articulation than over those of vocalisation pure and simple. Her
delivery of the difficult—we had almost said, impossible—passage in the
grand _Scena_ from _Der Freischütz_—_Täuscht das Licht des Monds mich
nicht!_[130]—though so clear and distinct that not a syllable lost its
full meaning, was nevertheless so soft and smooth that it could scarcely
have been surpassed in Italian. We do not hesitate to say that she was
the only great singer by whom we have heard this famous _crux_
surmounted without a trace of harshness in the delivery of the words. On
one occasion Madame Birch-Pfeiffer left her, alone, practising the word
_zersplittre_ (“to shiver to pieces”), on a high B flat, in the opening
Recitative in _Norma_; and, returning several hours afterwards, found
her still practising the same word. And she continued to practise it,
until she succeeded in pronouncing it quite perfectly on the high note,
though few even of the best German vocalists attain a better
pronunciation than _zersplättre_. But she never erred in the delivery of
even the most difficult word in any language whatsoever. So perfect was
the mastery she exercised over larynx, throat, lips, tongue, teeth, soft
palate, each and all, that never a syllable was stifled at its birth,
never a vowel-sound corrupted in its passage through the longest groups
of mingled leap, arpeggio, or scale. It was this high quality that lent
so potent a charm to the complicated “divisions,” the rapid passages of
_fioritura_ of which Lablache, in describing them to Madame Grisi, said
that “every note was a pearl.” The purity of the vowel-sound, by which
the pearls were strung together, secured their perfect equality of tone
and _timbre_; and, whether the most rapid notes were sung _legato_, or
_staccato_, they either ran on velvet, or rang out sharply and clearly
as the touch of a _mandoline_. The _technique_, in either case, was
absolutely faultless, and its perfection was entirely the result of hard
work, indefatigable practice, unwearying study. To the end of her
career, she never sang in the evening without preparing for the
performance by practising for a long time, earlier in the day—generally,
_a mezza voce_, to avoid fatiguing the voice unnecessarily, but, never
sparing the time or trouble. And herein lay the secret of her victory
over difficulties which tempt so many less courageous aspirants to
despair.
Undoubtedly, the “method” thus diligently cultivated was, in many
points, subjective. Mdlle. Lind felt, but could not always explain, the
principles upon which she worked. We possess, however, a letter written
by her to Fräulein von Jaeger, which enters into some particulars
connected with our present subject of consideration, so curiously
interesting, that we cannot refrain from publishing them, though the
communication bears a date far later than that at which the purely
narrative portion of our work comes to a close.
“Ems, June 8, 1855.
“And what is my good Gusti doing? Is she working as industriously as
ever at her singing?
“The chief thing that I have to say, to-day, concerns that part of
Friedrich Schmitt’s ‘Singing-school’ of which you wish for an
explanation.[131]
“I do not think you have rightly understood the point. Read the
paragraph again, and it will surely become clearer to you.
“Naturally, he does not mean that you are to attack a note twice; but
that, before you sound the note, the larynx must be properly prepared
in the position in which the forthcoming sound lies, whether high or
low. The result of this is a firm attack; and, as soon as you have
sounded one note, you must spring so nimbly on all those above—or
below it—that no rift can be detected between the sounds; and, in this
way, the completion of the phrase is accomplished without a break. For
instance, the notes
[Illustration: A musical staff with a treble clef showing three quarter
notes ascending in pitch.]
must so hang together that they make one whole; and this results from
binding and striking them, at one and the same time—if I may so
express myself—though it is almost impossible to explain this clearly
in words. But I have often spoken to my Gusti about this, and shown it
to her. It lies in the flexibility of the larynx, and must therefore
be practised. Sing your exercise, then, so that this flexibility of
the throat may be quickly developed. The attack of the single notes
will thus be improved; and the string of notes will follow.”
Madame Goldschmidt is quite right, when she says that “it is almost
impossible to explain this clearly, in words.” No one knew, better than
she did, that the best ‘Singing-schools’ that ever were published are
useless without the aid of a teacher; for until she found a teacher in
Signor Garcia, she wandered daily farther and farther from the true
path, until, in the end, her voice but narrowly escaped from utter
destruction. When once the truth was pointed out to her, her quick
perception and unerring musical instinct enabled her to grasp it at a
glance; and, when once she began to practise upon true principles, the
difficulties she had formerly experienced with regard to the method of
voice-production were at an end.
On one point she always insisted very strongly. She had an innate hatred
of the contortions with which so many vocalists of inferior order
disfigure their features when delivering the passages they wish to
render most impressive. She was never satisfied with a song, unless the
singer “looked pleasant.” She regarded singing as a beautiful gift of
Nature; a gift for which those who possess it should feel truly
thankful, and proclaim their thankfulness by the expression of their
features. She had a horror of careless articulation, even in speaking.
And she felt firmly persuaded that the practice of singing, on the true
“method,” tended to the invigoration of the body, and especially of a
weak chest. She even thought that the lives of many persons with a
tendency to consumption might have been prolonged, if they had learned
to breathe, and sing, in the right way—an opinion which is held by many
medical authorities of highest reputation, and the correctness of which
is undoubtedly proved by recorded facts.
So deeply penetrated was Madame Goldschmidt with love for her Art, and
faith in its ennobling influence, that, to the end of her life, she took
the keenest interest in promoting its instruction, upon the true and
well-tried principles of the pure Italian School.
The following letter to the late Mr. H. C. Deacon, in whose method of
instruction she felt great confidence, is one of the last she wrote upon
the subject:—
“Wynd’s Point, Colwall, Malvern, July 31st, 1885.
“DEAR MR. DEACON,
“It was very kind of you to let me know about the Examinations.[132] I
am glad to hear that my _sheep_ did not badly. If —— would put her
mind into her work she might become a singer.
“I can but do my best; and, with my enormous experience, and a life’s
study, I ought to be able to bring out singers.
“Singing is as much moral and mental as it is mechanical. It is the
combination of those qualities which alone can form the master and
pupil.
“I hope you and Mrs. Deacon are better, and that you will now have
some rest.
“Yours sincerely,
“J. L. GOLDSCHMIDT.”
We can scarcely close our present chapter more profitably than by
presenting our readers with a summary of the work performed by Mdlle.
Lind, in connection with the Operatic Stage, between her first
appearance in _Der Freischütz_, on the 7th of March, 1838, and her last,
in _Roberto il Diavolo_, on the 10th of May, 1849—a period of little
more than eleven years, during which she appeared in 30 Operas, 677
times.
───────────────┬──────────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬────────┬──────────
│ │ │ │ │ │
OPERAS. │STOCKHOLM.│BERLIN.│VIENNA.│Munich.│Hanover.│Darmstadt.
│ │ │ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼──────────
_La Sonnambula_│ 28│ 11│ 7│ 2│ │ 1
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Lucia di │ │ │ │ │ │
Lammermoor_ │ 56│ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Norma_ │ 34│ 14│ 3│ 1│ 2│ 1
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Roberto il │ │ │ │ │ │
Diavolo_ │ 60│ │ │ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │ │
_La Figlia del │ │ │ │ │ │
Reggimento_ │ 18│ 2│ 6│ 3│ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Der │ │ │ │ │ │
Freischütz_ │ 42│ 5│ 1│ 1│ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Divertissement│ │ │ │ │ │
National_ │ 27│ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Das Feldlager │ │ │ │ │ │
in Schlesien_│ │ 10│ 13│ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │ │
_A May Day in │ │ │ │ │ │
Wärend_ │ 21│ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Die │ │ │ │ │ │
Zauberflöte_ │ 18│ │ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Il Don │ │ │ │ │ │
Giovanni_ │ 5│ 5│ │ 1│ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Le Nozze di │ │ │ │ │ │
Figaro_ │ 8│ │ │ 1│ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Marie_ │ 11│ │ │ │ │
(Hérold) │ │ │ │ │ │
_La Vestale_ │ 6│ 3│ │ │ │
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Les Huguenots_│ 7│ 2│ 1│ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Die Schweizer │ │ │ │ │ │
Familie_ │ 10│ │ │ │ │
(Weigl) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Euryanthe_ │ 5│ 4│ │ │ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │ │
_La Straniera_ │ 9│ │ │ │ │
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Il Turco in │ │ │ │ │ │
Italia_ │ 9│ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_L’Elisir │ │ │ │ │ │
d’Amore_ │ 5│ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │ │
_I Puritani_ │ │ │ │ │ │
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Ferdinand │ │ │ │ │ │
Cortez_ │ 6│ │ │ │ │
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Jag går i │ │ │ │ │ │
Kloster_ │ 6│ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Le Château de │ │ │ │ │ │
Montenero_ │ 6│ │ │ │ │
(Dalayrac) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Armida_ │ 5│ │ │ │ │
(Gluck) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Anna Bolena_ │ 5│ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │ │
_La Gazza │ │ │ │ │ │
Ladra_ │ 4│ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │ │
_I Masnadieri_ │ │ │ │ │ │
(Verdi) │ │ │ │ │ │
_The Elves_ │ 4│ │ │ │ │
(Van Boom) │ │ │ │ │ │
_Semiramide_ │ 3│ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼──────────
Number of │ │ │ │ │ │
performances │ 418│ 56│ 31│ 9│ 2│ 2
in each city │ │ │ │ │ │
│ ———│
Total number of│ 30│
Operas │ │
───────────────┴──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────
───────────────┬────────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
│ │ │ │ │
OPERAS. │Hamburg.│Copenhagen.│Frankfort.│Stuttgard.│Carlsruhe.
│ │ │ │ │
───────────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
_La Sonnambula_│ 9│ │ 4│ 1│ 1
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Lucia di │ │ │ │ │
Lammermoor_ │ 4│ │ 1│ 1│ 1
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_Norma_ │ 8│ 3│ 3│ 2│
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Roberto il │ │ │ │ │
Diavolo_ │ │ 2│ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_La Figlia del │ │ │ │ │
Reggimento_ │ 4│ 2│ │ 1│
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_Der │ │ │ │ │
Freischütz_ │ 1│ │ 1│ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │
_Divertissement│ │ │ │ │
National_ │ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Das Feldlager │ │ │ │ │
in Schlesien_│ │ │ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_A May Day in │ │ │ │ │
Wärend_ │ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Die │ │ │ │ │
Zauberflöte_ │ │ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Il Don │ │ │ │ │
Giovanni_ │ 2│ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Le Nozze di │ │ │ │ │
Figaro_ │ │ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Marie_ │ │ │ │ │
(Hérold) │ │ │ │ │
_La Vestale_ │ │ │ │ │ 1
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │
_Les Huguenots_│ │ │ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_Die Schweizer │ │ │ │ │
Familie_ │ │ │ │ │
(Weigl) │ │ │ │ │
_Euryanthe_ │ │ │ │ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │
_La Straniera_ │ │ │ │ │
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Il Turco in │ │ │ │ │
Italia_ │ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
_L’Elisir │ │ │ │ │
d’Amore_ │ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_I Puritani_ │ │ │ │ │
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Ferdinand │ │ │ │ │
Cortez_ │ │ │ │ │
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │
_Jag går i │ │ │ │ │
Kloster_ │ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Le Château de │ │ │ │ │
Montenero_ │ │ │ │ │
(Dalayrac) │ │ │ │ │
_Armida_ │ │ │ │ │
(Gluck) │ │ │ │ │
_Anna Bolena_ │ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_La Gazza │ │ │ │ │
Ladra_ │ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
_I Masnadieri_ │ │ │ │ │
(Verdi) │ │ │ │ │
_The Elves_ │ │ │ │ │
(Van Boom) │ │ │ │ │
_Semiramide_ │ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
───────────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Number of │ │ │ │ │
performances │ 28│ 7│ 9│ 5│ 3
in each city │ │ │ │ │
│
Total number of│
│
───────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
───────────────┬───────┬──────────┬─────────┬───────
│ │ │ │
OPERAS. │Weimar.│Nuremberg.│Mannheim.│LONDON.
│ │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼──────────┼─────────┼───────
_La Sonnambula_│ 1│ 1│ │ 22
(Bellini) │ │ │ │
_Lucia di │ │ │ │
Lammermoor_ │ │ │ │ 12
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │
_Norma_ │ 1│ │ │ 3
(Bellini) │ │ │ │
_Roberto il │ │ │ │
Diavolo_ │ │ │ │ 11
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │
_La Figlia del │ │ │ │
Reggimento_ │ │ 1│ 1│ 17
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │
_Der │ │ │ │
Freischütz_ │ │ │ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │
_Divertissement│ │ │ │
National_ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │
_Das Feldlager │ │ │ │
in Schlesien_│ │ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │
_A May Day in │ │ │ │
Wärend_ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │
_Die │ │ │ │
Zauberflöte_ │ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │
_Il Don │ │ │ │
Giovanni_ │ │ │ │
(Mozart) │ │ │ │
_Le Nozze di │ │ │ │
Figaro_ │ │ │ │ 4
(Mozart) │ │ │ │
_Marie_ │ │ │ │
(Hérold) │ │ │ │
_La Vestale_ │ │ │ │
(Spontini) │ │ │ │
_Les Huguenots_│ │ │ │
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │
_Die Schweizer │ │ │ │
Familie_ │ │ │ │
(Weigl) │ │ │ │
_Euryanthe_ │ │ │ │
(Weber) │ │ │ │
_La Straniera_ │ │ │ │
(Bellini) │ │ │ │
_Il Turco in │ │ │ │
Italia_ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │
_L’Elisir │ │ │ │
d’Amore_ │ │ │ │ 3
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │
_I Puritani_ │ │ │ │ 5
(Bellini) │ │ │ │
_Ferdinand │ │ │ │
Cortez_ │ │ │ │
(Spontini) │ │ │ │
_Jag går i │ │ │ │
Kloster_ │ │ │ │
(Berwald) │ │ │ │
_Le Château de │ │ │ │
Montenero_ │ │ │ │
(Dalayrac) │ │ │ │
_Armida_ │ │ │ │
(Gluck) │ │ │ │
_Anna Bolena_ │ │ │ │
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │
_La Gazza │ │ │ │
Ladra_ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │
_I Masnadieri_ │ │ │ │ 4
(Verdi) │ │ │ │
_The Elves_ │ │ │ │
(Van Boom) │ │ │ │
_Semiramide_ │ │ │ │
(Rossini) │ │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼──────────┼─────────┼───────
Number of │ │ │ │
performances │ 2│ 2│ 1│ 81
in each city │ │ │ │
│
Total number of│
Operas │
───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────┬───────┬──────
│ The │ │ │ │
OPERAS. │ English │Edinburgh.│Glasgow.│Dublin.│Total.
│Provinces.│ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───────┼──────
_La Sonnambula_│ 6│ 1│ 1│ 2│ 98
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Lucia di │ │ │ │ │
Lammermoor_ │ 1│ 1│ │ 1│ 78
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_Norma_ │ │ │ │ │ 75
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Roberto il │ │ │ │ │
Diavolo_ │ │ │ │ │ 73
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_La Figlia del │ │ │ │ │
Reggimento_ │ 4│ │ 1│ 2│ 62
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_Der │ │ │ │ │
Freischütz_ │ │ │ │ │ 51
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │
_Divertissement│ │ │ │ │
National_ │ │ │ │ │ 27
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Das Feldlager │ │ │ │ │
in Schlesien_│ │ │ │ │ 23
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_A May Day in │ │ │ │ │
Wärend_ │ │ │ │ │ 21
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Die │ │ │ │ │
Zauberflöte_ │ │ │ │ │ 18
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Il Don │ │ │ │ │
Giovanni_ │ │ │ │ │ 13
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Le Nozze di │ │ │ │ │
Figaro_ │ │ │ │ │ 13
(Mozart) │ │ │ │ │
_Marie_ │ │ │ │ │ 11
(Hérold) │ │ │ │ │
_La Vestale_ │ │ │ │ │ 10
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │
_Les Huguenots_│ │ │ │ │ 10
(Meyerbeer) │ │ │ │ │
_Die Schweizer │ │ │ │ │
Familie_ │ │ │ │ │ 10
(Weigl) │ │ │ │ │
_Euryanthe_ │ │ │ │ │ 9
(Weber) │ │ │ │ │
_La Straniera_ │ │ │ │ │ 9
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Il Turco in │ │ │ │ │
Italia_ │ │ │ │ │ 9
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
_L’Elisir │ │ │ │ │
d’Amore_ │ │ │ │ │ 8
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_I Puritani_ │ │ │ │ 1│ 6
(Bellini) │ │ │ │ │
_Ferdinand │ │ │ │ │
Cortez_ │ │ │ │ │ 6
(Spontini) │ │ │ │ │
_Jag går i │ │ │ │ │
Kloster_ │ │ │ │ │ 6
(Berwald) │ │ │ │ │
_Le Château de │ │ │ │ │
Montenero_ │ │ │ │ │ 6
(Dalayrac) │ │ │ │ │
_Armida_ │ │ │ │ │ 5
(Gluck) │ │ │ │ │
_Anna Bolena_ │ │ │ │ │ 5
(Donizetti) │ │ │ │ │
_La Gazza │ │ │ │ │
Ladra_ │ │ │ │ │ 4
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
_I Masnadieri_ │ │ │ │ │ 4
(Verdi) │ │ │ │ │
_The Elves_ │ │ │ │ │ 4
(Van Boom) │ │ │ │ │
_Semiramide_ │ │ │ │ │ 3
(Rossini) │ │ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───────┼──────
Number of │ │ │ │ │
performances │ 11│ 2│ 2│ 6│ 677
in each city │ │ │ │ │
│ │
Total number of│ Total number of performances 677│
Operas │ │
───────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────
CHAPTER IX.
FRIENDS IN ENGLAND.
Sweden remained ever the veritable home to which Jenny Lind’s heart
turned with the affection which is given to no other land but that in
which one first draws living breath. “One’s heart is in one’s own
country,” she once wrote to an old friend, in her later years, at the
time of a visit of the Crown Prince of Sweden to London, “and mine,
certainly, is Swedish to the very backbone of my body and soul.”
It was, again, in Germany that she found the home of her artistic
spirit. There the music in her kindled into its fullest life. There she
breathed the air in which her art knew itself to be in its native
dwelling-place.
But England was to become the home of her adoption, in whose soil she
was to take root. There she was to build herself a home; to see her
children and her grandchildren grow up about her; and there she was, at
last, to find her grave.
And we may well stop, therefore, at the close of our account of her
appearances in England, to take note of that which drew her to view this
country with special favour and affection; and to cast a glance, both
backward and forward, over those social and domestic ties which now
already began to knit her fast to those friends among whom, in after
days, she found such intimate companionship.
In doing this, we are still loyal to our purpose of recording the
Artist-life of Jenny Lind; for we have already, at the outset of her
career in Stockholm, shown how closely and peculiarly her personal
character entered into her artistic effect; how impossible it was to
dissociate the one from the other. The genius which showed itself in her
song, was identically the same which discovered itself in her private
intercourse. Whether off the stage or on it, it was the same
characteristic personality, which spoke in every detail of her natural
life, and was felt alive behind or within every note of her voice. It is
essential, therefore, to her portraiture as an artist that she should be
known as a woman.
And it is, perhaps, just here that we find something of the secret of
that attachment which drew her towards the English and the English
towards her. For, as a people, we find it difficult to appreciate Art in
the abstract. We want it clothed in flesh and blood; concrete, personal.
We are in haste to relate it to moral and religious considerations,
apart from which it is apt to appear to us as a mere pastime. Art that
speaks solely in Art’s own name always bewilders us. But when it comes
to us in the form of one who, like Jenny Lind, illuminates the
seriousness of the artist with the inspiration of a pure and noble
womanhood, and with the spiritual fervour of one who holds her gifts as
a mission from God, then the English people can see and understand what
is going forward.
Therefore it was that the effect told straight home on the English
public, and they surrendered themselves to her magic with an intensity
which belongs to a strong and reserved people who find it difficult to
yield, but, when they yield, yield altogether. Mendelssohn was a good
prophet when he assured her that she would find in England a welcome of
quite peculiar warmth—a welcome that would recognise the special tone of
her character. And, in return, she responded to this welcome with
enthusiasm. In spite of the ugly incident which beclouded her early
appearances, and which revealed to her the coarse grain of a manager
like Mr. Bunn, and the passionate malice that agitated much of the
operatic world in London, she became exceedingly happy here. “I am
charmed, quite beyond words, with England,” she wrote from Clairville,
in July, 1847, to her dear friend Madame Wichmann. She made friends
quickly; and she loved the friends she made. And it is of these that we
would now speak. For it is in them that we shall see how it was that, in
spite of much that she herself had to complain of in us,—in spite of our
stupid practicality, our insensibility to artistic ideals, our coldness
of manner, our sunless skies,—she yet found here in England a temper
that responded to her aspirations, and gave full and encouraging scope
to her endowments.
Let us take a look at one or two circles which will specially illustrate
the attachments which she formed at this time.
We have already heard much of her alliance with Mrs. Grote, whose
friendship for her played a large part in her earliest days among us.
The Grotes were fascinated by her; and they devoted themselves to
chaperoning her through that brilliant London Society into which she had
been plunged. Mrs. Grote was in the very heart of the literary and
musical world. At her house might be found Mendelssohn, Chopin,
Thalberg, Lablache. Her husband, the historian of Greece, was in
intimate contact with the chief writers and thinkers of the day—with
John Stuart Mill, Cornewall Lewis, Milman, Sydney Smith. All that was
moving would be heard of, and touched, in the circle into which Mrs.
Grote introduced her new friend; and she was only too eager to take her
everywhere and show her everybody.
But that new friend was singularly unlike her busy chaperone. She
loathed the bustle and glitter of the big world. She shrank from the
public gaze; she could not endure to be made an object of curiosity.
Nor, indeed, could the tempers and minds of the two women have ever
fallen closely together. Nothing could be more remote from Jenny Lind’s
estimates of life than the ideas and principles which reigned in that
house. George Grote was the intellectual pupil of James Mill; he was the
depository of the traditions of Benthamism. He was a stiff political
economist of the abstract school; an ardent republican, a hater of
churches and creeds. He professed that dry and tough Utilitarianism,
which holds Idealists cheap. His wife was a woman of keen and strong
intellectual character, delighting in the stir of men and things; a
forcible figure in the thick of the thronging world of cultivated
society.
With such intense difference of atmosphere, it is greatly to the credit
of Mrs. Grote’s kindness, that she succeeded in making Jenny Lind so
pleased with her intimacy. She evidently threw herself in, heart and
soul, with her young friend’s fortunes; she put her house at her
disposal; she advised and directed her; she gave up her time to her; she
listened to her confidences; she introduced her to her many
acquaintances; she took her on rides and picnics to Wimbledon, and gave
her the free run of the Burnham Cottage, where she could wander freely
in the woods, and freshen her voice. She accompanied her on provincial
tours, and encompassed her about, in the midst of that hurrying and
exciting turmoil, with pleasant companionship. To one, like Jenny Lind,
who was besieged by fears, and suspicions, and dismays, and needed
always to feel the succour of friendly advice close at hand, it was
everything to have such a constant and kindly refuge to turn to, as Mrs.
Grote’s house. And that house held in it, also, the presence of one,
whose faithful loyalty to her service was invaluable. Edward Lewin, Mrs.
Grote’s brother, was one of the best and truest friends she ever
possessed. He was already well known to her through his sister, Madame
Koch, at Stockholm. It was at his house there, that she had appeared in
the Tableaux Vivants, as St. Cecilia. It was he who went to Vienna, to
persuade her to venture on the English journey; and now that she was
come, he patiently attended to her interests; he looked after her
affairs; he did everything for her that a wise and good man could, in
the way of kind-hearted direction, and supervision; and always with a
reserved and unobtrusive devotion, that was as delicate as it was true.
He must have done more than any one to smooth her path, and to save her
from trouble and blunder, during those two years in England; and his
friendship remained a constant source of comfort and strength to her.
Such was the circle into which she came at the start. But she was very
soon to find her way into another home of a very different type, where
she passed under influences which affected her whole life and character.
She was engaged to sing at Norwich in the September of 1847; and in the
preceding July she got the letter of invitation, which has already been
given,[133] from the Bishop of Norwich, in which he expresses his desire
“to make acquaintance with one whose high character and principles were
on a par with her superior talents.” In those days, such an invitation
to one who was engaged at the Opera, was remarkable enough. English
society, and especially English religious society, was strangely and
stupidly conventional. The Bishop’s act was a striking evidence of the
unique position which Jenny Lind had already, from the very beginning,
assumed. And it proved to be much more than this. It was an introduction
into a household, where she found that affectionate and intimate
environment which was so dear to her. Bishop Stanley brought to her the
watchful care of a father; Mrs. Stanley gave to her a motherly devotion,
to which she could entrust her tenderest confidences. And, then, there
was Mary Stanley, the daughter, her close friend for years, full of
character and interest; and there was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the son,
whose enthusiasm for her was the spring of an enduring intimacy, which
lasted until his death, in the Deanery at Westminster, in 1881.
We have read already the letter in which Arthur Stanley describes, with
delicious freshness, her first arrival, in September, 1847.[134] In that
letter, everything has been said that could make vivid the personal
impression she produced. We will notice, here, but one little matter in
it; and that is, the startling comparison of her smile to that of Dr.
Pusey. The comparison would, no doubt, have surprised no one more than
herself. But even those who only knew the face of the great Oxford
Doctor in extreme old age, would understand at once the allusion, as
they recall the sudden lift of those grey eyebrows, and the beaming
kindliness of the fatherly outlook from under them, that lit up the
whole countenance as with an illumination.
Here, then, in this household, she kindled an interest, and established
an intimacy, which had lasting effects upon her future. On the 28th of
September, the Bishop wrote a farewell letter to Jenny Lind, which marks
the depth and reality of the friendship which these few days had been
enough to seal. It will reveal how profoundly the influences, then set
moving, entered into the secret places of her life. The letter
accompanied portraits of himself and his wife.
“MY DEAR MISS LIND,—
“I am well aware that it is with you a general rule not to accept
presents; but I persuade myself that the enclosed two portraits will
be received as an exception, and that when restored to your relatives
and friends in your native land, you will, in looking upon them,
recall to mind one whose interest in your welfare has been increased
tenfold during the few short days you were his guest.
“Believe me, it will be my earnest prayer, that, in the high and
perilous position in which you are placed, the God whom you so
devotedly serve with such humility and simplicity, may ever bless and
protect you, and enable you to carry out more and more the objects you
have at heart. Under His guidance, go on and prosper. You have left
us; but we shall never forget you, and I look forward with deep
interest to the time when I again may meet you, as one who has gained
the affections of every member of my family: and when I may have
further conversation with you on the many subjects of vital importance
on which I would willingly have spoken more at large when you were
with us. Believe me,
“Yours, very sincerely,
“E. NORWICH.”
There was another Bishop, a guest in the Palace at the time, who both
received, and gave, a vital impression. A year and a half later when she
returned to Norwich she spoke of the many things said to her by the
Bishop of Tasmania, which she had not understood at the time, but had
seen the truth of since. His words had clung about her: and they had
evidently been on the deep matters of life. And if he had impressed her,
she, certainly, in those brief four days, had profoundly stirred him. A
letter written to her by him in July, 1849, from Hobart Town, Tasmania,
is a touching revelation of the way in which her memory lived with him,
amid interests so remote, and so alien. He begins by telling her of his
difficulty in addressing her; for he can no more call her “_Miss_ Lind”
than he would speak of “_Mr._ Shakespeare,” or “_Mr._ Milton.”
“They are names endeared to English people. And so with you. We know
you, esteem you, admire you, and talk of you, as ‘Jenny Lind.’ By that
name the poor bless you; and the rich regard you as one who has by her
noble example, exalted at once her profession and herself. By that
name you are known even in this distant part of the world, 16,000
miles away from your own home.... You have had a rare, a most rare
gift from God. And He has given you the grace to use it, not merely
for your own profit, or the delight of others, but for the suffering
children—even as He would have you use it.... We may never meet again;
but believe me, dear friend (if I may call you so), I shall never
forget you though half the world lies between us, and though it is
scarcely possible that I may be permitted to see your face again on
earth.
“Believe me, “Most sincerely your friend, “F. R. TASMANIA.”
In January, 1849, she was once again at the Palace at Norwich. Mrs.
Stanley in a letter to her sister tells how she received a surprise
prepared for her by the Bishop.
“She did look so delighted to be here, and when somebody hoped that
she would not forget the step up into the library, said, ‘Oh, I have
forgotten nothing!’ I took her to her room where the Swedish Bible was
open on her dressing-table with the texts inscribed in the Bishop’s
best hand. She bent down to read them earnestly; and then opened the
book at various places; and then, she returned to the texts, and went
slowly over them, drawing her finger emphatically under the words ‘The
Lord preserve thy going out and thy coming in, etc.,’ then she broke
out into something like Arthur at the Pyrenees, ‘What shall I do? What
shall I do?’”
Below the Bishop’s signature in the Bible, he had written out the
selected verses, Psa. cxxi. 7, 8, and Phil. i. 9, 10.[135]
It is worth while to give all this in detail, in order that we may
understand at what level her friendship with the family was pitched. The
Bible, with its texts, and its graceful letter, is an index of the depth
and the force of the influences which drew her to the Stanleys, and they
to her. As we hear of these little tendernesses, as we read the strong
words of commendation, as we follow Mrs. Stanley’s affectionate
transmission of it all to her listening sister, we can measure what it
meant to Jenny Lind to be encompassed with all the home intimacies which
she held so dear, and, above all, to find that those intimacies of the
heart were so closely concerned with the spiritual fortunes of the soul.
She thoroughly sympathised with this high language, which held the
religious interests of life so near to the surface, and inwove them into
the common texture of daily intercourse. It was a house entirely to her
mind, with its warm sympathies, and its simple, earnest pieties. Here is
Mrs. Stanley’s report to her sister at the end of this visit:
“Her future will be most interesting to watch. There is such a depth
of veneration in her, such a reverence for all that is holy, such
capabilities of love and devotion. She said she had no wish to make
more friends, she had enough; and her manner is that of preventing any
intimacy. One very remarkable thing, which did not strike me till
afterwards, is that she treats her superiors as we do royalty—never
originates anything, never speaks first, never comes to sit down by
you. To her equals and inferiors nothing could be more courteous or
frank. She never speaks of herself, never appears to think of herself;
she has just that self-forgetting earnestness about everything, which
is _the_ desideratum in ——. I was glad, however, to hear her say that
though she never kept a journal, her memory was strong, and that there
was nothing that had ever happened to her of which she had not a most
distinct recollection. To some one who was speaking of the world she
said, ‘The world is one great lie.’ Yesterday, Mr. Richmond, the
artist, dined here; and it was beautiful to hear him speak of her; it
was just with that same appreciation of the peculiar charm of her
character and countenance that Mr. Lawrence had; but he said that he
would himself shrink from the attempt to paint her....
“All our previous impressions of her have been confirmed, and all
change in her is for the better.”
Madame Salis-Schwabe was another friend in whose house she was made at
home, and with whom grew up, during these same years, a lasting and
confidential intimacy. Her husband, a rich manufacturer at Manchester,
was a man of culture, a refined, and cultivated musician, full of both
religious and philanthropic interest. They received Jenny Lind at the
time of her visit to Manchester; they invited her to their beautiful
place on the Menai Straits. To Madame Schwabe she spoke and wrote freely
of things that were on her mind. Already, in 1848, they were on most
affectionate terms; and, evidently, from the fun that came bubbling out
in the letters, Jenny Lind felt herself to be thoroughly understood, so
that she could write with unhindered freedom. Madame Schwabe, too, was a
relative of a young pianist of Hamburg, in whose fortunes Jenny Lind had
already taken a warm interest, “a very amiable young man, who,
certainly, has much talent and much feeling,” as she writes in August,
1848, to her friend. His name was Otto Goldschmidt.
Two other friends there were, who, in 1849, called out her special
affection—Baroness French, and her daughter Georgina. Her letters to
them brim over with touching fondness; and it is delightful to see in
them her strong feelings struggling through the English language, which
she is determined to use, however uncertain her control over it.
“I don’t know if you can understand my miserable English,” she writes
to Miss French, “but I prefer to write ever so bad English than the
very best French!”... “I feel a great deal for you, my dear Miss
French. And as I can never change when I once love a person, you may
be assured that I shall always and for ever be yours truly
affectionate,
_“JENNY LIND.”_
In these letters comes out that anxious clinging to the love of those of
whom she was fond, which was noticeable in her. She is in suspicion lest
it should be withdrawn from her; she needs reassurance of its survival.
Was it her harsh experiences in childhood which had left in her this
note of fear, lest she should find herself forgotten?
“Take not away, I entreat you, your kindness and friendship towards
me, dear lady,” she writes to the Baroness, “and be assured that I
think of you, and remember you with true and sincere affection! My
sister-love and sister-blessing to Miss Georgina. Send me sometimes a
few words which tell me about your health and happiness. For such
kindness my heart will always feel thankful!”
There are many passages, in these letters, full of the same tender
longings. We have touched on them just to illustrate both the intensity
of her personal affection, which flowed out with the enthusiasm of a
child towards those whom she felt congenial; and also the pathetic
anxiety which seemed to plead against the dreaded relapse into the
loneliness of her wandering dramatic career. As she wrote from Paris,
“she needed much love.” Yet she found it hard to wholly shake off a
haunting distrust of the love given her, as if it was too good and
precious a boon to endure.
These letters reveal, also, how intimate, and how loving were the ties
that now knit her to the English. Not only had the public welcome been
all that Mendelssohn had foretold, but behind that, she had found an
entry into hearts which responded eagerly to her own. She felt herself
cherished and nourished; the fountains of affection were freely opened,
and she drank at them with thankful delight. True, there was no home
that could surpass, in dearness, and in comfort to her soul, that house
of the Wichmanns in Berlin, whither her deepest confidence still turned
to rest. But yet we can see that there was much in England to explain
the burst of enthusiasm with which she closes a letter, written in 1850,
from Lübeck to Madame Salis-Schwabe, after a delightful wandering in
Central Europe.
“Ah! Meran! how splendid, how divine it is there! And Switzerland too!
how lovely and magnificent! But nowhere can I find England again! I
love England with all my soul, and I long to be there again!”
BOOK IX.
FRUITION.
CHAPTER I.
WHY DID JENNY LIND LEAVE THE STAGE?
How many times has that question been asked! Who that has ever heard of
her, has failed, at some moment or other of his interest in her story,
to ask it?
And, indeed, it is no light question to ask; to answer it, one must go
down to the very roots of her mental life. For it was, in her case, not
merely the withdrawal of a great singer from the special field in which
she had won her triumphs. Such an one might still have full opportunity
of exercising her gift. Jenny Lind herself was to find a noble sphere in
the concert-room, in the Oratorio; she never reaped a more amazing
success, nor kindled a more rapturous emotion, than in that historic
American tour which followed her withdrawal from the stage.
But she was not only a singer. She was a Dramatic genius of the first
rank. It was the combination of this dramatic force with her wonderful
song which constituted her unique preeminence. This was her natural
vocation; it had been her familiar arena from early childhood. She had
been bred up in it; she knew its innermost secrets. She possessed the
genuine power of transposing her whole personality into a character. She
had the magnetic influence which penetrated her audience through and
through with her interpretation of the part which she was playing. And
all this she sacrificed—sacrificed utterly and for ever, by her own act,
her own solitary will, while yet a girl, at the supreme moment of her
fame, in the teeth of plea and protest from a desperate public and
imploring managers.
Why, then, was it? What were her motives?
At least, it is clear that it was due to no impatient impulse or wilful
mood. It was the issue of a deliberate intention, slowly and steadily
built up out of her experience, grounded upon her deepest personal
conviction. It is this that we must first recognise; and to do so we
must go back behind the actual date at which her story now stands, and
dig out the earlier years of this her resolution. It will then be seen
that the resolution grew parallel with the growth of her European fame.
There appear to be no traces of it left in her written records, so long
as she was winning her triumphs at home, in Stockholm, or in the
neighbouring Copenhagen. In Paris, under Garcia, she was taking close
and eager interest in her dramatic profession, watching the Parisian
stage for hints and suggestions, noting and contrasting the acting
capacities of Rachel and herself.[136] She spoke then of a strong desire
to feel the boards again under her feet. Everything indicates that she
was then looking forward to an Operatic career as her natural
profession, and was spending pains upon her histrionic as well as upon
her musical education. On her return, she threw herself into her parts
with unhindered freedom; there is no hint of a recoil.
When, then, can this recoil from the stage be first detected? At a most
remarkable moment. It is in the full swing of her first Continental
successes: it is in the very heart of her intense enjoyment of the
superb opportunities that were suddenly opening out before her. It is on
the Rhine, in the September of that great year of her Berlin triumphs,
1845, that we, for the first time, encounter the motive to leave the
stage in a positive shape; and, what is most noticeable, is that
already, at this earliest manifestation of it, it has taken the form of
a fixed and definite determination.
We hear of it from Mrs. Grote’s MS. _Memoir_, whom, it will be
remembered, she met at Frankfort for the first time during that
September. To her, she quietly confided her intention. She spoke of her
intense dislike to the _entourage_ which a theatre necessitated; of the
exhausting fatigue involved in dramatic singing; of the physical risks;
and over against all this distracting environment, she set her own
simple tastes and humble needs.
Mrs. Grote, as she listened to the tale of trouble, evidently felt that
this intense distaste for the character of the life came from no
superficial worry, but belonged both to the physical and spiritual
realities of her nature. She sums up her conclusions in her private
Note-book:—
“Owing to a highly excitable nervous temperament,” she writes, “she
appears to be ill-suited to the conflicts which attend a triumphant
career, and will, I fear, cut short her scenic life and retire to
Sweden to lead a quiet and tranquil existence as soon as she has the
means of doing so.”[137]
Evidently, the writer of these words was sure that this intention sprang
out of no transitory mood of Jenny Lind. All its outlines are steadily
fixed; and Mrs. Grote as she listens, sees reason to fear that it will
most certainly be carried out.
And, moreover, Mrs. Grote recognises the reality of the reasons given.
She evidently agrees that this nervous structure _is_ too excitable to
bear the strain of a triumphant career. She fears for the loss to the
stage of gifts so delicious; but she cannot deny or refute the cogency
of the justification.
And, then, the reasons! They are suggested, here, in their most natural
and most frequent form; and they well bear special notice, for they mean
much. It is not the drama as such, which is condemned. She sees nothing
wrong or disreputable in it. It is only the conditions which belong to a
triumphant dramatic career which seem to her so intolerable, as she
looks from out of the midst of the turmoil of a Continental tour back to
quiet memories of her Swedish home. We can imagine what it would mean to
her—this incessant irritation of the _entourage_, acting upon nerves
that were already lacerated by exhaustion.
And then, is not the phrase in which Mrs. Grote sums up the significance
of what she heard, full of obvious force? The European triumph had
thrust her out into the public arena. She would now have to push her way
forward in the very thick of that rough battle which the fierce
competition of the theatrical world made inevitable. No wonder, that a
profound recoil should have, now, taken place, as the full pressure of a
Continental career broke out upon her! Who can fail to give intelligible
meaning to the “conflicts that attend” on such a career? Who can doubt
the strain that it would throw on her “nervous structure”? We have seen
her temperament, we know its ideal cast, its lofty tone, its sacrificial
flame, its haughty purity. How would it ever endure the fret, and the
worry, the fever, and the sting, of those petty jealousies, those angry
spites, those mean competitions which, by some sad fate, seem bound to
swarm about the green-room of a theatre, and, perhaps with even special
fury, beset the musical drama?
And, then, there is the wretched finance! This delicate, nervous
artistic life of the drama is all netted in the meshes of mercantile
speculation. It is being _exploité_; it must be made to pay. It is in
the hands of those for whom it is a remunerative enterprise, a financial
concern. Each individual gift has its price, each has to come into the
market; each artist feels himself the prisoner, or the prey, of some
commercial transaction. That which should be a temple of art is turned
into a house of merchandise, even if it escapes becoming a “den of
thieves.” Such a situation is inevitable to the theatrical career. But
what a bitter warfare for such a one as Jenny Lind to find herself
waging—she, who held her voice as a boon from God, endowing her with a
prophetic mission! What fretful disputes! What weary wranglings! What
pettiness of detail! How she would loathe it! Every fibre of her frame
would repudiate these narrow and nasty necessities. Nor was she happy in
her management of such affairs. As we have seen, in the Bunn incident,
which was agitating her so profoundly at the very moment of her
interview with Mrs. Grote, she was apt to hastily rush into a bond; and,
then, at once, to regret it, and, perhaps, attempt to undo it. She would
consult, and take advice, and be persuaded; and, then, react afterwards,
and desert the advice which she had accepted. All this was natural
enough for a young girl driven to fight for her own hand, amid the mob
of managers, of strange tongues, and peoples, competing for the chance
of driving a good bargain with her, of reaping a profit out of her. It
was natural enough for a spiritual genius, beating about in unknown
waters, tangled in alien winds. How could she comprehend the rigidities
of business? But, natural and intelligible though it were, it was bound
to bring her trouble which might well make her sicken of a career which
involved matters so odious, and so disturbing.[138]
Moreover, she was already tired of the incessant strain involved in the
very act of performing. She had been hard at it for so long. She had
known all that its richest successes could bring her, ever since
childhood: and the uproar of applause could throw no deceptive glamour
over all the painful and exhausting fatigues, that are inevitable in a
career which draws so desperately upon the emotional resources, and
which must be subject to such violent recoils as the drained forces
slowly recuperate themselves.
And then, in vivid antithesis to this warfare of a public career, there
was the hope of tranquillity in Sweden. Here was a most forcible factor
in the decision. Throughout all that period in Germany, we have heard
notes of her home-sickness. Again and again, it comes over her, as we
have seen, like a veritable illness.[139] She had nothing in her of the
Bohemian. At the root of her innermost being, lay the domestic instinct—
the craving for the security of fixed and sure family life. And how
lonely, in contrast, was that restless pilgrimage over Europe which was
the normal condition of her theatrical life! True, she had a wonderful
way of winning admittance, at each city, into some private house, where
she was surrounded with affection. But yet how transitory all such
visits must be! Ever she must hurry on,—she and her one companion, to
fulfil engagements in this strange place and in that; there was no rest
for her feet; no constant refuge into which to retreat. All was in
movement; nothing stood still. She was never more than a passing guest.
As we picture the dismal instability, the arid homelessness of such a
wandering existence, we can hardly wonder that all the splendour of her
triumphant career could never expel or stifle in her the passionate
desire to escape and be at peace, in some tranquil harbour amid the home
waters—some still and unchanging retreat nestling under the familiar
pines.
This deep and passionate longing showed itself, during the very time of
which we are now speaking, in two most remarkable letters, already
quoted in this work, which will prove how deliberate her intention had
become. In the letter written on November 24th, 1845, to Madame Erikson,
it will be remembered that she says:
“I wonder if I dare let out that next autumn I shall come home quite
quietly, and settle down, caring nothing for the world. You will call
this a crime; but please reflect how difficult it is to stand all this
roving about, _alone, alone_,—ever to have to rely on my own judgment,
and, besides, so absorbed in my _rôles_. Oh, it is not easy!”[140]
And to Josephson she wrote on December 1st, 1845, in the very thrill of
the joyful excitement at her growing powers, and at her frequent
meetings with Mendelssohn:
“I have the old home-sickness all the same! And my only wish is to get
into quietude away from the stage. And a year hence I go home, and
remain at home, my friend! Ah! how I shall enjoy life! Ah! peace is
the best that there is!”
Always the moments of European success are those at which this note of
home most emphatically occurs. Here, for instance, is an illustration—
one more added to the many already familiar to us. It occurs in a
beautiful letter of hers, written from London, in June, 1847, to a young
friend in Sweden, Miss Behrens, now Madame Lamm, who had lived on the
opposite side of the courtyard, in the Bonde Palace, when Jenny Lind
lived there with the Lindblads. They used to talk to each other by the
open windows: and, now, Miss Behrens has sent her a drawing of her old
window in the courtyard. She writes in return, out of the very heart of
her London triumphs:
“MY GOOD KIND FANNY,
“You must not conclude, from my long silence, that I have forgotten
you. I cannot do that, with any one to whom my heart has, at any time,
been drawn; nor could I become cold and indifferent towards them.
“Thanks, my good Fanny, for the dear little drawing you sent me. I
only wish I could fully express the pleasure it has given me....
“It appears to me to be a sacred act to stand in thought before that
window, where I have stood so often: and to go over, in spirit, all
that time I lived behind it. For the people with whom I lived then (I
mean, the Lindblads) are, and will remain for ever the dearest to me
on earth, and the best objects of all my thoughts!
“And you will now meet them soon!
“How are you, yourself? Are you still the same child as of yore? With
the laughter as then? And are you conscious of your good luck? Do you
know what it means to be ‘at home’?
“Thank God, I shall now soon come back to it; for where the heart is,
there the whole self yearns to be. I am right grateful to God for
having preserved in my breast this love for my native land; for it
might have happened that I never again should have wished for Sweden
after the heavenly—yes! the heavenly career which I have had. If you
knew, Fanny, what a sensation of the nearness of a higher power one
instinctively feels, when one is permitted to contribute to the good
of mankind, as I have done, and still do! Believe me, it is a great
gift of God’s mercy!
“I am in excellent health; and have been so ever since I set foot on
foreign soil; and this I look upon as the greatest of many gifts.
“But the paper is coming to an end—so I end also. Farewell, until we
meet again! and greet thy parents from yours affectionately,
“JENNY LIND.”
“Do you still have the same room?”
There is the secret of her heart laid open—its instinctive, its solemn,
its religious hold on home-affections. This it is which does so much to
create the passionate desire for withdrawal from that sad, lonely
pilgrimage, as of a stranger and a sojourner, which the Drama
necessitates.
We have sketched the inner temper with which she came to her
determination. Let us now trace out, by more exact steps, the growth of
the resolution to act.
The desire, then, was present in her, during the autumn of 1845.
Already, by December, it had taken a fixed and deliberate form. We can
pursue it unfailingly after this, point by point. Let us follow on its
track.
On July 4th, 1846, she writes to her dear friend to whom she opened her
soul so often, Madame Amalia Wichmann:
“I am fully determined, that next summer, or at the very latest, next
autumn, I will leave the stage. I will meanwhile make use of the
interval; and if I could, indeed, get things so arranged this spring,
it might be wiser to nurse up my powers for the approaching
winter....”
Here we have her resolutely scheming how to bring about her
determination; she is engaged in fixing the dates. Everything is rapidly
settling itself in her mind.
Again, we have already read a letter written on her birthday from
Frankfort, to Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, which gives exact precision to her
determination.
“I am longing to get away from the stage. I think, now, that I shall
be ready in six months. I cannot do otherwise: it is stronger than
I.”[141]
In the November that followed the writing of this letter, it would seem
that her Berlin friends were alarmed at her resolution, and the result
was a letter of strong appeal to her from the influential critic of the
_Voss’che Zeitung_, Herr Rellstab, whose high opinion of her we already
know. The letter is lost; but it was one that (she confesses) greatly
pleased her: and it was, no doubt, one which put, in the most forcible
and effective manner possible, the claim which the world had to enjoy
the manifestation of dramatic gifts so special and so elevating as her
own. But in a letter to Madame Wichmann, written on November 28th, from
Carlsruhe, in which she mentions having received this appeal from
Rellstab, she still says: “For all that, I am firm.” The considerations,
then, so many and so strong, which should keep her on the stage, have
already been laid before her, in as masterful and earnest a form,
probably, as they could ever be thrown into; and, yet, though she has
weighed them, she is not moved.
On January 20th, 1847, she writes a charming letter from Vienna,
introducing Schumann and Madame Schumann, in the warmest terms, to the
favour of the Wichmanns;[142] in which she ends—
“Yes! when shall I see you again! Ah! how this longing for peace grows
in me beyond all bounds! But time flies on fast: and, surely, no
creature were ever so utterly happy as I,—if only I were free!”
That longing, that was rising in her beyond all bounds, came, we must
remember, in the very heart of one of her most bewildering hours of
dramatic glory. The enthusiasm for her at Vienna rose even to frenzy.
There was nothing that was not possible for her, there: everything was
at her feet. But, for all that, it cannot check her deep desire for
peace.
“Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now, peace laps her round.”
Again from Vienna, on February 13th, came an eager, and indignant
reassertion of her will. Madame Wichmann has heard a rumour that she is
meditating an engagement at Paris; and the answer she gets is clear
enough:
“MY VERY DEAREST!
“What is it that has come to you? _I_ go to Paris? Never, in my life!
Who can have told you this? And how should I ever have bound myself to
such a decision, without telling you!...
“They have, indeed, made me every kind of proposal from Paris—but not
for one second, did I ever think of it!
“From off the stage I go! I have no other want in the world than
that!”
Nothing, then, disturbs her intention. In 1847 it will be remembered,
how strongly she asserts to Her Majesty, as she speaks with her after
the private concert at Buckingham Palace, her resolution to leave the
stage.[143] Evidently her London successes, happy as she was in them,
had done nothing to shake her resolution.
In October when, as we know, she was singing at Berlin, it was with the
clear and general understanding that it was the last time of her
appearance on the stage there.[144]
On November 4th, Mendelssohn died. How much that meant to her, we know
already. His purity, his exaltation, his fervour thrilled her into high
response. And, then, his belief in her was a perpetual appeal to her to
trust her great gift, to put out all its powers, to live for her Art, as
in holy service. Through him, too, she had entered on those higher
levels of the Oratorio, into which she could pour without hindrance her
full spiritual force. But we cannot resist asking how this influence of
his bore on her present intention. In pressing her to the work of
Oratorio, was he consciously working for her withdrawal from the Opera?
It would appear to have been wholly otherwise: for we have already seen
that he was still, to the very end, possessed with the hope that he
might achieve an Opera which she could interpret. So far was he, then,
from fostering her determination to abandon the stage, that he had, it
would seem, hoped for a development of her powers there, in which he
might assist. What would have been the issue of such an attempt if it
had succeeded? Would it have led further? No one can say. But, now, he
is gone: and she looks out, from her old home, towards that Europe which
is now empty for her of its mightiest presence, of its noblest life: and
she finds herself strangely calm,—calm with the wonderful security and
sweetness of home.
She is surprised, herself, at her own content. The suspicion that, after
all the brilliant turmoil of Continental glory, it should seem tame and
poor, disproves itself. She sees opportunities of work which will fully
occupy her. All this had its effect in deepening her resolution, in
confirming her desire for peace. And yet, the particular work itself
which she chiefly “set herself to do,” was not quite what we might have
expected. For was it not the endowment of the Theatre School? And how
could this chime in with her purpose of leaving the stage? Here she is,
bending her mind to the training of others for the career which she was
herself longing to abandon. She is trying to save poor children from her
own earlier experiences; but she is making their road smoother towards
that life from which her own later experience was compelling her to
recoil. How did she quite reconcile this double-mind?
Probably, the changes that came over this her scheme, as she worked it
out, represent the gradual sense of this cross-purposing. But, at any
rate, it remains absolutely certain that, at the time she purposed to
assist the Theatre School, she had no moral reproach whatever to make
against the drama itself: or against the profession of acting. This can
have been, in no degree, the reason for her own withdrawal. It is
important to keep her motives clear. She had a profound sense of its
dangers—of the thorns that beset its roses: but she passes no
condemnation on it itself.
There was, however, another circumstance, besides the interest of the
Theatre School, which might have been expected to colour, to some
degree, her decision about the stage. She had, as we already know, at
the close of this season in Stockholm, become engaged to Herr Julius
Günther.[145] This engagement meant a great deal to her. On her return
to London, almost immediately after the exchange of rings, she spoke of
it to Mrs. Grote with great enthusiasm; and, in the Note-book, in its
record of a picnic at Wimbledon, Mrs. Grote writes: “Jenny talked with
me for a whole hour about Günther.”
But Herr Günther was the tenor at the Theatre Royal. His whole life was
cast with the Opera. Such an engagement must, at least, have suggested
closer ties between herself and the theatrical world, which she was so
bent on abandoning. And we cannot but wonder how such a marriage, if it
had taken place, would have suited the resolution which it is our main
object to discuss. The Theatre, and its interests, and its fortunes,
would have been kept close at hand, encompassing her about with constant
insistence. But, whatever the external likelihood of this, there is no
sign that her gladness in the engagement produced any wavering in her
will.
She passed through her second brilliant London season with the firm
conviction that it was to be her last. And happy as that season was,
there can be little doubt that, deep within her, the religious
convictions, which her English surroundings fostered and developed, were
steadily increasing their hold upon her: and, as their pressure grew,
her repugnance to the theatrical mode of life, to the fever and
restlessness of the dramatic career, grew also, and bred in her a yet
deeper longing for the spiritual peace of privacy and home. All this
would be continually backed by the encouragement of her new companion,
Mdlle. Åhmansson, by whose strong piety she was much impressed, and who
would always be throwing her influence into the scale against the Opera.
So it worked: it began to tell deeply upon her thought, and feeling, and
speech; and, as it did so, it began to disturb her hopes of the future.
For it drew her on to ground with which Herr Günther, far away at
Stockholm, had no familiarity, or sympathy. It is not for us to enter
upon such private affairs. Enough to say that, throughout this period,
the letters that passed between them seem to have revealed more and more
divergence in spirit and in aim; until, by the autumn, it had become
clear to both, that a union was becoming less and less possible. There
was not sufficient harmony between them, as to the motives and
principles by which life should be directed. And, at Dublin, which she
reached, in her provincial tour, on October 8th, the crisis came: the
engagement was broken off by the consent of both.
Here, then, ended the prospect of a marriage which, though it would
never have broken her decision to leave the stage, would have, at any
rate, linked her with its fortunes and surroundings. There could be no
doubt, now, that when the separation came, it would be complete. And, by
force of circumstance, it happened that the next pressure, which fell
upon her from outside, tended to emphasise the completeness of this
proposed separation. It came upon her in this fashion. During the
provincial tour, recorded in Book VIII., Chap. V. (p. 338), she went to
Newcastle, accompanied by Mrs. Grote; and stayed there, in the house of
Mr. Joseph Grote, brother of the historian. Mr. Joseph Grote had a
brother-in-law staying in the house, a young captain in the Indian army,
called Claudius Harris, who was, entirely, mastered by the charm and the
goodness of the wonderful singer, whom he found to be so startlingly
unlike anything that he had been ever accustomed to associate with the
stage. He followed her, with the enthusiasm of youth, to Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Dublin. But she was touched by finding that they had religious
interests in common.
Later on, towards the winter, she was singing at Bath, which was his
home: and she took the opportunity of calling upon his mother and
sister, and of asking after him. He immediately rushed there from Mrs.
Grote’s cottage at Burnham Beeches, where he was staying: saw her
frequently: and, soon after, pressed his claim upon her affections. True
to her Swedish training, she told him as soon as he made his offer, that
“he must tell his mother;” and when he said, “Do not be angry with me: I
have already talked to her about it,” she felt the true Swedish delight
in this recognition of the parent’s authority.
Unluckily, this readiness to consult his mother had its dangers, as well
as its gains, as she was, afterwards, to find to her cost.
For he had been brought up in a strict Evangelical system, which thrust
the stage outside the pale of religion. His mother had a strong
influence over him; and to her the drama itself was a thing to be
condemned and avoided. “She detested,” we are told, “acting, actors, and
actresses.” Thus Jenny Lind’s splendid dramatic powers wore to him,
probably, the character of perilous temptations, rather than of gifts
from God.
It was on this last point that collision was inevitable. It was one
thing for her to find the conditions of theatrical life intolerable; it
was quite another to have the moral rectitude of her entire career
challenged in any way. And it is most important for us, in defining her
motive in leaving the stage, to see how her happiness in this engagement
was gone, so soon as it became clear to her that she was asked not
merely to abandon her profession, but to be ashamed of it. At first,
this difference of motive did not disclose itself. When she stayed at
Norwich, in January, 1849, she spoke to Mrs. Stanley of the engagement
with a quiet confidence in the prospect before her.
“I want a support. I am quite alone,” she said, “and just when I want
help, the finger of God brings me this heart that can feel with me about
all works of charity, just as I do. I never could marry any one who did
not think with me about this: I should say to him ‘Good-bye! good-bye!’”
“We wish,” she said again, “to live quiet and uninterrupted somewhere. I
want to be near trees; and water; and a cathedral. I am tired, body and
soul; but my soul _most_! More my soul than my body! We are to be
married on the 7th of March” (the anniversary of the _début_ as Agatha).
She was rejoicing in the feeling that the decision, which had been
making for years, was now finally sealed. “She was free,” she kept
repeating to Mrs. Stanley; she was never to sing on the stage again. Yet
she was dreading how far she might be worked upon to save her old
manager, and his people from ruin.
What had her Norwich friends to advise, at this crisis of her
abandonment of the stage? It has been made absolutely clear, by what we
have seen, that they had nothing whatever to do with initiating her
intention. It stood firm, and decisive, long before she reached England,
or knew them. Nor had they anything to do with bringing it to a head.
The crisis with Her Majesty’s Theatre had already taken a violent stage
before they learned it from her lips. Their conversation with her, at
her earliest visit, had all turned on her power to purify the drama by
her influence, and example. That was her hope. “_Voilà ce que
j’espère!_” she had exclaimed; and they had strongly encouraged her in
this high aim.[146] It had been all on a different tack, then; and her
deep desire to leave the whole career behind sprang from sources utterly
independent of the Norwich influence.
But now that the desire has issued in act, now that the resolution is
taken, no doubt, the weight of the Stanleys’ inclinations would all go
to back it. The Bishop had, indeed, bravely broken though the
conventional scruples of religious people in receiving at his palace, as
a friend, one fresh from the boards. Mrs. Stanley had a hearty, and
intelligent appreciation of Jenny Lind’s dramatic powers, as she shows
by a most sympathetic account of her acting in the _Sonnambula_.
Nevertheless, the old Evangelical tradition was strong; it is felt even
in the cordial records of the intimacy which sprang up between the whole
family and Jenny Lind. When, then, she confided to them her resolution,
they could not but sympathise, and approve. Thus, in her conflict with
Lumley and his protestations, she would have behind her the full support
of the Stanleys’ affectionate friendship.
So it stood. The situation might seem to be a clear one.
But, nevertheless, a storm of trouble fell upon her. The storm broke
through the concerts which were to be her compensation to despairing
Lumley.
We have heard already the story of the concerts: how the first fell so
far short of its expected effect, that she was compelled to modify her
resolution if she was ever to save Lumley’s finances; and how she, in
order to redeem her pledge to him, offered him six last performances on
the stage. It was this offer, which brought to the front the intense
repugnance felt to the stage itself by Captain Harris and his relations,
and she found herself forced to choose between her lover’s refusal to
consent to these appearances, and her word given to Lumley. What was she
to do?
Most providentially, at this critical juncture she suddenly won the help
of a most wise and resolute adviser. Mr. Nassau Senior, the well-known
writer, and at that time a Master in Chancery, and a close personal
friend of Mrs. Grote’s, had been asked by that lady to put his legal
knowledge at the service of Jenny Lind, in the anxious matter of
marriage settlements. This he had already done in the month of February;
and now, on the 16th of April, 1849, he found a letter from her,
transmitted through Mrs. Grote, asking to see him. He went the next day
to her cottage, and after she had walked up and down the room for some
time without speaking, she sat down opposite him and fixed on him
steadfastly for a minute or two “her wonderful grey eyes” (as he calls
them), and at last asked him if he could stay a couple of hours. He
stayed; and she poured out to him the whole story—how she was pressed by
people who, according to her own graphic delineation, “think the theatre
a temple of Satan, and all the actors priests of the Devil,” how they
required of her “not only to abandon her profession, but to be ashamed
of it,”—“to go down to Bath, among people who care for nothing but
clergymen and sermons, as a sort of convert or penitent.” In the
meantime “poor Lumley and my colleagues tell me that it is ungrateful in
me, after having acquired such fame as an actress, to desert the stage
as if it were a disgrace;—that if I do so, then, instead of raising the
profession, as I had hoped to do, I shall sink it lower, as I shall seem
to fly from it like a degradation.”
We see, in all this, how the artist, and the woman, were battling within
her. Here was love brought very near to her; but yet the love clashed
with every instinct that made her an artist. To follow it, was to turn
her whole past history, into which she had herself thrown such lofty
motives, such pure inspirations, such religious elevation, into a
reproach, a scandal. It would make a breach in the continuity of her
life; it would set her at war with herself. No wonder that she cried, “I
see that, any way, all my happiness is gone for ever.”
But Mr. Nassau Senior brought to bear upon the situation the excellent
experience of a wise lawyer. He was absolutely clear that, under the
circumstances, her first duty was to fulfil her engagement to Lumley,
and, if Captain Harris treated that as a sufficient reason for
separation, then to break off the marriage, which was bound to be so
obviously unsuitable.
She saw this to be the true course; and, she, finally, signed a letter,
addressed to Mr. Senior, begging him to see Mrs. Harris, and to tell her
that, after consulting her friends, she found that they considered her
bound, in honour, to her profession, to the public, and to Mr. Lumley,
to perform for a few nights at the Opera; that, if Mr. Harris considered
his principles to be hurt or dishonoured by this,—then she could not be
responsible for the consequences.
Even this letter did not quite end matters. Captain Harris after all
persuaded himself to agree to the six performances; and Mr. Senior was
called in, not to convey ultimatums, but to draw up settlements; the
marriage itself was fixed for May 16—by special licence. But, then, with
the settlements, the old bitter question reappeared. Though she was,
herself, determined, as we well know, to leave the stage for ever, yet
her adviser naturally refused to make this a legal condition of the
settlement. His client ought _not_ to be fettered. As a woman with a
profession, and owning money, she was bound to be left free; she must be
given full liberty to use her vocal powers as she thinks fit. There
could not be an express proviso against her ever acting. And moreover,
it was also imperative that, apart from the question of the stage, she
should have full power to make her own engagements to sing, and complete
control over the disposition of her own earnings. This, as we know, was
a vital matter, according to her mind. To her, her earnings were a
sacred trust for which she was answerable. So her adviser insisted.
Captain Harris could not agree to this. The freedom demanded for the
wife, seemed to him “unscriptural.”
Mr. Senior was leaving for Paris on May 10th with Mrs. Grote; but,
before going, he earnestly recommended Mdlle. Lind to allow no change in
the settlements, out of which he had already expunged every word against
which any complaint could be made; and he begged her, if all was broken
off, to come, without a day’s delay, straight to Mrs. Grote at Paris,
where she would find counsel and comfort, without which, in her
loneliness, she could not stand.
Off to Paris, to Maison Fenci, in the Champs Elysées, he went with Mrs.
Grote, to await anxiously the issue. Letters arrived on the 13th, the
14th, and the 15th, which, though full of fluctuations, and
uncertainties, spoke of negotiations, conducted by Mrs. Stanley, which
ended in a mutual release of both from the engagement.
But, even now, would she be firm in her promise to leave London, and
come to Paris? Anyhow, a room was got ready; and, on the 16th itself, at
about seven in the evening, when Mrs. Grote was sitting, with a
headache, over the fire, there was a tap at the door, and in came Jenny
Lind.
She had got her passport the moment after her decision had been taken,
and had come as fast as steam could carry her. She was free; and free in
a manner honourable to both. She seemed to pant chiefly for rest; she
felt tired “to her very bones.”[147]
CHAPTER II.
WANDERINGS AT EASE.
We have, now, reached the date at which we broke off the story of our
heroine, after her farewell to the Opera, while we paused to recall her
social intimacies in England, and, then, to recover the thread of those
inward motives, which led, from far back in her life, to her final act
in abandoning the stage. We are, now, in full possession of her mind and
can set out, once again, with her, on the path along which her career,
for the future, carries her. It is needless to enter upon the inward
troubles that necessarily followed the severe crisis through which she
has passed. Gradually her old self stole back to her. She began to
delight in the scenery of Paris, which, in May, is enchanting. She had
long walks in the Tuileries, and drives in the Bois de Boulogne; and
“could have listened for hours,” writes Mr. Senior, “to the
nightingales. She has paid great attention to the habits of
singing-birds, and told us stories of their shyness and coquetry and of
the manner in which she used to get them to sing by pretending not to
attend to them.”[148] She called on Meyerbeer; she gave a musical lesson
every morning to a Swedish girl, Miss Ebeling.
She sang for an hour at the piano, at a five o’clock tea, ending with
the farewell song in the _Vestale_. “You have sometimes asked me which
is my best part—it is the _Vestale_,” she said to Mr. Senior. She went
to the _Prophète_, but got quickly tired of it, and came home after the
second act. She sang one evening at the house of the Swedish minister,
exciting, according to Mrs. Grote’s diary, “the most extravagant
admiration.”
Altogether, she found herself enjoying the blessed sense of freedom from
anxiety and the hurry of work, and was beginning to welcome the many
experiences which Paris could give. But, suddenly, in June, a sad event
threw her into grief. She had met Madame Catalani, and had sung to her
in a way that delighted that renowned singer;[149] but, on Mrs. Grote
calling to leave cards, before their departure from Paris, Madame
Catalani was found to be dead, stricken suddenly of cholera. Mdlle. Lind
was profoundly distressed; the shock quite unnerved her; she could not
rest until they had all got away from Paris, and its horrible cholera.
It was thus that the whole party fled to Amiens, including her guardian,
Judge Munthe, who had come from Stockholm to consult and advise. With
him she continued her journey through Brussels to Cologne. And here a
crisis occurred, which she shall tell in her own words. They were
written in a long letter, to Madame Wichmann, from Schlangenbad, July
11, which shall be given almost entire; for it reviews the whole matter
which we have been following out, and it reveals her inner feelings and
convictions after all that she had gone through. It begins by many
apologies for not writing before.
“Really I could write volumes! But it is just this which makes
writing, to me, so detestable—that, in reality, one can convey so
little by it! I have lately gone through much, my dearest Amalia, and
should like to recount it to you from my innermost heart; but not to
put it all down on paper.... Things and experiences approached me
which deeply affected my peace of mind. Everything in my innermost
heart remained undecided for a long time. I did not know what to
write. I was very near to marrying. But again it came to nothing; and
I believe this was the best, for there were things that did not please
me, and I should probably not have been made happy....
“Oh dear! I am once more myself: and I feel that I have many other
duties, and great duties, to fulfil towards others—though the finest,
the most sacred of all—I mean, a mother’s love, is forbidden—nay!
denied to me!
“I could have wished for this feeling: for it would have given me the
resting-place, of which I stand in need: and where, I fancy, I could
have achieved something good, owing to the varied experiences, which
through life I have gained already.
“But dearest soul! I am happy all the same! Inexpressibly happy: for
have I not been favoured by fate with much more than I deserve, such
as is vouchsafed to few here on earth!...
“I left London for Paris, where I tumbled into the most fearful
cholera epidemic. Thither my dear guardian came, in order that I might
have a trusty soul about me. Then on June 13th we went to Brussels,
and from there to Cologne, and have looked at the Rhine. Old father
Rhine! how glorious it is, and ever will be! Well, I had meanwhile
sent my Swedish lady to London to pack up; and to have my things sent
to Sweden. But one day I went to see a renowned doctor at Coblentz, to
consult him about my shattered nerves. He examined my head, and also
my heart (which are, both, terribly fatigued), and then told me that,
unless I nursed myself properly now, I should be liable to break down
completely when I took up work again. He has utterly forbidden me to
sing for six or eight months: and has sent me here for a fortnight, in
preparation for four weeks at Ems. After Ems I am free until after
October. But I wish to spend next winter in Sweden, where I have many
matters to arrange.
“Dear, kind, Amalia! could not we meet somewhere? Are you not in need
of Ems? Could we not go to Switzerland? ... or shall I come to Berlin
or will you come to Ems? or are we not to meet at all???? I have just
received a letter from London, confirming the news of —— ——
re-appearance! I am much surprised at this. May a gracious God
preserve me from such a calamity as to come before the public as an
old lady! Rather bread and water! While in Paris, I saw Meyerbeer, and
his new opera. I was glad to see him again, for he has always been
very good to me: but I prefer his earlier operas.
“Will you please remember me to old Frau Beer? And how is dear
Professor Werder? Has he completely forgotten me? And old Frau
Schrœder?” (the porter’s wife at the Wichmanns’ house). “I love a
person like that immensely! I know nothing more beautiful than such a
faithful old being, going about in a family, who really lives only in
taking interest in what concerns her master’s family, and in feeling
for them and with them! Greet this dear old soul; and also good Nanke:
and Frederic (the man-servant). It was my happiest time when I saw all
this daily before me! If I send no greetings to my Professor, or my
beloved brothers, it is because it goes without saying. Everything
that I have written here to you, is meant also for the father and his
sons. God protect you all!
“Send a friendly answer, and then I shall know that you _never_ could
have doubted that I remain for ever and ever,
“Your faithful, and sincerely loving,
“JENNY LIND.”
The doubt that she refers to, arose from the long silence, for which the
early part of the letter overwhelmingly apologises—an apology that has
very frequently to be repeated in the course of Jenny Lind’s
correspondence.
The doctor’s verdict shows how merciful it was that she had not had the
strain of another opera season in London laid upon her. The fatigue of
the shattered nerves may, no doubt, have been partly due to the agonies
of the conflict with Lumley, and of the decision in the matter of her
marriage. But, still, the tired heart and tired head, of which she spoke
at Norwich, were evidently no fancy of her own, but very serious facts.
She had been hard at work for so many years: and was now thoroughly
exhausted.
On July 14th she wrote to Madame Birch-Pfeiffer one of the confidential
outpourings, which tell so much. In it, she says—
“What do you say of my having left the stage? I cannot tell you in
words how happy I feel about it. I shall sing in concerts so long as I
have a voice; but that only gives me pleasure; and in this way I shall
be able to work at least five years longer; and that is necessary for
me, as, for the last twelve months, I have sung only for institutions
and charities. Without a beautiful goal, one cannot endure life. At
least, _I_ cannot. I have begun to sing what has long been the wish of
my heart—Oratorio. There I can sing the music I love; and the words
make me feel a better being. See! dear mother! my career, in the
future, will take this direction; and my favourite idea be realised.”
From Schlangenbad she wrote to Madame Mendelssohn, apparently for the
first time since his death. And soon after this letter, she paid her a
visit at Creuznach on the Rhine: and another affectionate letter
followed the visit: so that her long silence, since the death, was
entirely explained, and the old memories came to a kind and satisfying
close. She hoped still to work on behalf of the Mendelssohn
scholarships.
To Ems, for the present, she went from Schlangenbad: and, according to
reports that reached Mrs. Grote, appeared soon to be in excellent health
and in high spirits, enjoying a dance whenever opportunity offered. It
was from Ems, on the 8th of August, that she wrote a long letter again
to Madame Birch-Pfeiffer full of the deepest personal interest. In it,
she discloses her own interpretation of the strange animation that had
followed on her exhausting struggles. Here are some extracts:—
“DEAREST MOTHER B.!
“You ask me, ‘Are you, then, going to be married?’ I answer, ‘No!
never!’ I have, indeed, greatly wished for it, for few have more
strongly than I, the real inner feeling of a wife: and a deep blessing
it would have been to me to have called a child ‘my own.’ And I had
got very, very near to it lately in England, my dear mother! but——”
And, then, she tells how many things told against it—how the young man
was too young, and too gentle; and how his mother was impossible: and
how her whole art was a shut book to him: and yet how he touched her
just because he embodied the English character, with its religious
purity: “Ah! dear mother, I love with my whole soul the English
character!” But it has ended; they have parted, and, now, it seems to
her as if the affair had done her good, rather than harm:
“It has passed over my soul like a beneficent storm which has broken
down all the hard shell of my being, and has set free many green
plants to find their way to the dear sun! So that, now I am always
clothed in green like the fairest hope! And I see quite clearly how
infinitely much there is for me to do with my life; and I have only
one prayer, that I may yet live long, and that, in the evening of my
life, I may be able to show a pure soul to God.
“I am going quietly back to Sweden for next winter, to take fresh
measures on behalf of my school, and to wed myself wholly to
well-doing, for which I am, finally, born, since it is the sense of
man’s worth which has ever drawn me most strongly, and has most richly
filled my soul; and, if only I can come at all near my aims in this,
then no one is more to be envied than I!
“You see, my future lies clear in front of me, my dear friend and
mother!”
She goes on to ask, with devoted affection, for news of Minni (Madame
Birch-Pfeiffer’s daughter, who has kindly furnished us with this and
other letters), to whom she pledges herself in life-long sisterhood.
And, at the end, she closes thus—
“Mother, I am glad and grateful from morning to night! I do not feel
lonely: and have no trace of ennui: and only find the days fly by too
horribly quick. I have a blitheness in my soul, which strains towards
heaven! I am like a bird; I do not feel the least changed, quite the
contrary; and the ‘summa summarum’ is that I have won the greatest
profit out of both outer and inner misfortune; and can thank God that
I know what trouble is! All makes at last for good! God does not die,
dear mother.”
Her doctor, then, advised a grape-cure, at Meran in Tyrol, to complete
her recovery: and thither she sets herself to draw the Wichmanns,
proposing all sorts of ways by which they might all meet there. “You
must not put yourselves out, dearest,” she writes to Madame Wichmann;
“but it would be delicious if you did resolve to come to Meran.” She
proposes to be there from the middle of September to the middle of
October. And, finally, they did all settle together at Ober-Mais, a
village just above Meran. Thither offers pursued her, as we learn from a
letter of Herr Büttner, a Frankfort merchant who kindly looked after her
many affairs in South Germany, to Herr Munthe, her guardian.
“Mdlle. Jenny Lind has safely arrived at Meran, and is well and happy
there. _From everywhere_ they try to get our dear friend. A very big
offer has come from England, higher than ever, and with every sort of
guarantee. Last week an American has gone from here to Meran in order
to induce her to go to New York. Well! such an artist has never before
existed! May heaven grant her good health and inward contentment!”
This was not the first time that America had crossed her mind. Already
on the 13th of June, while in Paris, in a letter to Madame Schwabe, she
begs her to ask Mr. Schwabe what his views would be on the possibility
of her giving concerts in America. But nothing yet is settled. The whole
party returned together in October, by way of Voralberg to Frankfort;
and, after parting there with her dear friends, she was taken from
Frankfort to· Hamburg, where she was to sing in some concerts. She wrote
touchingly from there of the joy she had had in the intimacy of the
Wichmanns during the stay at Meran together. The letter is dated October
29th.
“MY OWN DEAREST AMALIA—
“... I was greatly overcome when you all were gone! I am, certainly,
accustomed to be alone; but I knit myself too quickly to people whom I
love, and cannot, then, believe that I must lose them again! I had got
so used to enjoying the happiness of being in your helpful
companionship, and of seeing your domestic love, that I was sad indeed
for the whole of Sunday! You dear good people! To think that you
should permit me to be a partner in your happiness! You cannot think
how grateful I am for all this, dearest!”
At Hamburg, a summons came to her, through the Wichmanns, from the King
of Prussia, Frederick William IV., who had made her his Chamber-singer
in 1847,[150] that she should come to Berlin, and sing to him and the
Queen, on the Queen’s birthday. Her loyal soul was touched by the
message; she wrote back to Madame Wichmann, with kindled feeling:—
“How deeply your letter went home to me, I cannot really tell you! It
cannot but move my very heart to think that His Majesty the King
should be so gracious to me, and I shall account it the greatest joy
if I can succeed in giving even the slightest pleasure to the Queen by
my singing.... Pray tell Count Redern (through whom the request came)
that I gladly obey the King’s desire, and will be in Berlin by the
19th of this month (November).
“Ah! dear Amalia (so she closes her letter) I long after you all! It
remains true that it is with you, and yours, that I have spent the
happiest days in my life!”
She sang in several concerts, during this November and December in
Hamburg; and one of these, with full orchestra, in the “Grosse Tonhalle”
on November 22nd was given by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, of whom she saw a
good deal at this time. They did much music together. He played, and she
sang; the memory of Mendelssohn was a strong common bond between them.
Mr. Goldschmidt began to persuade her to sing again those songs of
Mendelssohn’s which, for two years, she had found it impossible for her
to touch. He was charged with the musical spirit of his great master:
and she recognised this. It was at this time that she received so
distinct an impression of his gifts, that it was of him she first
thought when, two years later, on her American tour, she found herself
in want of one who could make up for the loss of Julius Benedict. So
this visit to Hamburg was quietly “making history” for her after-life.
When the day of departure drew near, she was amused and delighted to
find an express messenger sent by the royal authority to convey her to
Berlin in the shape of W. Taubert, the distinguished Hof-Capellmeister,
who had always been most friendly to her, and in whom she greatly
delighted. “I cannot help laughing with joy when I think of seeing that
dear man Taubert to-morrow. I confess that it gives me huge pleasure!”
So she wrote to “Amalia.”
To Berlin she came, under these happy conditions, staying in the beloved
house of the Wichmanns: and singing before King and Queen.
In the meantime, another King was pressing her hard to reverse her
deep-seated decision, and to feel once again the boards under her feet.
The pressure came in a form that would touch her profoundly. It was an
appeal from her own King, Oscar I. of Sweden, to give a lift to her old
home, the Royal Theatre at Stockholm, at the time of the festivities
that were to be held, in the spring of 1850, on the occasion of the
marriage of the Crown Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles XV. She
was Court Singer; and in the service, therefore, of the King. And
moreover, the appeal was transmitted through her old master Herr Berg,
who had come across from Sweden, in November, on this mission, to meet
her at Hamburg. The strength of her determination could not be more
severely tested. Her innate loyalty, patriarchal in its simplicity, her
home affections, her patriotism, her devotion to her old master, her
deep instincts of obedience to authority—all radical elements woven into
the very fibre of her character—must have all conspired to move her. Yet
there is no record or sign of her having wavered for even a moment. We
do not know that she consulted her friends. Her indecision, at momentous
crises, was apt to betray her into many fluctuations, and to leave
numerous traces behind it. But, on this occasion, there is not a note.
We only know that Herr Berg was powerless. He had to retire, sailing
home again from Lübeck on the 7th of December, whither she courteously
escorted him herself. A kindly letter, written on December 25th, in
autograph, from the King closed the attempt:—
“The Court-singer Berg has, on his return, informed me of the
willingness with which you, Fröken Lind, have declared yourself ready
to appear, next year, at several concerts, in order that by your
brilliant talent, you may render powerful assistance to our theatre. I
recognise, in this, a fresh proof of Fröken Lind’s patriotic feelings,
and of her warm sympathy with the advancement of Swedish Lyric Art;
and I consider it a pleasant duty to express how keenly I appreciate
this decision which is as disinterested as it is admirable. I look
forward to seeing Fröken Lind amongst us again next spring, and remain
with sincere goodwill,
“Yours graciously,
“OSCAR.”
It is, indeed, a gracious letter, for the little word “Lyric,” which
occurs in it, is the signal that the original request, that she should
allow herself to recur to the Opera, had not been conceded. Not King nor
Country could induce her to reverse a conviction which had gone down to
the roots of her being.
CHAPTER III.
LÜBECK.
Lübeck, to which she had gone to accompany Herr Berg homewards, was to
hold her yet awhile; and was to be the scene of that momentous decision
which is to form the close of these volumes. She wrote, during her stay
there, letters which carry with them much of her innermost mind.
Altogether, it is a marked spot in her story.
She seems to have been delayed there by an accident.
“Dearest Amalia,” she wrote on the day of Herr Berg’s departure, “I
write with no very bright spirits to you, for I have no chance of
seeing you and yours again so soon as I had hoped. My good Josephina
has fallen ill. It is nothing dangerous, thank God! on the contrary,
the doctor thinks that, after it is over, she may be better than she
was before.
“But you will understand well enough, that I cannot, and will not
leave her. So that I shall not be able to be with you, my dear ones,
by Christmas Eve, but must wait for the New Year, to knock at your
door.... Ah! write me some few words, before that, dearest, and say
that you are still good to me, and how it goes with them all.
“Your grateful, and loving
“J. L.”
There she stayed: and, from there, just at this same moment, she wrote a
long, and personal letter to her old friends, of whom we have heard
before,—Baroness French and her daughter. She had suddenly had a letter
from them, and this reminded her of her long silence; and her heart is
touched: and she offers eager and characteristic apologies.
We leave her English just as she wrote it, because she herself
apologises for its “funny” style, in the letter, and it will serve to
show what was her command over the language at that time. The sentence
on Madame Catalani shows how deeply that swift death had impressed her:—
“Lübeck, the 6th of December, 1849.
“MY DEAR MADAM,
“I wish you really could see how pleased I am to receive a few kind
words from you and Miss Georgina. Accept my very best thank for the
last letter. I must confess that I have safely got the one you were so
kind to write me when I was at Ems. I was for a long time so very
low-spirited. Madame Catalani stood always before my eyes, and her
smiling face does still follow me very often. I thank you a thousand
times, my dear Baroness, that you still remember me so very kindly,
although I have not given you any sign of life since long ago. I have
long wished to write you a few words, but I had dropped your address
at London, and did not know whether you were to return to that place
or not. I very often think of my dear Miss Georgina, who I really love
a great deal! I hope that blessed sweet young lady is in perfect
health. I wished very much to have the happiness of seeing you and
your daughter very soon again, my dear Madam, but I have no idea of
going to England at present. You are very kind in asking about my head
and health—I feel myself rather stronger, my head is _very_ naughty at
some times, but seldom to the _highest_ degree. My nerves are better,
and I feel _much less_ agitated and more quiet than before. I believe
that my having left the stage may be the chief reason for this happy
change; my whole nature and my way of feeling was always very opposite
to that sort of being, who can bear the calumnies of a theatrical
life. Can you understand my ‘funny’ English, dear Madam?
“My good Miss Åhmansson, who is such a valuable and solid friend to
me, is not at all well! She is ill at this moment—she has got a sort
of low ‘fièvre’ with small red (rouge) spots over her body (excuse my
bad English, I don’t know how to express myself in this medical case).
It is nothing dangerous, but we are kept up in this little place for
four weeks; and, it is really a good thing, that I don’t much care for
the world and its amusements; for I should, if the case was contrary,
feel rather lonely and tiresome; but so, I am happy with my music, my
little dog—my books—my study—and the great number of sublime
remembrances. We intend to go from here to Berlin, as soon as Miss
Åhmansson will recover; we remain in Berlin a few weeks, I should
think, and then we probably go to Russia; I must try to get money; I
wonder how I will like _that_ part of the world, and how that part of
the world will like such a thing as myself! In the month of May I
return to Sweden, as I suppose, only for a short time, because my
doctor will most likely get me to Ems once again! I have sung (chanté)
a few times, and my voice is grown stronger and better.
“I hope now, my dear Baroness, you have got plenty of news from me!
Will you kindly forgive my so much speaking of myself—but I do this
only to persons I love and respect. Take not away your kindness and
friendship towards me, dear respected Madam, I entreat you; and be
assured that I think of you, and remember you with true and sincere
affection! My sister-love, and sister-blessing to Miss Georgina. Send
me, sometimes, a few words which tell me about your health, and
happiness; for such kindness my heart will always feel thankful!
“I am,
“Dear Madam,
“Your most affectionate,
“J. LIND.”
“Little Beauty (her King Charles dog) is _quite_ well!”
This letter is full of her most instinctive feelings. There is the old
hunger to be assured, by visible token, that affections for her are
still strong, with the haunting fear lest they should have ceased in
absence; while, after all, it turns out that she herself, whether
through lack of time, or possibly, through a dim sense of vague
distrust, fails and forgets to keep communication constant.
Then, again, how noticeable is her sense of peace in having left the
agitations of the stage behind her! It is her old familiar manner of
expressing her repugnance, such as we saw it at the first, when she
opened her heart to Mrs. Grote. It is not the Drama as such on which she
passes judgment. But “the calumnies”—the warfare, the strain, the
anxiety—which the career involved—_these_ are wholly opposite to her
nature. She cannot bring herself to contemplate a return under their
yoke. So she remains very happy, with her music, her little dog, her
books, and her store of splendid memories.
But she needs money—not for herself, but for her great scheme of home
charity. It is for this that she is contemplating Russia. What the
overtures made to her on this matter were, she does not say; but, as we
shall see, the Russian trip is, very soon, to be discarded in favour of
a new proposal from the West. She writes, on January 8th, from Lübeck,
to Madame Wichmann:—
“I am not to go to Russia after all, for Russia is thrown into the
background by another big plan. But I shall come to you as was planned
at first, though it be for only a short time.”
The “other plan” is indeed a big one. It is the great American tour.
Through the person of his agent, Mr. J. H. Wilton, who has planted
himself at her side, Mr. Barnum has come into action, and is pressing
his trip with the decision, the vigour, the imagination, the practical
confidence which he knows so well how to throw into a scheme.
We remember how the idea of America had floated before her ever since
she left London; and tentative American gentlemen had hovered about her,
in her Meran retreat. But there is nothing floating, nothing tentative,
in Mr. Barnum’s conception of what is to be done. He sees, and knows,
exactly what it is which can be achieved. He is absolutely resolute; he
has complete command of resources; he is ready to give the most positive
pledges, and his offer is not only generous—it is magnificent.
Everything that she has dreamed of, will be possible to her, if she is
free to apply to her schemes on behalf of poor children the splendid
fruits which Mr. Barnum is prepared, confidently, and without reserve,
to promise her. Three days later than his last letter, she writes to say
that the thing is done;—the contract is signed. It was the largest
contract, probably, that had then ever been made for such a purpose; and
had about it the stamp of that boldness which is so characteristic of
its American author, who was the first to perceive the new and immense
scale on which the world’s amusements could be carried out, now that
steam, by sea and land, had knit the vast population of the wide earth
together into one mass, which could be dealt with as a single whole.
This is why Mr. Barnum’s name is noticeable. He has gone high and low,
in his actual range; he has sometimes brought near to man a splendid
gift like this voice of Jenny Lind; he has, at others, dropped to
providing them with food for the stupid gaze of mere blind wonder. But,
always, he has understood the condition of his day. Always, he has seen
that the same resources which have made the face of the earth a single
market, can be turned to the purpose of making it also a single fair.
Just as each of us now draws upon the whole world for food, so each of
us may draw upon the whole world for joy. The railways, that hurry up to
us the one, can equally convey the other. And as this new fact enlarges
the scale of the world’s market, so it will enlarge the scale of the
world’s fair. Enormous accumulations of population, and wealth, all
united under the network of a world-wide commerce, can all be touched,
at one time, by a single pleasure. Amusements, therefore, can now be
universal, popular, democratic. They need no longer be confined to the
few who can afford to pay high for them, paying higher because they are
few: for they can appeal, now, to a far larger purse than the wealthiest
clique could ever possess—the deep purse of the multitudes upon
multitudes, who, through minute subdivision of the general expense, can
be cheaply brought together to taste enjoyment. The American tour of
Jenny Lind was one of the very earliest manifestations of this modern
characteristic.
To this contract Jenny Lind engaged herself, while seated alone, in the
Hôtel du Nord, Lübeck, with no one but Mdlle. Åhmansson. She was
accustomed to mistrust her own judgment, and to take much counsel; but,
here, she seems to act with free decision. No doubt, she was in
communication with Herr Munthe, her guardian; from Lübeck letters passed
easily to Stockholm. But she herself carried on the necessary
correspondence, putting herself, by the help of Mr. Benedict, into
communication with Mr. Bates, of the firm of Baring Brothers, London,
from whom she obtained assurances of Mr. Barnum’s stability and
position. Belletti, too, was in London at the time, and both to him, and
to Benedict, she wrote constantly, as the negotiations went on.
Here is the contract itself, in its chief points. It is preceded by a
letter from Mr. Barnum to his agent, authorising him to enter into the
engagement with Miss Jenny Lind, including also a “tenor and a pianist.”
For the pianist, Julius Benedict was secured, the musician so well known
to all in England; instead of “the tenor,” she herself pleaded for, and
obtained, the help of her old helpmate, and counsellor, Giovanni
Belletti, the famous baritone, who had been one of the first, in quite
old days, to inspire her with a sense of what a high artistic style
might mean.
The contract is made between J. H. Wilton, as agent for Phineas Barnum
as the one party, and Fröken Jenny Lind, as the other. In it, she agrees
to sing at one hundred and fifty concerts, including Oratorios, within
the space of one year, if possible, or eighteen months, counting from
the day of her arrival in New York; the concerts are to be given in the
United States and Havannah. She is to have full power regarding the
_number_ of evenings or concerts in each week, at which she would sing,
as well as over the number of pieces sung by her; only that the concerts
were not to be less than two a week, nor the pieces sung less than four.
All was to be regulated in accordance with the preservation of her
health, and voice. There is an express stipulation that she shall in no
case have to appear in Opera.
In consideration of these services, she is to have all expenses paid for
journeys and hotels, both for herself and for a lady companion and a
secretary; besides this, she is to be allowed a maid and a servant at
her own disposal, and a carriage and pair; and £200 (or 1000 dollars)
for every concert or oratorio in which she sings.
“A guarantee for all this is to be deposited with Baring Brothers, in
London, before her departure.”
There is a special and noticeable stipulation, that Jenny Lind shall
“have perfect freedom whenever she feels inclined,” to sing for
charitable purposes, independently of her present engagement; only she
is to consult him as to times, and places, “with regard to their
reciprocal convenience”; and in no place, may she so sing, until after
two concerts have been given there under her engagement to him. The
remaining stipulations are of the usual type. Finally, she is pledged to
start for America from Liverpool by the last steamer in August, or the
first in September, 1850.
So it runs; and it is signed and sealed, by the two parties, on January
9, 1850, in the presence of the Consul for Sweden and Norway, Mr. C. A.
Nölting.
On the basis of this contract, she sailed for America; but two days
after her arrival at New York Mr. Barnum, on his own initiative, tore it
up in her presence, and proposed to her a new form of it, with several
amendments made to meet her wishes. Her astonishment and delight at this
generous treatment are recorded in Barnum’s ‘Autobiography,’ p.
109;[151] and Mr. Frith, in his memoirs,[152] has told his memory of her
own version of it, given him at a dinner-party where he met her. The
chief alterations were (1), a half share of profits whenever the
receipts of a concert were above 5,500 dollars; (2), a careful
stipulation in view of the American climate not suiting her voice; and
(3) her right to give up after sixty concerts—or again after one hundred
concerts, with fixed penalties in either case.
Of this last right, she availed herself at the close of the ninety-third
concert. Mr. Barnum himself wrote to her, proposing to relinquish the
remaining seven concerts, which would complete the full hundred. They
parted the best of friends; and she, then, gave forty more concerts on
her own speculation, _i.e._, nineteen during the month of June and July,
1851, in New England, and twenty-one more during October, November, and
December, in Canada, Illinois, &c., winding-up with Boston and
Philadelphia, at which town she sang, on December 13th, the last concert
that she ever gave under her maiden name of Jenny Lind.
Such was the general issue of this Lübeck contract. The offer, made and
secured, was certainly magnificent, and it may be well here to recall
the motives with which she accepted, and fulfilled it. None of it was
intended to be taken for any personal use. She was set on other aims—
above all, on her endowment of a hospital for poor children. She carried
out her intention with care and fidelity. Apart from the concerts on
behalf of special charities, and apart from her own endless gifts to
charitable purposes during the royal progress through the States, the
entire sum gained was thrown into a “private or separate fund,” which
was kept clear and distinct to the end of her life, and was finally left
by her will, to be administered by trustees, for certain definite
purposes. Only twice did she ever consent, in after years, to dip into
the capital for her own benefit; in the first case, it was for the sake
of a small purchase of land, the value of which could be realized and
was, as a fact, returned to the fund. In the second instance she bought
the cottage with its plot of mountain land on the Malvern Hills, at
which she spent such happy holidays during the last few years of her
life, in which she died. The purposes laid down by her will, for the
final distribution of the fund, which in its original form stood at
about £20,000, include a sum of 50,000 Swedish crowns to the University
of Upsala and another equal sum to the University of Lund.[153] These
moneys are to take the shape of scholarships to poor students under a
scheme passed by her trustees. The balance of the fund, after the
various deductions, to which it was liable before and after her death,
have been discharged, will go to a Children’s Hospital at Stockholm, of
which she so often has spoken.
The interest of the fund, during her life, was largely pledged to the
innumerable pensions for which she made herself responsible, in her
native land.
We must, however, go back, from these afternotes, to the hotel at
Lübeck. There she remained, after the contract was settled, apparently
with great contentment. She saw her way, now, ahead for the next two
years; she had full proof that the abandonment of the drama would not
cut her off from adequate opportunities of exercising her art. A career
was assured her, in the concert-room, which would fulfil all her aims,
both as an artist, to enrich the world by her splendid gifts, and, as a
woman, to endow the poor by her generosity. She might look forward, with
security, and peace. Nothing which she valued was lost, as she felt;
while much that she detested, had been thrown aside. She records her
satisfaction to Madame Wichmann in a letter written on January 12th:—
“Hôtel du Nord, Lübeck.
“January 12, 1850.
“BELOVED AMALIA!
(First page entirely personal.)
* * * * “I now wish to give you a clear idea of my future plans, so
that you—and all yours—may know the truth and be able to distinguish
the facts from mere reports.
“I have decided to go to America. The offer from there was very
brilliant, and everything was arranged so nicely, that I would have
been wrong in declining it; and since I have no greater wish than to
make much money in order to found schools in Sweden, I cannot help
looking upon this journey to America as a gracious answer to my prayer
to Heaven!