listeners felt more than we cared
to show.
Guests at Craig-y-Nos were the most fortunate of mortals. If the guest
were a man, a valet was told off to attend him; if the guest were a
lady, a maid was placed at her service. Breakfast was served in one's
room at any hour one chose. Patti never came down before high noon.
She rose at half-past eight, but remained until twelve in her
apartments, going through her correspondence with her secretary and
practising a little music. At half-past twelve luncheon was served in
the glass pavilion. After that hour a guest was free to follow his own
devices until dinner time. He might go shooting, fishing, riding,
walking, or he might stroll about the lovely demesne, and see what
manner of heavenly nook nature and Patti had made for themselves among
the hills of Wales. Patti's castle is in every sense a palatial
dwelling. She saw it fifteen years before I did, fell in love with it,
purchased it, and subsequently expended great sums in enlarging it.
The castellated mansion, with the theatre at one end and the pavilion
and winter garden at the other, has a frontage of fully a thousand feet
along the terraced banks of the Tawe. But the place has been so often
described that it is unnecessary to repeat that oft-told story, or to
give details of the gasworks, the electric-lighting station, the ice
plant and cold-storage rooms, the steam {72} laundry, the French and
English kitchens, the stables, the carriage houses, the fifty servants,
or of the watchfulness, care, devotion, which surrounded the melodious
mistress of this miniature kingdom. Those matters are a part of the
folklore of England and America.
But I must say something of Patti's little theatre. It was her special
and particular delight. She got more pleasure from it than from any
other of the many possessions at Craig-y-Nos. It was a gem of a
theatre, well proportioned and exquisitely decorated. Not only could
the sloping floor be quickly raised, so that the auditorium might
become a ballroom, but the appurtenances of the stage were elaborate
and complete. For this statement I had the authority of the stage
manager of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. This expert was
supervising certain alterations at the Patti theatre while I was at
Craig-y-Nos, and he told me that the house then contained every
accessory for the production of forty operas!
Patti sang occasionally at concerts in her theatre. All her life she
treasured her voice for the public; she had never exhausted it by
devising an excess of entertainment for her personal friends. And so
most of the performances in the little theatre were pantomimic.
Although Patti seemed to me always to be humming and singing while I
was at the Castle, yet there was nothing of the "performing" order in
what she did. She merely went singing softly about the house, or
joining in our choruses, like a happy child.
{73}
One morning, while a dozen of us were sitting in the shade of the
terrace, the ladies with their fancy work, the men with their papers,
books, and cigars, we heard, from an open window above, a burst of
song, full-throated like a bird's. It was for all the world like the
song of a skylark, of glorious ecstasy, as if the bird were mounting in
the air, the merrier as it soared the higher, until it poured from an
invisible height a shower of joyous melody. No one amongst us stirred,
or made a sound. _La Diva_ thought us far away up the valley, where we
had planned an excursion, but we had postponed the project to a cooler
day. We remained silent, listening. Our unseen entertainer seemed to
be flitting about her boudoir, singing as she flitted, snatching a bar
or two from this opera and that, revelling in the fragment of a ballad,
or trilling a few notes like our friend the lark. Presently she
ceased, and we were about to move, when she began to sing "Comin' Thro'
the Rye." She was alone in her room, but she was singing as gloriously
as if to an audience of ten thousand in the Albert Hall. The
unsuspected group of listeners on the terrace slipped then from their
own control, and took to vigorous applause and cries of "_brava,
brava_."
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the birdlike voice above.
We looked up, and saw Patti leaning out at the casement.
"Oh," said she, "I couldn't help it, really I could n't. I 'm so
happy!"
At luncheon she proposed an entertainment in the theatre for the
evening of the following day. {74} We were to have "Camille" in
pantomime. The preparations moved swiftly. Among the guests were
several capable amateur actors. The performance began a little after
ten. Some musicians were brought from Swansea. A dozen gentlefolk
hastily summoned from the valley, those among the guests who were not
enrolled for the pantomime, and a gallery full of cottagers and
servants made up the audience. We had "an opera" in five acts of
pantomime, with orchestra, and all together it was fun. Of course,
Patti carried off the honours. There was supper after the play, and
the sunlight crept into the Swansea Valley within two hours after we
had risen from table.
I said to Patti after the pantomime, "You don't seem to believe that
change of occupation is the best possible rest. You seem to work as
hard at rehearsing and acting in your little theatre as if you were 'on
tour.'"
"Not quite! Besides, it is n't work, it's play," replied the
miraculous little woman. "I love the theatre. And, then, there is
always something to learn about acting. I find these pantomime
performances useful as well as amusing."
Every afternoon about three o'clock Patti and her guests went for a
drive, a small procession of landaus and brakes rattling along the
smooth country roads. You could see at once that this was Pattiland.
The cottagers came to their doors and saluted her Melodious Majesty,
and the children of the countryside ran out and threw kisses.
"Oh! the dears," exclaimed the kind-hearted {75} Queen, as we were
driving toward the village of Ystradgynlais (they call it something
like "Ist-rag-dun-las"), one afternoon. "I would like to build another
castle and put all those mites into it, and let them live there with
music and flowers!" And I believe she would have given orders for such
a castle straightway, had there been a builder in sight.
On the way home Patti promised me "a surprise" for the evening. I
wondered what it might be, and when the non-appearance of the ladies
kept the gentlemen waiting in the drawing-room at dinner time, I was
the more puzzled. The men, to pass the time, inspected the "trophies"
of the prima donna. It would be impossible to enumerate them because
Craig-y-Nos Castle was another South Kensington Museum in respect to
the treasures it held. Every shelf, table, and cabinet was packed with
gifts which Patti had received from all parts of the earth, from
monarchs and millionaires, princes and peasants, old friends and
strangers. There was Marie Antoinette's watch, to begin with, and
there were portraits of the Prince and Princess of Wales, to end with.
There was a remarkable collection of portraits of royal personages,
presented to Patti by the distinguished originals on the occasion of
her marriage to M. Nicolini. Photographs of the Grand Old Man of
Politics and the Grand Old Man of Music rested side by side on a little
table presented by some potentate. Gladstone's likeness bore his
autograph and the inscription, "_Con tanti e tanti Complimenti_";
Verdi's, his autograph and a fervent tribute written at Milan. There
were crowns and {76} wreaths and rare china; there were paintings and
plate, and I know not what, wherever one looked.
If one were to make Patti a gift, and he had a King's ransom to
purchase it, he would find it difficult to give her anything that would
be a novelty, or that would be unique in her eyes. She had everything.
For my part, I would pluck a rose from her garden, or gather a nosegay
from a hedgerow, and it would please her as much as if it were a
diadem. She valued the thought that prompted the giving, rather than
the gift itself. She never forgot even the smallest act of kindness
that was done for her sake. And she was always doing kindnesses for
others. I have heard from the Welsh folk many tales of her generosity.
And to her friends she was the most open-handed of women.
There was one dark, drizzly day during the visit to Craig-y-Nos. It
mattered little to the men. The wet did not interfere with their
amusements. But every lady wore some precious jewel that Patti had
given her that morning,--a ring, a brooch, a bracelet, as the case
might be. For the generous creature thought her fair friends would be
disappointed because they could not get out of doors. How could she
know that every one in the Castle welcomed the rain because it meant a
few hours more with Patti?
The "surprise" she had spoken of was soon apparent. The ladies came
trooping into the drawing-room wearing the gowns and jewels of Patti's
operatic roles. Patti herself came last, in "Leonora's" white and
jewels. What a dinner-party we {77} had that night,--we men, in the
prim black and white of evening dress, sitting there with "Leonora" and
"Desdemona" and "Marguerite" and "Rachel" and "Lucia" and "Carmen" and
"Dinorah", and I know not how many more! Nobody but Patti would have
thought of such merry masquerading, or, having thought of it, would or
could have gone to the trouble of providing it.
Of course, we talked of her favourite characters in opera, and then of
singers she had known. She said it would give her real pleasure to
hear Mario and Grisi again, or, coming to later days, Scalchi and Annie
Louise Carey. The latter, being an American and a friend, I was glad
to hear this appreciation of her from the Queen of Song. "Carey and
Scalchi were the two greatest contraltos I have known; and I have sung
with both of them. I remember Annie Louise Carey as a superb artist
and a sweet and noble woman."
I said "Hear, hear," in the parliamentary manner, and then Patti added:
"Now we will go to the theatre again. There is to be another
entertainment." It was, of all unexpected things, a lantern show.
Patti's arrangement for that was, like everything else at Craig-y-Nos,
from her piano to her pet parrot, the only one of its kind. It was
capable of giving, with all sorts of "mechanical effects", a two hours'
entertainment every night for two months without repeating a scene.
Patti invited me to sit beside her and watch the dissolving views. It
seemed to me that it would be like this to sit beside Queen Victoria
{78} during a "State performance" at Windsor, only not half so much
fun! Here was Patti Imperatrice, dressed like a queen, wearing a crown
of diamonds, and attended by her retinue of brilliantly attired women
and attentive gentlemen of the court. And it was so like her to cause
the entertainment to end with a series of American views and to sing
for me "Home, Sweet Home", as we looked out on New York harbour from a
steamship inward bound.
The next morning I started from Craig-y-Nos for America. As the
dogcart was tugged slowly up the mountain side, the Stars and Stripes
saluted me from the Castle tower, waving farewell as I withdrew from my
peep at Paradise.
{79}