THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE IN THE AMERICAN WOODS
I
After the conductor on the Philadelphia-New York train had guessed
that Jenny Lind was a dancer, Barnum began to remove all possible
misconceptions in the public mind concerning his new purchase, which
he had this time literally procured after much trouble and expense.
He wrote a statement to the press, confirming the rumor that he had
engaged Jenny Lind. It was printed in all the New York newspapers for
February 22, 1850, and copied by newspapers in other cities. With a
noble gesture Barnum said to the public:
“Perhaps I may not make any money by this enterprise; but I
assure you that if I knew I should not make a farthing profit,
I would ratify the engagement, so anxious am I that the United
States should be visited by a lady whose vocal powers have never
been approached by any other human being, and whose character is
charity, simplicity, and goodness personified.
“Miss Lind has numerous better offers than the one she has accepted
from me; but she has great anxiety to visit America. She speaks of
this country and its institutions in the highest terms of praise,
and as money is by no means the greatest inducement that can be
laid before her, she is determined to visit us.
“In her engagement with me (which includes Havana), she expressly
reserves the right to give charitable concerts whenever she thinks
proper. Since her début in England, she has given to the poor from
her own private purse more than the whole amount which I have
engaged to pay her, and the proceeds of concerts for charitable
purposes in Great Britain, where she has sung gratuitously, have
realized more than ten times that amount.”
It was this mention of Jenny Lind’s charities, used casually but
pointedly in every publicity notice Barnum wrote that turned his
speculation into a certain success. It is proof of his sagacity as a
showman that he utilized all sides of his materials, and even exploited
as effectively as he did their main claims to fame, any incidental
personal characteristics they might reveal. He not only exploited them
thoroughly, but he also foresaw the possibilities of them, at least in
the case of Jenny Lind. A few years later Barnum looked back upon his
accomplishment and confessed: “I may as well state,” he wrote in his
autobiography, “that although I relied prominently upon Jenny Lind’s
reputation as a great musical _artiste_, I also took largely into my
estimate of her success with all classes of the American public, her
character for extraordinary benevolence and generosity. Without this
peculiarity in her disposition, I never would have dared make the
engagement which I did, as I felt sure that there were multitudes of
individuals in America who would be prompted to attend her concerts by
this feeling alone.” Previously divas had sung for charity, and there
are those who do so unobtrusively every day, yet never before or since
have we heard of an artist’s benevolence in the same breath as we heard
of her talents; but Jenny Lind during the entire period of her fame in
America was known and discussed more as a Florence Nightingale than as
The Swedish Nightingale.
Barnum, as he himself expressed it, “had put innumerable means and
appliances into operation for the furtherance of my object, and
little did the public see of the hand that indirectly pulled at their
heart-strings, preparatory to a relaxation of their purse-strings;
and these means and appliances were continued and enlarged throughout
the whole of that triumphal musical campaign.” It was not necessary
for Barnum to work very hard with the New York newspapers; they could
be depended upon to realize that Jenny Lind was a story, and in the
days when James Gordon Bennett, the elder, was hurling almost daily
competitive epithets at Horace Greeley, a story was sought after
with even greater zeal than to-day, when cables, wireless telegraphy
and airplanes make so many of them. In 1850 the New York newspapers
gave much space to the news from Europe, and Jenny Lind was creating
a European sensation. The English and Continental newspapers were
received by the New York newspapers on the fastest steamers, and
long extracts from them took the place of local stories. Although
the conductor of the Philadelphia train may have ignored it, the
Jenny Lind mania in Europe did not escape the eye of the metropolitan
editor. Extracts of European criticisms, accounts of her personal and
artistic triumphs, comments on her benevolence, appear regularly in the
newspapers of the period, so she was not exactly unknown to those in
America who read the European news.
But there were undoubtedly many who did not read the European news,
and it was for those that Barnum worked, because they were to pay the
bills. He met an English newspaper writer who had seen Jenny Lind and
had heard her sing. Barnum hired him to write articles of one or two
newspaper columns once or twice each week, as long as his ingenuity and
Barnum’s suggestions held out. He wrote of her personal characteristics
and the warmth of her receptions in Europe, so that those who could
not be fascinated by the sentimentality of her benevolence could be
impressed by the prestige of European opinion. The articles were dated
“London” and appeared as special correspondence from that city. Barnum
told a reporter for the _Chicago Tribune_ in June, 1890, “I suppose
that was the first attempt in this country to ‘work the press.’ I
am free to confess that it couldn’t be done now. Besides, it is not
necessary.” This last was in deference to his guest, for he always
regarded reporters as guests, “whom he frequently did not wait for,
but sent for,” as a friend said. But Barnum “worked the press” until
he died, not always so crudely, but with invariable effect, and to-day
also young men with imaginations think publicly for motion picture
stars and prima donnas, bank presidents and national governments.
On August 14, 1850, the _New York Tribune_ printed an alleged letter
received by Barnum from Julius Benedict, who wrote that he had
just heard Jenny Lind again and assured Barnum that “her voice has
acquired--_if that were possible_--even additional power and effect by
a timely and well-chosen repose.” Julius Benedict also said: “Mlle.
Lind is very anxious to give a Welcome to America in a kind of National
Song, which, if I can obtain the poetry of one of your first-rate
literary men, I shall set to music, and which she will sing in addition
to the pieces originally fixed upon.” This letter was without doubt
written by Barnum. It was dated from Schlangenbad, Germany, August 24,
and was printed in the _New York Tribune_ of August 14. This may have
been a misprint in the _Tribune_, and it may have been an error in
calculation upon the part of Barnum or his employees. However, even if
the letter were mailed from Germany on August 4 or August 1, it could
not possibly have reached Barnum in time to print in the _Tribune_
of August 14. Besides, Barnum, as he tells in his autobiography, had
been thinking for some time of this Welcome to America, and we know
that the desire for such a song not only did not originate with Jenny
Lind, but that she was reluctant to sing it after Barnum had made the
arrangements necessary; then, Julius Benedict would not have suggested
a song by a “first-rate” literary man, using one of Barnum’s favorite
Yankee adjectives. Three days later the _Morning Courier and Enquirer_,
a New York newspaper, printed the following card of announcement from
Barnum:
“MESSRS. EDITORS:--
“Will you please to state that Jenny Lind having expressed a
strong desire to sing at her first concert in New York a ‘Welcome
to America,’ and Mr. Jules Benedict, the eminent composer, having
volunteered to set such a composition to music, I hereby offer two
hundred dollars for such a song as may be accepted for the above
purpose by the following committee:--Messrs. George Ripley, Jules
Benedict, Lewis Gaylord Clarke, J. S. Redfield, and Geo. P. Putnam.
The songs to be addressed to the committee box, No. 2743 Post
Office, New York, and to reach here by the 1st of September.”
Seven hundred and fifty-three poems were submitted to the judges, and
the prize was finally awarded to Bayard Taylor, whose contribution does
not do him any credit. In its report the Prize Committee stated frankly
that a large proportion of the productions were “not fit to feed the
pigs.” The announcement that Taylor’s poem had won the prize created a
storm of protest, and most of the other 752 poets rushed or wrote to
favorite newspaper editors, crying fraud. Putnam, one of the judges,
was Bayard Taylor’s publisher, and George Ripley was one of Taylor’s
colleagues on the staff of the _New York Tribune_. But the judges were
not guilty of fraud, however appearances may have been against them.
They submitted two poems, the one by Taylor, and one by Epes Sargent,
to Jenny Lind, who, reluctant to sing any such song, chose Bayard
Taylor’s because it was shorter.[8]
Taylor’s ode read:
GREETING TO AMERICA
Words by Bayard Taylor--Music by Julius Benedict
“I greet with a full heart the Land of the West,
Whose Banner of Stars o’er a world is unrolled;
Whose empire o’ershadows Atlantic’s wide breast,
And opens to sunset its gateway of gold!
The land of the mountain, the land of the lake,
And rivers that roll in magnificent tide--
Where the souls of the mighty from slumber awake,
And hallow the soil for whose freedom they died!
“Thou Cradle of Empire! though wide be the foam
That severs the land of my fathers and thee,
I hear, from thy bosom, the welcome of home,
For song has a home in the hearts of the Free!
And long as thy waters shall gleam in the sun,
And long as thy heroes remember their scars,
Be the hands of thy children united as one,
And Peace shed her light on thy Banner of Stars!”
There was another stanza, but this is quite enough, which is what
Julius Benedict and Jenny Lind thought, for only those two stanzas
were set to music and sung. Bayard Taylor himself was not proud of his
effort. Both he and Richard Henry Stoddard, his best friend, competed
for the prize, because they both needed the $200. Taylor wrote to a
friend that his “only inspiration was the hope of getting the two
hundred dollars,” and the protests of the other competitors, coupled
with the knowledge that he had not written a good poem, made him regret
that he had ever yielded to temptation. He was worried about the
effect of the poem upon his reputation, and he told Stoddard before
the protests of the other competitors that he anticipated them because
two of the judges were his friends. Two months after the prize was
announced he wrote to Stoddard: “Did you see the Brooklyn announcement
of my lecture? (‘Bayard Taylor, the successful competitor of the Jenny
Lind prize.’) Is that song to be the only thing which will save my name
from oblivion?” It was not necessary for him to worry: his translation
of Goethe’s _Faust_ has outlived the “Welcome to America.”
William Allen Butler, author of “Nothing to Wear,” wrote a book of
parodies which went into three editions, called _Barnum’s Parnassus_,
purporting to be confidential disclosures of the Jenny Lind Prize
Committee. The following is the most interesting poem in the book:
A VOLUNTEER ODE
By the ‘Acknowledged Best Song Writer’--Not a Competitor
I
“Ho! all ye bards, from best to worst,
In village, town or city;
Hand in your Songs before the 1st
To Barnum’s Prize Committee!
“Ho! every charming poetess
Pick out your choicest ditty,
And send it on, post-paid--express--
To Barnum’s Prize Committee!
* * * * *
IV
“$200, cash! My eyes!
In _cash_, two hundred dollars!
Why, in the good old centuries
Your Spensers and your Wallers,
And those Elizabethan gents,
In ruffs, and beards and bonnets,
Were glad to get as many _pence_
For one of their short sonnets!”
* * * * *
The protesting poetical voices pleased Barnum immensely. He had offered
his $200 for a prize ode, and he received as well several hundred
letters of indignation written to the newspapers, a book of parodies,
in every one of which his name was mentioned several times, and a
reputation for generosity to poor literary men, who were also newspaper
men.
At the same time enterprising publishers, without Barnum’s solicitation
and much to his advantage, were publishing brochures on the life of
Jenny Lind, in all of which her virtues were exaggerated and her
powers over-rated. Her portraits were in every shop window. Jenny Lind
songsters, Jenny Lind Musical Monthlies, and Jenny Lind Annuals were
announced for sale six months before her arrival. A few days before
she landed in New York the _Morning Courier and Enquirer_ told its
anxious readers that “she possesses a greater combination of greater
excellence than all who have gone before her, and ... she adds to these
a divine purity and grace peculiarly her own.... Her method is fertile,
her manner fervid, her execution finished to the last possible degree,
and her powers as an actress remarkable.... It seems to be admitted,
in fact, that she approaches as nearly to perfection in her art as can
be expected of a human being unaided by magic power.” These and other
advance ecstasies concerning Jenny Lind’s voice, before she had sung
a note, worked up newspaper readers to a high pitch of anticipatory
delight. Jenny Lind was to appear, as Barnum later expressed it, “in
the presence of a jury already excited to enthusiasm in her behalf.”
II
Every berth was occupied in the _Atlantic_, which was known as the
“Jenny Lind Boat,” Americans in Europe being eager to return home
as her traveling companions. Accounts of her very last moments in
England, her visit to Queen Victoria to bid farewell, the enthusiasm
of the Liverpool mobs, were published in the newspapers here before
her arrival, and they all came, as the _Morning Courier and Enquirer_
naïvely said, from “a source likely to be well informed.” On August 21,
1850, she sailed from Liverpool, and the steamer _Atlantic_ was due in
New York on September 1.
In eleven days and two hours the “Jenny Lind Boat” made the passage
from Liverpool to New York, and on each of those days there was an
item of excitement in almost every New York newspaper about the divine
creature who was honoring America with her presence. On Sunday,
September 1, 1850, the _Atlantic_ was sighted. Even the elements were
in favor of Barnum; the boat arrived on a holiday from work, and almost
all New York tried to welcome Jenny Lind to the city. Barnum went
aboard the ship with the health officer, Dr. Doane, at noon Sunday,
and with a large bouquet of flowers tucked into his white waistcoat,
climbed hurriedly up the ladder to greet his prima donna. But he had
been anticipated, for Mr. Collins, owner of the line of “leviathans” of
which the _Atlantic_ was one, had already reached the steamer with a
bouquet three times larger than Barnum’s.
After they had conversed for a few minutes, Jenny Lind asked Barnum
when and where he had heard her sing. “I never had the pleasure of
seeing you before in my life,” he answered. She was astonished, and
wondered how he had dared to risk so much money without a knowledge of
what he was buying. “I risked it on your reputation, which in musical
matters I would much rather trust than my own judgment,” was Barnum’s
answer. He did not mention her reputation as Lady Bountiful, but he
had it in mind, for it was at this point in his autobiography that he
confessed that he would never have imported a woman who could only sing.
As the boat slowly rode up the harbor to its dock at the foot of
Canal Street, to the accompaniment of whistles, fog-horns, waving and
shouting, Jenny Lind went into raptures about the view. She said what
all prima donnas and prime ministers have said since upon arriving
in New York harbor. She saw an American flag and threw it a kiss,
exclaiming, “There is the beautiful standard of freedom; the oppressed
of all nations worship it.” Signor Giovanni Battista Belletti, with
characteristic Latin ardor, made some fervent remarks. “Here is the
New World at last,” he shouted with appropriate gestures, “the grand
New World, first seen by my fellow-countryman, Columbus!” To have a
countryman of Columbus in the party must have been of supreme publicity
delight to Barnum.
More than 30,000 persons were standing about the dock, according
to all the newspapers of the day, and as Jenny Lind looked at them
and listened to their clamorous greetings, she said with the proper
intonation of surprise, “But have you no poor people, all these people
are so well dressed!” West Street for a dozen blocks was thronged with
people ready and anxious to make an enthusiastic holiday of her arrival.
A large bower of green plants was decorated with flags, and two
triumphal arches adorned the dock, the center of each arch bearing a
large device: “Welcome, Jenny Lind!” was on the first; the second,
surmounted by the American eagle, read “Welcome to America!” Barnum
had arranged for the building of these arches, but quietly, so that the
impression given to both Jenny Lind and the multitude was that of an
official municipal greeting. Just before the steamer touched the dock,
some one suggested that a Swedish flag would not be out of place. None
was to be found on such short notice, and the German flag was hurriedly
hoisted as an effective substitute.
Cheering broke loose, and the 30,000 swayed with excitement as the
_Atlantic_ docked. As soon as the boat touched the pier, the crowd
broke bounds, and the strong detachment of Fifth Ward police with
great difficulty prevented many persons from being swept into the
water. One man did fall off the dock, and Jenny Lind watched the rescue
with sympathetic excitement. People were crowded on all roofs in the
neighborhood, and all the windows looking out on to West Street were
filled. Spars and rigging of near-by vessels were covered with the
reckless, and the fenders and bulkheads of the Hoboken Ferry House and
wharves were densely packed with men and women. As Jenny Lind stepped
down the gangplank, which was covered with carpet for the occasion, the
crowd made a mad dash to get nearer and snapped the gates of the dock;
some men and women were trampled under others’ feet, and many were
injured, but none killed. The _Tribune_ reporter saw a man, “squeezed
under the mass and hardly able to breathe, holding out his new hat at
arm’s length and imploring somebody to take it and prevent it from
being smashed.”
Captain West, master of the _Atlantic_, escorted Jenny Lind to Barnum’s
carriage. On the dock Barnum had lined up some of his Museum employees,
and as Jenny Lind approached the carriage, they threw bouquets into it,
making the public and newspapers believe that here was a spontaneous
tribute to a great popular favorite. Writing to her cousin in the
country two days after Jenny Lind’s arrival, Miss Julia Knapp, a young
girl, said that as she came down the gangplank she wore “a pale blue
silk hat, trimmed with lace, a slate-colored dress, with a broadcloth
cloak, trimmed with velvet.”[9]
When the party was seated in his carriage, Barnum mounted the box
beside the driver, because the people knew him, and “my presence on
the outside of the carriage aided those who filled the windows and
sidewalks along the whole route in coming to the conclusion that Jenny
Lind had arrived.” It may be, too, that he wanted to give those who
had no opportunity to see his songstress something for their trouble;
there were nudgings and shouts of “That’s Barnum; there’s Barnum.” The
crowd pressed on after the carriage, and it was with difficulty that it
reached the Irving House, where Barnum had engaged rooms. Jenny Lind
appeared several times at the window of the carriage and bowed to the
people who were throwing flowers into it.
It was a quarter to three o’clock before the party finally arrived at
the Irving House, where more than 5,000 persons had taken up places
in an effort to catch a glimpse of Jenny Lind. The police cleared a
passage, and she was able to proceed to her room, but the crowd would
not go away and would not be quiet until loud cries for The Swedish
Nightingale were finally answered by her appearance on a balcony;
she waved her handkerchief to the mass of people, who howled their
gratitude.
Barnum dined with Jenny Lind that afternoon, and she courteously asked
to drink his health. “Miss Lind,” Barnum responded, “I do not think you
can ask any other favor on earth which I would not gladly grant; but
I am a teetotaler, and must beg to be permitted to drink your health
and happiness in a glass of cold water.” She was much astonished that
there should be a man who did not drink European light wines, but she
understood and respected his views.
The crowds continued outside the Irving House all day, and every time a
shadow passed before Jenny Lind’s window, or what the crowd chose as
her window, enthusiastic cheers greeted it. At half-past twelve that
night, the New York Musical Fund Society, which had been preparing
for this occasion for three weeks, began an instrumental serenade.
The musicians were escorted by three hundred firemen in red shirts,
bearing lighted torches. More than 20,000 people watched, listened
and cheered. Broadway was completely blocked, and the three hundred
spluttering torches revealed figures on the roofs, in the neighboring
windows, and hanging to lamp posts and awning frames. Barnum led Jenny
Lind to one of the hotel balconies, after the loud demands for her
presence threatened to drown the music of the serenade. He asked the
musicians to play “Yankee Doodle” and “Hail Columbia,” and Jenny Lind
with admirable tact encored both those songs. The crowd cheered madly,
and she repeatedly waved her handkerchief. At quarter past one the
music was finished, and she tried to go to bed, but the crowd was not
yet ready for bed. George Loder, head of the Musical Fund Society, made
a speech of welcome, which, by common agreement, was much too long.
One of the newspaper correspondents intimated that the serenade and
the speech were offered in the hope that Jenny Lind would return the
compliment by giving a benefit performance for the New York Musical
Fund Society.
The New York correspondent of the _Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch_
reported the following conversation which he gathered in the crowd:
“Sa-ay, Joe, don’t you think Barnum’ll make a lose? Thousand
dollars a night’s a big pile, and singin’ isn’t dancin’; Fanny
Elssler was the gal for _my_ money.”
“Oh, shut up! What the hell do _we_ know about singin’?”
“I’ll go in for her too; but I thought she was one of Barnum’s
hums, for I heered he said he didn’t care if she hadn’t no more
voice than a crow, he knowed we’d all swear she sung like an angel,
if it cost us ten dollars to say we’d heered her. You know the time
he showed the horse with his tail where his head ought to be? Well,
all of them that paid their two shillings was satisfied. Wasn’t
he stood in his stall with his tail in the manger--and didn’t
they tell all the rest to go in and win, for it was a fus’ rate
curiosity, jes so and no mistake?”
“Well, there ain’t no use of your talkin’, Pete; Barnum knows what
he’s about. Why, s’pose he _did_ lose fifty thousand by her, he’d
more an’ make it up in the Museum. The glory of the thing’s what
_he_ looks at.”
But it did not look as if Barnum would lose his fifty thousand dollars.
The excitement kept up unabated for weeks. The small girl, Julia Knapp,
writing to her cousin Susan in Greenwich, Connecticut, said, “They call
her the New Messiah we will send you a paper all about her, I suppose
you have heard of Dr. Webster he was hung on Friday last.”
Not only the common people besieged Jenny Lind. The Mayor called upon
her at her rooms, and she was visited all day and part of the night by
people who used various claims to distinction as cards of admission
to her private suite. Milliners, tailors and furniture dealers sent
her articles which they had manufactured and named for her; they were
grateful for her autograph in return. Water carafes with her face and
name were sold. Songs and poems were dedicated to her, dances were
named after her, and she conquered the kingdom of man when a cigar
was called the Jenny Lind. Crowds gathered outside the hotel to watch
her enter or leave. Society called in large contingents, and Barnum
was fearful that the _haut ton_ of Bleecker Street would monopolize
his prize and thus make her repugnant to the masses, for he realized
that he was not in England with General Tom Thumb. But her reputation
for kindness and simplicity won the admiration of the people, and
shopkeepers continued to send gloves, hats, shawls, chairs and gowns.
On the day after her arrival in New York all the morning newspapers
devoted their first pages to the prima donna. The _New York Tribune_
printed four columns on the first page concerning her reception, and a
poem with fifty-two footnotes explaining its Scandinavian allegorical
allusions. The other newspapers gave her the same amount of space, and
the interest in her was maintained at the same high pitch during her
entire stay in New York.
III
On the day after her arrival, Barnum and Jenny Lind visited together
with Benedict and Belletti all the public halls in New York to choose a
place for her first concerts. The sky was cloudy and rain was falling,
but eager spectators were out in large numbers and followed the party
from amusement hall to amusement hall, so that a contemporary was
able to describe the tour of inspection as a royal procession. Many
of the enthusiasts were disappointed, for Jenny Lind wore a veil.
In anticipation of her visit A. B. Tripler, a twenty-five-year-old
speculator, built a hall which he intended to name for Jenny Lind,
and which was to be used for her concerts in New York, but it was
not finished in time. Therefore, Barnum, with the approval of Jenny
Lind and Julius Benedict, chose Castle Garden, the largest place of
amusement in the city, for her first concerts. Barnum now realized
that his audiences would be larger than even he had hoped, and he
accordingly hired the largest available hall and made arrangements for
its alteration in order to provide more seating capacity and increased
standing-room.
Barnum wrote in his autobiography: “On the Tuesday after her arrival
I informed Miss Lind that I wished to make a slight alteration in our
agreement. ‘What is it?’ she asked in surprise. ‘I am convinced,’ I
replied, ‘that our enterprise will be much more successful than either
of us anticipated. I wish, therefore, to stipulate that you shall
always receive $1,000 for each concert, besides all the expenses,
as heretofore agreed on, and that after taking $5,500 per night for
expenses and my services, the balance shall be equally divided between
us.’ Jenny looked at me with astonishment. She could not comprehend
my proposition. After I had repeated it, and she fully understood its
import, she grasped me cordially by the hand, and exclaimed, ‘Mr.
Barnum, you are a gentleman of honor. You are generous. It is just as
Mr. Bates told me. I will sing for you as long as you please. I will
sing for you in America--in Europe--anywhere!’” Here we have a picture
of such exceptional magnanimity on the one side, and on the other such
joyous gratitude--it is a pity that it is untrue.
Concerning this change in the contract, Barnum was frank enough to add
this warning in his autobiographical account of the incident: “Let it
not be supposed that the increase in her compensation was wholly an act
of generosity on my part. I had become convinced that there was money
enough in the enterprise for all of us, and I also felt that although
she should have been satisfied by my complying with the terms of the
agreement, yet envious persons would doubtless endeavor to create
discontent in her mind, and it would be a stroke of policy to prevent
the possibility of such an occurrence.” This attitude is one which
Barnum afterwards dubbed “profitable philanthropy” in speaking of his
own charitable endeavors, and we could admire his foresight and his
compassion, if other men’s books did not make him out to be inaccurate,
to say the least.
Maunsell B. Field, whose _Memories of Many Men and Some Women_ has
already been quoted in another connection, played an important part in
the negotiations between Barnum and Jenny Lind. He was a member of the
law firm of Jay and Field, and Jenny Lind when she first came to New
York presented a letter of introduction to John Jay, Field’s partner.
Jay was in Europe, and when Jenny Lind learned this, she asked Field
to visit her at the Irving House, as she had urgent business for him.
“Upon my arrival,” wrote Field, “I mentioned whom I desired to see,
and was at once accosted by a stranger, who introduced himself to me
as Mr. Barnum. He offered to accompany me to Miss Lind’s drawing-room,
and I followed him upstairs. On the way, he turned to me and said, ‘I
am going to introduce you to an angel, sir--to an angel!’” While they
were waiting for Jenny Lind to appear, Barnum poured “ceaseless praises
of her” into Field’s ear. When she finally did appear, Field noted that
she looked “wonderfully substantial for an angel.”
According to Field, Jenny Lind had left for America without any formal
contract with Barnum, but merely on the strength of a memorandum
executed by his agent. She wanted Field’s advice in drawing up a formal
contract, and Barnum, Jenny Lind, and Field sat down together and
discussed terms. Field executed the contract, and it was signed the
next day by Barnum and Jenny Lind. He did not state the terms of the
contract, but he wrote: “After a time Miss Lind became dissatisfied
with her contract, and I was sent for to revise it. Mr. Barnum made
the required concessions.... Again and again Miss Lind desired changes
made in the contract to her own advantage, and every time Mr. Barnum
yielded. Whatever his motive, he was most obliging and complaisant, and
although I have never since met him, I have always esteemed him for
the good-nature and liberality which he exhibited at this time in his
business relations with Miss Lind. I believe that she received every
farthing that belonged to her, and that he treated her with the most
scrupulous honor.”
This would seem to indicate on reputable authority that the initiative
for changes in the contract came invariably from Jenny Lind, and
that while Barnum was not voluntarily magnanimous, Jenny Lind was
persistently dissatisfied. Many years later at a dinner party in
England Jenny Lind discussed her Barnum contract with W. P. Frith,
the artist, who recorded the conversation in _My Autobiography and
Reminiscences_. She told Frith that she went to America bound by a
legal engagement with Barnum. “Whether from being badly advised, or
from the undervaluing of powers common to genius, Mademoiselle Lind
found on her arrival in America, that she had made a terrible mistake
in the terms of the engagement.” Immediately after her arrival she
took up the terms of the agreement with Barnum, she told Frith, and
it was in this reconsideration of terms that Field undoubtedly
participated. Before asking for a new contract, Jenny Lind told Barnum
that she was prepared to fulfil her duties, if he should demand the
letter of the original agreement, and according to her own story, he
listened carefully and when she had finished, said: “This, madam, is
the document you signed in England, is it not?” “Undoubtedly,” said
Miss Lind, “and I am ready to abide by it, if I have been unable to
convince--” “Be so good as to destroy it. Tear it up, madam; and if you
will instruct your lawyer to prepare another from your own dictation,
naming whatever you think fair for your services, I will sign it
without hesitation.”
This account gives Barnum credit for sufficient magnanimity, and it
is therefore a reflection on the degree of his human vanity that
he saw fit to color the truth when it was so bright in its natural
complexion. Field and Jenny Lind herself make Barnum out as complaisant
and yielding beyond the degree of most men of business, but Barnum
is not satisfied with that glory; he must also take the initiative
in magnanimity and make us believe that it was he who voluntarily
offered changes in the contract. Besides, he must have known, what his
lawyers could have told him, that the most he could ever accomplish in
a court of equity by refusing Jenny Lind’s demands was an injunction
restraining her from singing under other management in this country. It
would not have been to Barnum’s advantage, if Jenny Lind had returned
home dissatisfied; and rather than sacrifice the opportunities his
publicity had created, it was wisdom on his part to accede to any
demands. On the other hand, Jenny Lind apparently gave W. P. Frith
the impression that she had bartered her gift for a pittance, when as
a matter of fact the terms of the original agreement gave her $1,000
for each concert and her expenses, which was not such a “terrible
mistake.” The inevitable conclusion is that neither Barnum nor Jenny
Lind was acting out of the bigness of his heart or the simplicity of
hers, but rather on the larger body of business principles. Under her
new contract Jenny Lind received one-half of the net profits, with a
guarantee of $1,000 for each concert, and a stipulation that after one
hundred concerts the contract could be terminated by either party to it.
After Castle Garden had been selected, and while preparations were
being made for the first concerts, Barnum took Jenny Lind to visit
all the leading newspaper offices, where she watched with appropriate
interest the papers being run off the presses. Mayor Caleb S. Woodhull
conferred upon her the freedom of the city, which she could hardly
enjoy because of the dense crowds that followed her everywhere. The
president of the Art Union invited her to the opening of the season’s
exhibition; after a private view of the pictures, “a magnificent
collation was served,” according to a contemporary, and she was
enrolled as a member of the Art Union “in the midst of a perfect shower
of compliments.” Mr. Daniel T. Curtis, of Boston, sent her what the
_Tribune_ described as “some of the most splendid nectarines ever grown
in this country--they were a marvel to all who beheld them.”
Barnum and Jenny Lind inspected the institution for the blind, a riding
academy, houses of correction, Greenwood Cemetery and the city prison.
Every day each newspaper printed a special column headed “Movements of
The Swedish Nightingale,” wherein it was told what she visited and who
visited her. Many clergymen and people of the best reputation in the
community were her daily visitors. Dr. Anson Jones, the last president
of Texas, called and was delighted with The Swedish Nightingale. The
Rev. Dr. Cummings with the little girls of his school visited her, and
the little girls presented her with “a six dollar bouquet,” according
to the exact _Herald_.
The first rehearsal was held at Castle Garden a few days after Jenny
Lind’s arrival. Barnum had invited all the music critics, who brought
with them all their friends, so that the audience was large enough
to frighten Jenny Lind, who insisted upon comparative privacy, and
at all subsequent rehearsals Barnum’s generosity was limited to the
critics and a few invalids who could not bear the crush of the regular
performances. While Jenny Lind was singing the _Casta Diva_ from
_Norma_ at this first rehearsal, the Battery guns attached to Castle
Garden boomed loudly, startling the singer and surprising the audience.
It was explained that California had just been admitted to the Union,
and Jenny Lind smiled her interest in the popular enthusiasm over the
gold state. During the first rehearsal the Battery was crowded with
people, anxious to catch the few notes of this marvelous voice that
might escape from the bulky Castle Garden. After the rehearsal, Jenny
Lind attempted to get to her carriage through the crowd, and she took
the arm of Maunsell B. Field, who attended the rehearsal and reported
the scene in his book. The crowd pressed close, and the police forced a
passage for the singer. Some of the crowd broke the cordon of policemen
and tried to thrust petitions for charity into Jenny Lind’s hands,
while others made desperate efforts to gaze into her face, that they
might tell their grandchildren they had seen Jenny Lind plain. The
people took Maunsell B. Field for Barnum and addressed him familiarly
by that name, as he and Jenny Lind proceeded with difficulty to her
carriage. At later rehearsals various excuses were used by eager
admirers to gain admission, and some men brought violins and other
portable musical instruments in order to make the doorkeeper believe
that they were members of the orchestra.
Barnum had decided to sell the tickets for the first concert at
auction. In his youth, while touring with his traveling circus, he
had witnessed an auction of tickets for Fanny Elssler’s dancing
performance in New Orleans, and at the time he was much impressed with
the publicity value of the scheme and with the profits it yielded.
Accordingly, on Saturday, September 7, the auction was held at Castle
Garden. Barnum entered the hall, late and excited, and was cheered
heartily by the crowd of 4,000. He ascended into the pulpit beside the
auctioneer and addressed the people. He said that he was surprised
and mortified to discover that those who were present had been
compelled to pay a shilling [a coin of the period worth 12½ cents]
for admission to the sale. He had understood that the Garden would
be open to the public free of charge for the auction sale; there was
protracted applause. He announced when the tickets sold at the auction
would be delivered, and a sarcastic voice from the crowd shouted the
inquiry, “Another shilling admission?” The auctioneer replied heatedly,
“Certainly not!” But Barnum, the champion of the people against the
interests, turned towards the auctioneer and said with vehemence, “I
don’t know about that! How can you tell? Let the tickets be delivered
at the outer gate! (Applause with a round of groans for the exactors of
the shilling admission.)”
[Illustration: JENNY LIND
Engraving from a daguerreotype
_Houdini Collection_]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CASTLE GARDEN
Illustrating the first appearance of Jenny Lind in America
_By permission of the New York Aquarium_]
The bidding for the first ticket was lively, and the four thousand
persons who had come out on a rainy day to pay their money and take
their choice, grew excited. Prices rose rapidly, and the first ticket
was finally sold for $225 to Genin, the hatter, whose establishment
adjoined Barnum’s American Museum. This was the best stroke of business
Genin ever did. Newspapers in Houston, Texas, Portland, Maine, and
intervening cities and villages, announced to their interested readers
that Genin, the Broadway hatter, had purchased the first ticket for the
first Jenny Lind concert at the enormous price of $225. More than two
million readers knew the next morning that Genin was a hatter. An Iowa
editor printed the story of one of his neighbors who discovered that
he owned a hat with Genin’s label. He pointed it out to the loungers
at the village post office, and he was urged to give his neighbors an
opportunity for distinction by putting the hat up at auction. It was
finally sold to an excited townsman for fourteen dollars. In New York
men hurried to Genin’s shop to purchase hats, and, if possible, to
catch a glimpse of the man who had paid $225 for the first ticket.
Barnum advised Genin to purchase this first ticket at any price for
its publicity value. Some newspapers said that Genin was Barnum’s
brother-in-law, and that the purchase was framed up before the
auction; but Genin was not Barnum’s brother-in-law. He was merely a
business neighbor and a personal friend. Genin profited by Barnum’s
instructions in publicity, for a few years later, when Louis Kossuth
visited this country, he took down from his shelves some of his old
style hats, named them after the Hungarian revolutionist, and sold them
at high prices. Genin was also the author of a _History of the Hat from
the Earliest Ages to the Present Time_. Other hatters were envious
of Genin’s Barnumized notoriety, and Knox, the hatter of 128 Fulton
Street, advertised in the _New York Tribune_ two days after Genin’s
purchase: “There is no truth in the assertion that Knox, the hatter,
paid $225 for the choice of a seat at Jenny Lind’s first concert.
Knox can’t afford it; and it must have been done by some Broadway
Hatter, who sells a poor article at a high price, as Knox is contented
with very small profits. His Fall style of Hats is the admiration
of everybody.” Espenscheid, of 107 Nassau Street, advertised: “THAT
TICKET--The sensible portion of the community begin to see the folly of
contributing to the support of the Broadway $4 hatters in luxury and
idleness, and paying for their expensive show-shops, and $225 Concert
Tickets, when they have only to turn the corner of the Museum and
walk a few steps to Espenscheid’s, 107 Nassau Street, where a better,
lighter, more graceful and durable Hat is sold for $3.50.”
The auction sale was more successful than even Barnum had expected.
Tickets near the stage, where it is not desirable to sit at a concert,
brought higher prices at the auction than those in the center of the
building, because almost as many persons went to Castle Garden to see
Jenny Lind as those who came to hear her sing. The average price paid
for the tickets to the first concert was $6.38 for each ticket. In two
sessions the auctioneer sold out all the seats in Castle Garden and
collected $17,864.05 for Barnum. Upon this occasion a system which has
since become a regular part of the theatrical business was inaugurated:
the first theater ticket speculators New York knew started shop. Hall
& Son, Jolie’s, both music publishers, the Irving House and other New
York hotels bought up large numbers of seats at the public auction and
sold them at a large increase.
IV
Castle Garden, which since its construction in 1807 had been a fort,
a cabaret, a music hall and an opera house, and which is now the
Aquarium, was capable of accommodating almost 10,000 people, standing
and sitting. Barnum had divided the hall into three sections, each of
which was marked by lamps of different colors, red, yellow, and blue.
The tickets corresponded in color with the lamps, and the one hundred
ushers wore rosettes of those colors and carried wands of those colors,
so that the audience gained their seats without the devastating crushes
which occurred at the Jenny Lind performances in England.
The newspapers of Wednesday morning, September 11, 1850, reflect the
feverish excitement that was in the air. The _Tribune_ had imported
from Boston a special critic to report the concerts, and that paper
informed its readers on the morning of the first concert: “To-night
will be a new Avatar in our musical history--the first appearance of
another divinity in the world of Song.” The _Courier and Enquirer_
warned those who intended to be present not to applaud until they were
quite sure Jenny Lind had finished, “as Jenny Lind is said to diminish
a final note until her audience are quite sure it has ceased, and then
swell it out again upon their astonished and delighted ears.” The
_Herald_ wrote: “Jenny Lind is the most popular woman in the world at
this moment,--perhaps the most popular that ever was in it.” In the
excitement of the moment the _Herald_ apparently forgot the Virgin Mary.
This advance adulation placed Jenny Lind at a disadvantage, for it made
it necessary for her to live up to a tremendous expectation, if she was
to please the discriminating. The _Courier and Enquirer_ sensed this
difficulty, and begged its readers on the morning of the first concert
not to be disappointed “if Jenny Lind’s singing be at all like any
they ever heard from mortal lips,” for, the editor insisted gravely,
“Jenny Lind is merely a mortal woman, of very substantial flesh and
blood, who, gifted by nature with genius and a voice, has made herself
a great singer by hard labor; just such labor, such daily practice as
provokes them to wish that their neighbor, Miss A., who is an amateur
vocalist, lived a square or two further down the street, when she takes
her music lessons.” Barnum, too, was afraid that the great expectations
which he had so largely created by his advance publicity, would
act as a boomerang and cause the public to accept the reality with
disappointment.
Evening came at last. The doors were opened at five o’clock, although
the concert was scheduled to begin at eight, and more than seven
thousand persons were seated, “with as much order and quiet as was ever
witnessed in the assembling of a congregation at church,” according
to Barnum’s description. A double row of policemen kept order and
regulated the stream of carriages. The wooden bridge which approached
the entrance to Castle Garden was brilliantly lighted the length of its
two hundred feet, giving the effect of a triumphal avenue. More than
two hundred boats were anchored as near as possible to the Garden, and
more than a thousand people caught escaping strains of music from this
vantage point; and when they could not hear, they shouted and yelled
indignant interruptions, thus preventing those in the rear parts of the
hall from hearing.
Inside, the hall was a mass of gas light. A wooden arch bordered the
stage, and from it were hanging the flags of the United States and
Sweden, with arabesque ornaments in white and gold beneath them. A
large bank of flowers, spelling out the words, “Welcome Sweet Warbler,”
was suspended over the pillars of the balcony directly in front of the
stage. Julius Benedict and his sixty musicians entered promptly at
eight o’clock and were received with applause. They began the overture
from Weber’s _Oberon_, but the audience paid little attention. They
were waiting for Jenny Lind, and they tolerated the preliminaries only
because preliminaries increased the suspense and nervous excitement,
but they were too restless to listen to them. Signor Belletti sang the
_Sorgete_ from Rossini’s _Mahomet II_, and the audience applauded after
he was finished with something of relief as well as appreciation.
There was a breathless moment of silent anticipation. The doors at the
back of the stage opened. Jenny Lind, in a white, virginal dress, came
gracefully down between the music stands, escorted by Julius Benedict,
while Barnum watched nervously in the wings.
That placid face, with its thick nose and heavy Scandinavian features
and its oval simplicity, stared out with frightened, earnest, blue eyes
at this immense gathering, which rose to its feet in tumult, cheered
as if for the foundation of a republic or the downfall of a monarchy,
and hurled things handy into the air. She curtsied deeply in profound
appreciation. But it was impossible to stop the riot of enthusiasm. The
screaming, the shouting, the waving and the wild cheering oppressed
her, as she stood in her white dress, gazing bewilderedly at the
multitude of her admirers. The experience was disconcerting and
alarming, as if she were suddenly, without any reason to expect it,
thrown into the general assembly hall of an insane asylum. She may have
been thinking of this orgy, when she said later in her broken English
that Americans “are all firemens,” which the _Herald_ took to mean that
“we are all on fire with musical enthusiasm.” But, possibly, Jenny Lind
did not mean anything so complimentary.
The wild scene, accustomed as she was to enthusiasm, frightened
her into an approach to panic, and the hysteria of the audience
communicated itself in some degree to the star, who trembled and
wavered in the first notes of Bellini’s _Casta Diva_, until those who
listened anxiously feared that she would break down completely. But
she soon regained confidence and the control of her nerves, and she
finished her song in loud and clear tones that indicated complete
self-possession. The last notes of the air were drowned in the
appreciation of the audience, and at the moment of her conclusion a
shower of bouquets hit the stage in front of her, while handkerchiefs
waved, and the men cheered hoarsely.
Benedict and Richard Hoffman played a duet by Thalberg on two pianos,
but no one listened; each had to tell his neighbor how superb was Jenny
Lind. She appeared with Belletti and sang the duet from Rossini’s _Il
Turco in Italia_, “How Shall I Please the Lady Fair?” At this point
an attempt was made by those in the boats outside to besiege the hall
and gain entrance, which was frustrated with difficulty and much
noise by the police. Benedict and the orchestra played the overture
to Benedict’s own opera, _The Crusaders_, and the audience paid their
respect to the composer by listening to it, but every one sat up in
his seat again when Jenny Lind sang the song with accompaniment of two
flutes from Meyerbeer’s _Camp of Silesia_. She followed this with a
Swedish melody, _Herdsman’s Song_, accompanying herself on the piano.
This song caused tremendous enthusiasm at the first concert, and
wherever Jenny Lind sang it, for it involved a perfect imitation of an
echo, as the herdsman called to his flock. It was popularly dubbed “The
Echo Song” and was demanded everywhere as an encore. The last number on
the program was Bayard Taylor’s “Greeting to America,” which Benedict
had set to music in less than a week. It was received with thundering
applause, and even the critics did not dare to admit that it was the
worst piece of music and poetry on the program.
At the close of the concert there were loud cries of “Barnum! Barnum!”
This was as it should have been, for in America he was the author of
the Jenny Lind comedy. Barnum “reluctantly” appeared. He said to the
audience: “My friends, you have often heard it asked, ‘Where’s Barnum?’
Henceforth you may say, ‘Barnum’s nowhere!’” Then he said that he felt
“compelled to disregard the fact that Mademoiselle Lind had herself
begged him not to mention on this evening one of her own noble and
spontaneous deeds of beneficence.” She would devote her share of the
proceeds of the first concert, $10,000, to charity, to be distributed
as follows: The Fire Department Fund, $3,000; Musical Fund Society,
$2,000; Home for the Friendless, $500; Lying-in Asylum for Destitute
Females, $500; Home for Indigent Females, $500; Protestant Half Orphan
Asylum, Roman Catholic Half Orphan Asylum, and New York Orphan Asylum,
$500 each; the Dramatic Fund Association, $500; the Old Ladies’ Asylum,
$500; and the Home for Colored and Aged Persons and the Colored Orphan
Asylum, each $500. The charities were chosen by Barnum, Mayor Woodhull,
and Jenny Lind, and Barnum took care that no discrimination was made
because of race, creed, or previous condition of servitude.
It is interesting in this connection to know that Jenny Lind abhorred
negroes. She exclaimed to Maunsell B. Field in disgust, “They are
_so_ ugly!” Apparently, she forgot for the moment that they are God’s
creatures. Although she had æsthetic feelings about their appearance,
these did not interfere with her charitable instinct, for she sent Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe $100 as a contribution to the fund for buying
slaves into freedom. She also wrote Mrs. Stowe to thank her for a copy
of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, and said in her letter: “I have the feeling
about ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ that ... the writer of that book can fall
asleep to-day or to-morrow with the bright, sweet conscience of having
been a strong means in the Creator’s hand of operating essential good
in one of the most important questions for the welfare of our black
brethren.”
After the announcement of the charities, three cheers were given for
Jenny Lind, and three cheers were given for Barnum. The Musical Fund
Society gave her another serenade in gratitude for her donation of
$2,000, and then she was allowed to retire to the New York Hotel,
where she had removed to avoid the crowds that thronged the district
of the Irving House. It was said that Barnum collected $1,000 from
the proprietor of the hotel where Jenny Lind stayed for the privilege
of her patronage, and wherever she went in the United States, it was
said, hotel proprietors paid Barnum for the advertising value of her
presence. If this was true, it reduced considerably Jenny Lind’s
living expenses, which under the contract were to be paid by Barnum.
The newspapers of the period printed this as an accusation against
Barnum, and as a fact; there is no confirmation of it, nor is there any
possibility of a positive denial. Barnum does not mention it in his
autobiography, but the scheme is one that would have appealed to his
business ingenuity.
The newspapers of the day after the first concert were beside
themselves, and the undiscriminating praise increased with the number
of concerts. The _Herald_ in an effulgence of mixed metaphors wrote
of Jenny Lind’s song, “which she spins out from her throat like the
attenuated fiber from the silkworm, dying away so sweetly and so
gradually, till it seems melting into the song of the seraphim and
is lost in eternity.” After the first rehearsal, _The Spirit of the
Times_ critic wrote: “As a bird just alighted upon a spray begins
to sing, he knows not why, and pours forth the increasing volume
of his voice from an instinct implanted within him by that Power
which made him vocal,--as flowers unfold their petals to the air, as
zephyrs breathe, as rivulets leave their founts, as thoughts flow,
as affections rise, as feelings develop,--so this wondrous creature
sang. It was not Art. It was a manifestation of Nature.” _The Spirit
of the Times_ was not a comic paper. The _Herald_ remarked casually
that Jenny Lind’s appearance in the old world was “as significant
an event as the appearance of Dante, Tasso, Raphael, Shakespeare,
Goethe, Thorwaldsen, or Michael Angelo.” “As a cantatrice,” continued
the _Herald_ writer, “she is as much superior to all her northern
predecessors as Napoleon was to his contemporaries, or as Eli Whitney,
the inventor of the cotton gin, was to the first ‘gemman ob color’ who
used it. She has changed all men’s ideas of music as much so as Bacon’s
inductive system revolutionized philosophy.” The _Herald_ sincerely
believed that the advent of Jenny Lind was an indication that “the wand
of civilization has fallen from the hands of the southern nations and
passed to the hardy northern races.... All feel her power, all go mad
who see her, and they cannot explain the secret of her influence.” Had
the _Herald_ stopped in its abandon to analyze the depths of its own
sentimentality, it might have had the secret of that influence. In his
lofty peroration this inspired editorial writer sings that Jenny Lind
has left “the effete monarchies of Europe” to sing as she confessed
she never could sing in her former languishing environment to the
great and free American democracy, where things never stand still. In
all these criticisms there was little comment on her voice, as such.
Those who did venture to criticize it found in it a certain coolness,
which her champions called its purity, and a lack of ardor, which her
worshipers commended as the absence of the common Latin display of
disgraceful passion. But those who attempted to qualify their praise
were overwhelmed by the recriminations against their judgment of those
who were confirmed fanatics.
At her other concerts in New York the programs did not differ much
in quality from the first, but in the later concerts Jenny Lind sang
sacred music, and in these oratorios she was very popular. In his
_Reminiscences_, written many years after the event, Lyman Abbott
wrote: “It was impossible to doubt the Resurrection while she was
singing ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ She seemed a celestial
witness; to doubt her testimony was to doubt her veracity.” And Jenny
Lind surely would not have lied about such a thing as the Resurrection.
Dr. Abbott knew a chorus girl in the oratorio choir, and when Jenny
Lind sang “The Messiah” he escorted his friend to the concert. Probably
Lyman Abbott as a young man enjoyed a much higher spiritual reaction
than most of his contemporaries, for it is hard to believe that Jenny
Lind impressed the general population as a celestial witness of the
Resurrection under the exclusive management of P. T. Barnum. Another
critic, however, said that her rendition of “I know that my Redeemer
liveth” was “an appeal to shake the heart of a Jew.”
Other members of the Jenny Lind audiences were impressed differently.
Walt Whitman wrote in the _New York Evening Post_ of August 14, 1851,
in one of his _Letters from Paumanok_: “The Swedish Swan, with all
her blandishments, never touched my heart in the least. I wondered at
so much vocal dexterity; and indeed they were all very pretty, those
leaps and double somersets. But even in the grandest religious airs,
genuine masterpieces as they are, of the German composers, executed
by this strangely overpraised woman in perfect scientific style, let
critics say what they like, it was a failure; for there was a vacuum
in the head of the performance. Beauty pervaded it no doubt, and that
of a high order. It was the beauty of Adam before God breathed into
his nostrils.” And in speaking of Jenny Lind later in his _Good-Bye
My Fancy_, Whitman said: “... the canary, and several other sweet
birds are wondrous fine--but there is something in song that goes
deeper--isn’t there?”
Washington Irving, who was an old man when Jenny Lind came to New
York in 1850, overcame his reluctance to combat with the crowds and
finally heard her sing; he wrote to Miss Mary M. Hamilton: “I have
seen and heard her but once, but have at once enrolled myself among
her admirers. I cannot say, however, how much of my admiration goes to
her singing, how much to herself. As a singer, she appears to me of
the very first order; as a specimen of womankind, a little more. She
is enough of herself to counterbalance all the evil that the world is
threatened with by the great convention of women. So God save Jenny
Lind!”
There seems to be no doubt from the records of the period that Jenny
Lind’s voice was a brilliant and powerful soprano, dramatic, flexible
and rich, and she was praised very highly for her ability to control
the shake and the skilful management of her breath. She always insisted
also that a singer should “look pleasant” while singing and never
allow herself contortions of any kind. She had a perfect horror of
careless enunciation.
After the first concerts had confirmed the greatest hopes and most
fervent expectations, the personal, popular enthusiasm increased, if
possible. The rumor went about that one of Jenny Lind’s gloves had been
found by a citizen of New York, and the finder exhibited the glove
to large crowds, charging one shilling to kiss its outside and two
shillings to kiss the inside. A crowd gathered outside her hotel one
evening saw two ladies appear on a balcony. The crowd looked eagerly;
it could not be sure, but some of the members believed that one of the
ladies was Jenny Lind. Just then the lady dropped a peach pit from
the balcony, and a mad scramble followed for the possible peach pit
that had lodged for a moment in the divine mouth of Jenny Lind. The
only Whig candidate for Assembly in one of the districts of Rensselaer
County, New York, was Jenny Lind. She had previously received a vote
for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and she received several
votes in New York City for mayor.
These and other absurdities were ridiculed and held against the
population of New York in newspapers of other cities, and especially
by the London press. The London _Athenæum_, commenting upon the
reports of Jenny Lind’s reception in New York, wrote: “‘Jenny’s in
New York,’ ‘Jenny’s in America,’ shout the papers--they can scarcely
credit their own good fortune. They go about asking one another if it
can be true.... The gentle little lady has come amongst them to sing
a few of her pastoral airs ‘for a consideration,’--and they greet her
with a perfect Niagara of welcome. We never remember child’s play
performed before by such a company. The whole thing looks like a vast
‘make-believe.’ America seems to have no serious business in life;
and the whole people--bishops, magistrates and all--are engaged in a
huge game of ‘High Jinks.’” But this criticism resembled the sober
reflections of a reformed drunkard, as he sees a fellow man rolling
in the gutter. The London _Athenæum_ forgot its own account by a
Frankfort, Germany, correspondent published several years before:
“Dine where you would during the Frankfort Fair, you heard of ‘Free
Trade’--and Jenny Lind; of Railroads--and next of Jenny Lind; of the
Spanish Match [the marriage of the Spanish princess]--and, still, Jenny
Lind; of the Pope and the people--and, always, Jenny Lind! When she was
coming--what she would sing--how much be paid--who get the places--and
the like.” The London papers forgot in their ridicule of American
adulation the scenes in Liverpool just before her departure, and that
when she first arrived in England she bore a letter of introduction
from the King of Prussia to Queen Victoria, in which His Majesty asked
Her Majesty “to show every possible kindness to one of the most modest,
exemplary and talented singers which any time has yet produced.” And
they also forgot that when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the
opera when Jenny Lind sang, the glasses were leveled at the stage, and
the royal box was almost like any other box; yet when Charles Macready
performed in _King Lear_, one of his most famous rôles, while Jenny
Lind was present, the stage was ignored in favor of her box. In the
English provinces crowds had gathered outside Jenny Lind’s hotels,
singing,
“Jenny Lind O! Jenny Lind O!
Come to the window!”
And Jenny seldom would respond. _Gants_ and _mouchoirs à la_ Jenny
Lind were started in London and imitated in New York. Carlyle was able
to write with justice to his brother: “All people are rushing after a
little Swedish woman, an Opera Singer, called Jenny Lind: 40 pounds
is the price of a box (four sittings) for one night, in some cases! I
saw Jenny, one day, dined with her, and had to speak French to her all
dinner,--a nice little innocent, clear, _thin_ ‘bit lassie’; somewhat
like a douce minister’s daughter; sense enough, too; but my notion was
that I could easily raise fifty women with much _more_ sense (one in
Dumfries with twice as much perhaps); and that, as to singing, with
such a _shrew_ of a voice,--I would _not_ give 10 pounds or hardly 10
pence, to hear Jenny!”
It is a curious phase of the Jenny Lind mania that in cities which
had not yet heard her sing, the enthusiasm of other cities was always
ridiculed. Boston laughed at New York, and Philadelphia scorned both,
until it was forced to hold its tongue and listen to its own raptures.
And as soon as she had left a city, and the trance had worn off
slightly, people shook their heads over the antics of their neighbors:
London ridiculed New York, and New York laughed at Boston.
But while Jenny Lind remained in a city the enthusiasm was unbounded,
and not the least enthusiastic were those who came to seek her
charity. Swedes came from all over the country to remind her in her
benevolence that after all they were Swedes. Maunsell B. Field was
asked by Jenny Lind, according to his book, to select appropriate
charities. He presented a list of institutions for her approval, and
she approved them without looking at his list. Then Field started on
his mission of mercy, and he was to regret that he had ever undertaken
the job. “Scarcely anybody,” he wrote, “--there were a few praiseworthy
exceptions--was satisfied. At almost every establishment at which I
called, they tried to persuade me that a larger allotment should have
been made to their particular institution, and that its needs and
deservings were so much greater than those of such a sister one.” Jenny
Lind herself was literally hounded by charity seekers as soon as it
became generally known that she practised charity. Every day people
visited her and gained admission on various pretexts, only to beg when
they came within her hearing. Some ladies who called for a gift, when
they received one, turned up their noses and asked, “Is that all?” Upon
another occasion an indignant petitioner declared that he had not come
for alms but for a donation, when the sum he received did not exceed
his expectations.
She received begging letters daily, and Barnum also received his
share. He said that he received an average of twenty begging letters
every day during her tour of the country. One woman in Pittsburg
informed Barnum that she had just given birth to twins, a boy and
a girl, and that she had named them P. T. Barnum and Jenny Lind
respectively, adding that in gratitude it was his duty to send her
$5,000 for the immediate wants of the pair, and also that she thought
Barnum should make provision for their future education and support.
One man wrote: “god Nose I am Poore,” and another, who said he was too
decrepit to earn a living, took advantage of Barnum’s love of religion,
when he wrote: “I tak grait pleshur in Readin my bibel, speshily the
Proffits.”
Acknowledgments of Jenny Lind’s donations appeared every day in the
newspapers, which was excellent publicity, but it was also appropriate,
for her charities were large enough to be exceptional news. There was
something in Jenny Lind’s character that made charity necessary, and
that was probably, as her letters intimate, a sense of possessing a
gift from God, which she considered that she held in trust, and which
it was therefore her duty to dispense; for all life was a terrible
obligation to Jenny Lind. If she made a pecuniary fortune by means of a
God-given art, it was part of the divine justice that ruled her world
for her to give much of that fortune to God’s creatures, individually,
and through the agencies of homes for indigent females, firemen’s funds
and university scholarships. But this obligation carried with it as
many worries and annoyances as it did delights and satisfactions. It
even extended its annoyances to other persons, who in some cases were
not even remotely associated with her. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote
in his Journal for September 11, 1850: “In the twilight, a visit from a
vendor of essences, who offered a great bargain; namely, that he would
give me a dollar’s worth of his essences, and I should write for him
a poetical epistle to Jenny Lind asking charity in his behalf. Stupid
dolt! it took me some time to make him comprehend the indecency of his
behavior. Truly an ignoble Yankee is a very ignoble being.”
Barnum was accused continually in the newspapers of contributing
nothing to charity, while his Angel gave away her money in profusion.
A conundrum went the rounds of the newspapers throughout the country
which read: “Why is it that Jenny Lind and Barnum will never
fall out?” Answer: “Because he is always for-getting, and she is
always forgiving.” It was said that Barnum himself invented this
disparagement, and it would not be unlikely, for he never cared what
the public thought of him so long as they talked about him. Without
doubt it was Barnum’s wise policy to elevate Jenny Lind to the skies
even at the expense of himself. He may have realized that every good
story, including those in the Bible, has a villain, and he was quite
willing to take the rôle providing the receipts were large enough.
Almost every day for several weeks in October of 1850 James Gordon
Bennett attacked Barnum in the _Herald_ and demanded to know when he
was going to give something to charity. A sample of these misstatements
read: “Jenny Lind does all the generous acts, and Barnum perpetrates
all the mean doings. He has not given a penny as yet for any charitable
purpose, although he makes more out of Jenny’s talents than Jenny does
herself.” This was untrue, for whenever Jenny Lind gave a concert
for charity, she gave her voice. Barnum paid all the expenses of the
hall, the orchestra, printing and advertising. She frequently urged
him to deduct the expenses from the proceeds and give the remainder to
charity, but he wrote in his autobiography that he insisted on paying
his share to charity, for “it was purely a business operation, ‘bread
cast upon the waters,’” which “would return, perhaps, buttered; for the
larger her reputation for liberality, the more liberal the public would
surely be to us and to our enterprise.” Before the first concert Barnum
thought the receipts might total $20,000, and he announced that Jenny
Lind would give her share, $10,000, to charity. When her share totaled
only $8,500, he made up the difference without any announcement of his
own liberality. It was one of the ingredients of his disposition which
contributed to his success that allowed Barnum, with the knowledge
that he had contributed largely to Jenny Lind’s charities, to enjoy in
silence what would have caused most men to write indignant letters and
institute exorbitant libel suits. Barnum was never indignant publicly,
and by laughing at his detractors he always gained the applause of the
large numbers of his fellow citizens, who respected him because he was
successful and enjoyed him because he was entertaining.
V
There were a hundred men in New York the day after Jenny Lind’s first
concert who would have given Barnum $200,000 for his contract. He
received offers for an eighth, a tenth, and even a sixteenth of a share
in the profits, but he kept the entire contract to himself, for he did
not relish assistance which refuses to take a risk. The receipts of
the second concert in New York were $14,203.03, and the remaining four
concerts there brought in a total of $54,988.81, making the total for
the six New York concerts, Jenny Lind’s first appearances, $87,055.89.
Then Barnum moved on Boston.
The party left on the _Empire State_ on the evening of September 26.
As the steamer passed Blackwells Island, the prisoners were drawn up
to greet Jenny Lind. She seemed much pleased and asked Barnum who
these enthusiastic lovers of music were, and when she was told that
they were prisoners, she hurried to the opposite side of the deck; she
could not sympathize with creatures who had done wrong. Along the banks
of the East River cheering crowds gathered to salute her, and as the
boat passed Fort Adams at half-past two in the morning, the officers
serenaded her.
In spite of the rain a large crowd assembled at the Old Colony Depot
to welcome Jenny Lind to Boston. The entrance to the Revere House,
where she stayed in Boston, was completely blocked with people. Soon
after her arrival the Mayor and a group of his selectmen hurried to
the hotel and were introduced. The Mayor assured her that, in spite
of its reputation, Boston was as cordial as any place in the United
States, and that she would find greater appreciation there for her
talent than elsewhere. “It is not your superhuman musical endowments,”
he added, “that have captivated our senses, it is your unblemished
private character, and--” But here Jenny Lind interrupted and asked
the Mayor, “What do you know of my private character? What _can_ you
know of my private character? Sir, I am no better than other people,
no better.” “Madam,” the Mayor insisted, “where there is so much
goodness of heart as you display, there must be virtue. Your Christian
conduct is sufficient excuse for allusion to your exalted reputation.
It has charmed the world; and though small communities may be deceived
in their estimate of an individual, the world, I think, cannot. The
world has conceded to you all that I have pronounced of your history.
Your fame has been domesticated, not only in your own country, but
throughout Europe; and in America your name has become a household
word. The object of this visit, Miss Lind, on the part of myself and
the aldermen and other gentlemen who accompany me, is not to utter
fulsome adulations; we have come to do honor to ourselves, and to
testify respect for genius and virtue. We are happy to find you in such
good health and spirits, and hope that your visit to America may be
pleasant.” Jenny Lind’s response was that they praised her too much,
and she probably meant it, for she had a very fair sense of proportion.
The people outside the Revere House refused to leave, although they
were dripping with rain, until the Mayor requested them to do so. The
New York newspapers eagerly copied this account, and the _Tribune_,
heading its reprint “Alas for Boston!”, interpolated sarcastic comments
on the Mayor’s remarks. The auction of the first ticket in Boston
started at $250, twenty-five dollars more than the last bid in New
York; as a Boston newspaper expressed the difference, it “at once
clapped a broad-brimmed beaver extinguisher upon the flaming glories
of the Mammoth Manhattan hatter, and the great city that owned him
for its champion. Genin was instantaneously swamped in ticket-buying
supremacy. His cake of immortality was dough, his felt and fur
transcendentalism was scattered to the four winds, and he sank at once
with a crashing souse into a mere eightpenny oblivion.” Ossian F.
Dodge, a vocalist, paid $625 for the first ticket. The publicity Genin
received had taught others its value, and Dodge paid this high price as
an investment, which was successful, for immediately after Jenny Lind’s
departure his own concerts were well attended.
Longfellow and the Hon. Edward S. Everett called upon Jenny Lind at her
hotel, and the poet was charmed with her personality, and later with
her voice. She visited Cambridge and looked through the telescope of
the astronomical observatory. As she was gazing at the skies a large
meteor crossed the path of the telescope, and some of the newspapers
took this as a gigantic omen of “the brilliant reputation which is to
attend the great vocalist on her travels through the United States.”
But Barnum was attending to the details of that, and he needed no
meteor’s assistance. The newspapers were kept supplied daily with fresh
stories of Jenny Lind. One of these told of the antics of the coachman
who had driven her to the Revere House. In mockery of his unbalanced
fellow citizens, he rose on the steps of the hotel, and, extending his
hands, shouted to the crowd: “Here’s the hand that lifted Jenny Lind
out of the coach, gentlemen. You can, any of you, kiss it, who choose
to buy that privilege for five dollars, children half-price.” A Boston
newspaper told of the invention of a “Jenny Lind Tea Kettle,” which,
“being filled with water and placed on the fire, begins to sing in a
few minutes,” and a provision dealer in Lynn, Massachusetts, offered
for sale “Jenny Lind Sausages.”
The Boston concerts were successful, and Jenny Lind’s renditions of
Handel’s _Messiah_, Haydn’s _Creation_, and Rossini’s _Stabat Mater_
were especially popular. But the last concert in Boston was a riot.
It was held in the Fitchburg Depot, a building badly adapted to the
needs of a concert hall. Those who had purchased only standing-room
stormed the hall early and took many of the seats, which led to
the impression that Barnum had sold too many tickets. The hall was
without ventilation, for the windows were nailed down, and the heat
was oppressive. The audience kept up a loud, indignant conversation
to alleviate its discomfort, and it was impossible to hear Belletti’s
solo beyond the first rows of the orchestra. While he was singing,
some one suggested relief by breaking the windows, and the impromptu
accompaniment of the sound of smashing glass gave to his song a weird
effect. When Jenny Lind herself appeared, there was more quiet, but not
enough for all to hear her. A rumor that the floor would not hold the
weight of the crowd threatened to become the source of a panic until
Benjamin Peirce, America’s most eminent mathematician, mounted a chair
and reassured the crowd by stating it as his emphatic expert opinion
that the floor would hold their weight.[10] The confusion continued
until the end of the concert. Barnum was threatened with violence by
the crowd and was compelled to go to his hotel quietly before the
concert was finished. Announcement was made that the tickets which
could not be used by their rightful owners because of the appropriation
of seats by the mob would be redeemed at cost price, but the mob was
angry, and there was much talk of tar and feathers for Barnum, who left
Boston the next day, allowing his manager, Le Grand Smith, to pay off
the dissatisfied ticket-holders.
This episode, which is one of many omitted from Barnum’s autobiography,
caused Jenny Lind to become dissatisfied with her manager. Throughout
their tour it was difficult for Barnum to reconcile his methods with
her temperament, but this was the first sign of disagreement. Jenny
Lind hated crowds, and to Barnum they were a delight as well as a
necessity. She hated humbug, a word which was constantly on her lips
to describe all that was abhorrent to her; and Barnum called himself
the “Prince of Humbugs.” When she heard that Ossian F. Dodge had paid
$625 for the first ticket to her Boston concert, she said, “What a
fool!”
The newspapers were also angry at Barnum for the riot in the Fitchburg
depot, and one of them published an attack upon his methods that
accused him openly of fraud. The editor of another Boston newspaper
wrote to Barnum: “One of our occasional correspondents has sent an
article which I find is in type, handling you very severely. Thinking
that you would dislike very much to be placed before the public in an
unfavorable light, especially at this particular time, I concluded to
write this and say, that if you desire it, I will prevent its appearing
in our columns. Please reply by bearer, and believe me, Faithfully
yours, ----. P. S. Please loan me one hundred dollars for a few days to
aid me in making an improvement in our paper.” Barnum answered: “Sir--I
hope you will by no means curtail the privilege of ‘correspondents’
or editors on my account. Publish what you please, so far as I am
concerned. I have no money to lend, and never yet paid a farthing
‘blackmail,’ and, _so help me God, I never will_. P. T. Barnum.” Then
Barnum published the entire correspondence in the Boston newspapers,
omitting the name of the editor.
From Boston the party went to Philadelphia. Philadelphia was determined
not to lose its head and heart, as Boston and New York had done, and
the audience that assembled in the Chestnut Street Theater was quiet,
staid, and cold; they could not have been more skeptical had they
been from Missouri. When Belletti came upon the stage, there was a
dead silence, and after his song only a few daring hands ventured to
break the heavy hostility. Jenny Lind’s appearance was greeted with
a few cheers, which were conspicuous for their individuality rather
than their communal strength. The first of her arias was received with
only slight applause, but when she sang “Take This Lute,” the ice was
broken, and the rest of the program was received with enthusiasm
appropriate to her reputation.
She returned to New York from Philadelphia, and gave fifteen more
concerts in Tripler Hall. At one of these Daniel Webster, who had paid
a personal call in Boston, and who impressed her as America’s greatest
intellect, heard her sing. He twisted impatiently in his seat while she
sang florid arias, and finally whispered to one of his friends, “Why
doesn’t she give us one of the simple mountain melodies of her native
land?” The remark was overheard and carried to Jenny Lind, who obliged
Daniel Webster with the “Mountain Song.” When she finished, he rose
in his seat and bowed his large head respectfully and solemnly at the
simple maiden who was curtsying to him from the stage.
After dispensing more than $5,000 in public charity, Jenny Lind
returned to Philadelphia, and then went to Baltimore, where she was
greeted enthusiastically by a crowd, who insisted that she appear on
the balcony of her hotel. She dropped her shawl by accident, and the
people below fell on top of one another and tore the shawl to bits
for souvenirs. During her second visit to Philadelphia she had been
subjected to evidences of popularity, but she had a bad headache and
refused to appear on the hotel balcony. The crowd would not go away,
and finally, in order that Jenny Lind might get rest, Barnum dressed
her pious companion, Josephine Åhmansson, in the singer’s cloak and
bonnet, and to authenticate the deception he smilingly received the
applause of the multitude as he stood by Miss Åhmansson’s side.
In Washington Jenny Lind became a national character. The morning after
her arrival President Fillmore called at her hotel and left his card,
Jenny Lind being out. She was impressed with this mark of esteem and
considered it a command for her presence. She wished to go at once to
the White House in answer to the command, but Barnum convinced her that
in the United States the President does not command individuals, and
that the next morning would be time enough to return the compliment.
Barnum and Jenny Lind spent the next evening in the private circle
of the President at the White House, and she was charmed with the
simplicity of her reception at the American court.
The concerts in Washington were held in a hall that was being built
especially for Jenny Lind, and which was not finished when she arrived.
Planks instead of steps, unpainted walls and rough benches, were
accepted by the President, the members of his cabinet, and the leaders
of Washington’s political society, in order that they might hear Jenny
Lind sing. Among others, Daniel Webster, General Cass and General Scott
were at the first concert. Soon after Benedict began the overture
a murmur was heard in the rear of the hall. It died down, and the
overture was finished. There was great applause, and Benedict turned
to face the audience in gratitude. But the audience was not looking at
the stage, and the applause had not been for the overture. The figure
of an aged man was slowly advancing to the front of the hall. Every one
made way for him, and as he crept along, the shouts and the applause
increased. Bowing to the right and to the left, he feebly groped his
way to his seat. Finally he reached the seat, and there was silence
as all watched him slowly sink into it. Then a voice from the gallery
shouted, “Three cheers for Harry Clay!”
On the morning after her first Washington concert Henry Clay called
upon Jenny Lind and enjoyed a long conversation with her. Webster sent
a note asking for an appointment, and it soon became a matter of state
importance for the most prominent senators and representatives to
visit her at the hotel. She made the trip to Mt. Vernon, and Colonel
Washington, one of the President’s descendants, guided her through the
George Washington house and estate. Mrs. Washington gave her a book
with his autograph from the first President’s library.
On the occasion of the second concert in Washington the President and
the same celebrities attended again, and Barnum was unfortunately
persuaded to request Jenny Lind to sing “Hail Columbia,” which was
hardly suited to her voice. Even this audience which was anxious to
please was not enthusiastic over her rendition of the popular tune, and
Barnum after that experience declined to suggest any songs for his star.
Richmond and Charleston paid tribute after Washington had heard Jenny
Lind, and then the party left for Havana, Cuba. At Charleston she
celebrated Christmas, and she ironically presented Barnum with a statue
of Bacchus in Parian marble, which he kept at “Iranistan” for many
years.
Jenny Lind was dissatisfied with the dirty hotel in Havana, and she
left the rest of the party and went out alone to find a house. She
returned a short time later and invited Barnum and his daughter to
share with her a pleasant house in a suburban district, where she
rested and played ball on the lawn. She insisted that Barnum too must
come out on the lawn, but Barnum was getting corpulent, and he tells
us that when he grew tired too soon, Jenny Lind would exclaim in
“her rich, musical laugh,” “Oh, Mr. Barnum, you are too fat and too
lazy; you cannot stand to play ball with me!” In Havana she met again
Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish writer, who had been touring America.
Fredrika Bremer had known Jenny Lind in Sweden, and when they met in
Havana they talked of their Swedish friends, for Jenny Lind seemed
reluctant to discuss her concerts or her triumphs. “I fancied,” wrote
Fredrika Bremer, “that Jenny Lind was tired of her wandering life and
her rôle of singer. We talked of--marriage and domestic life. Of a
certainty a change of this kind is approaching for Jenny Lind. But will
it satisfy her soul and be enough for her? I doubt.”
An Italian opera company was performing in Havana when Jenny Lind
arrived, and the population was divided concerning the relative merits
of singing inspired by the cold north, and that which was nurtured in
southern warmth. The Creoles favored Jenny Lind, but the Castilians
supported the Italians, and all the newspapers were also on their side.
There was much sentiment against Barnum because of the high prices
he asked for his tickets, and the hall was not crowded when the first
concert began. The audience was divided into hostile factions, and
Belletti, although he was an Italian, was received in silence and got
no applause when he had finished. When Jenny Lind entered, a few daring
hands clapped, but they were almost immediately silenced by hisses.
This attitude angered her, and she pitted her voice in all its power
against this hostility which seemed to her so unreasonable. After her
first recitative there was a silent pause. The audience seemed afraid
and undecided, but as she prepared to retire, there was a burst of
applause, and she was brought back five times. Although encores were
forbidden by the rules of the opera house, upon this occasion the
regulation was relaxed, and Jenny Lind repeated the _Casta Diva_.
Barnum could not restrain tears of joy, as he watched from his post
in the wings Jenny Lind’s triumph over hostility. When she came back
stage, he rushed up to her and said, “God bless you, Jenny, you have
settled them!” She threw her arms about his neck, wept, and asked, “Are
you satisfied?”
After four concerts in Havana, although they were financially and
artistically successful, the original intention to give twelve concerts
there was abandoned, and the party left for New Orleans. On this voyage
Jenny Lind was troubled and distressed at the presence in the ship
of four hundred reveling gold-hunters from California. When the boat
arrived in New Orleans, the wharf was crowded with people who were
anxious to welcome her, and she dreaded the encounter, for the quiet of
her Havana vacation had increased her hatred of crowds. “Mr. Barnum,”
she said, “I am sure I can never get through that crowd.” “Leave that
to me,” Barnum answered. He dressed his daughter in a veil, and, taking
her arm, proceeded down the gangplank, while Jenny Lind remained
in her cabin. Many of the people on the wharf recognized Barnum
immediately, and his manager, Le Grand Smith, stood against the rail
of the deck, shouting, “Make way, if you please, for Mr. Barnum and
Miss Lind.” Barnum and his daughter made their way through the crowd
with difficulty and drove to the hotel where Jenny Lind’s suite had
been engaged. A few minutes later Jenny Lind drove through the empty,
tranquil streets of New Orleans to the hotel.
In New Orleans the concerts were very successful, and after her first
appearance, the planters and other wealthy residents of the near-by
Mississippi River towns came down the Mississippi to hear her. New
Orleans at that time was described by a member of the Jenny Lind party
as the city where “drinking seems to hold its chief abiding place in
the New World,” and where “drunkenness may be regarded as one of the
more prominent features of the lower classes.” Therefore Barnum chose
New Orleans as a most appropriate place for his lecture on temperance.
He had contributed $500 to the temperance cause, which was under
the leadership in Louisiana of Father Matthew. Possibly at Barnum’s
dictation or suggestion, Father Matthew wrote to all the newspapers in
acknowledgment of this gift. Soon afterwards Mayor Crossman and some
of the leading citizens asked Barnum to lecture on temperance. He was
in excellent form that evening. He spoke of the poisonous qualities of
alcohol, and when a member of the audience asked, “How does it affect
us, externally or internally?” Barnum replied, “_E_-ternally.” He spoke
for one hour and a quarter, and a contemporary account suggests that
another hour would not have been too much. At the end of his temperance
lecture he announced the date of Jenny Lind’s last concert, but the
demand for tickets was great, and Jenny Lind refused to travel on the
Sabbath, so that, not very reluctantly, Barnum was forced to give two
farewell concerts. It was at the last concert that, according to the
_New Orleans Picayune_ of the next day, “one enthusiastic individual
in the pit of the St. Charles’ Theater, who vociferously encored Jenny
Lind in the ‘Last Rose of Summer,’ for the third time, finding his
‘call’ not responded to, rushed out and made his way among the quadroon
flower-girls on St. Charles Street, asking, ‘Have you got the last
rose of summer?--where’s the last rose of summer? I’ll give five--I’ll
give ten dollars for the last rose of summer.’”
The concert party proceeded up the Mississippi River, and Jenny Lind
gave performances at Natchez and Memphis. At Nashville, Tennessee,
they arrived just before April Fool’s Day, and on the first of April
Barnum exercised his cruel and unthinking practical sense of humor
by obtaining blank telegraph forms and sending his companions and
employees alarming despatches from home. Le Grand Smith received a
message from his old father in Connecticut that the family homestead
was in ashes, and some of the minor employees had offers for their
services from banks and other institutions. The musical performers were
offered long engagements in New York or London, and one of the married
men was informed that he was the father of twins. The next morning they
read in a Nashville newspaper an account of the deception, for Barnum
was proud of his wit and anxious to make publicity even at the expense
of other persons’ anxiety or false hopes. In his early circus days
Aaron Turner had played the same kind of trick on him, and he forgot
how angry he had been at this type of practical joke.
In Cincinnati the crowd on the wharf was so large that once more Jenny
Lind was distressed. The news of how Barnum kept the crowds from Jenny
Lind in New Orleans had spread, and it was impossible for him to repeat
the trick at Cincinnati. Therefore, this time he took Jenny Lind’s
arm. She was heavily veiled. Le Grand Smith shouted from the deck of
the ship, “That’s no go, Mr. Barnum, you can’t pass your daughter off
for Jenny Lind this time.” The crowd backed away from the couple of
celebrities and jeered wisely at Barnum, assuring him that he could
fool New Orleans, but not Cincinnati. In five minutes Jenny Lind was in
her rooms, and the crowd persisted for an hour on the wharf.
In May, 1851, Barnum and Jenny Lind returned to New York, where
she gave fourteen concerts with great success. Then they went to
Philadelphia, where three concerts were scheduled, but when Jenny
Lind arrived there, she discovered that Barnum had hired the National
Theater, which had been used for a circus only a short time before.
The dressing room smelled like a stable, and Jenny Lind assured Barnum
indignantly that she was not a horse. This disagreement brought to a
head other causes of dissatisfaction. Barnum said many times in his
autobiography that Jenny Lind’s advisers, and particularly John Jay,
who had succeeded his partner, Maunsell B. Field, as Jenny Lind’s
legal representative, plagued him continually during the tour. They
poured into Jenny Lind’s ears the suggestion that while she was getting
large sums of money from Barnum, he was making much more out of her
talents. Her secretary, who was anxious to become her manager, used
this argument whenever the opportunity presented itself. Also, at this
time, Otto Goldschmidt, a young German whom Jenny Lind had known in
Europe, joined the party to take the place of Julius Benedict, whose
ill health made it necessary for him to return home. This serious
student and frigid musician, whose Teutonic personality as gleaned from
the few stories about him, leads to the impression that he was more
precise than he was interesting, would not have been attracted either
by Barnum’s character or his methods.[11] And Jenny Lind, as we shall
see, paid special attention to the opinions of Otto Goldschmidt.
Matters reached a crisis after the first of the additional Philadelphia
concerts. The latest contract provided that after one hundred concerts
either party could terminate the agreement with the consent of the
other party. Ninety-three concerts had been given, and Barnum and
Jenny Lind agreed to abrogate the contract forthwith. She paid him
$1,000 for each of the remaining seven concerts, and the $25,000 agreed
upon as the forfeit to be paid for the termination of the contract.
Barnum’s management of the Jenny Lind tour had been successful, but
not easy. Besides the constant necessity of keeping up a steady stream
of publicity, which was a burden as well as a delight to Barnum,
he had to contend with dissatisfied newspapers, beggars, and the
dignity of Jenny Lind’s friends, who kept assuring her that after all
Barnum was a showman and not an impresario. At the end of the nine
months of work and anxiety Barnum was tired of the bickerings and the
misunderstandings and the clashes of different temperaments, even if he
was not weary of the vanity, the notoriety and the little pleasantries
which always characterized his enterprises; so that he was glad to
retire for a rest under the gilded domes and shining minarets of
“Iranistan,” while Jenny Lind continued to give concerts under her own
management.
The ninety-three concerts under Barnum’s management had yielded a total
of $712,161.34 in a period of nine months. Of this amount Jenny Lind
received from Barnum, besides all her expenses, $208,675.09 as her
share of the proceeds, including her guaranteed stipend of $1,000 per
concert. She refunded to Barnum $32,000 to break the contract after the
ninety-three concerts, so that her net profit from the tour totaled
$176,675.09. Barnum’s gross receipts, after paying Jenny Lind her
share, were $535,486.25. He never printed what proportion of this was
net profit, but his expenses probably reached $350,000.
The Jenny Lind tour, besides the financial profit to the two principals
and the beneficial effect on Barnum’s prestige and Jenny Lind’s
popularity, had an effect of great importance on the history of music
in the United States. No star in her ascendancy had ventured into
the barbarous American woods in search of gold, but the success of
Jenny Lind, which was so much greater financially and emotionally
than any of her European triumphs, opened the eyes of other musical
celebrities to possibilities in an American tour; it also awakened
American impresarios to the opportunities in this country. Grisi and
Mario, who were Europe’s favorites before the Jenny Lind vogue, made
plans to visit the United States, and Johanna Wagner at one time
entertained that intention. Henriette Sontag visited New York when
Jenny Lind was preparing to leave. She enjoyed some success here, due
in part to her beauty and charming manner, as well as to her voice, but
she did not create a Jenny Lind furor. At the time when Mme. Sontag
visited the United States, Von Bülow called her in compliment to her
beauty, “a forty-eight-year-old soubrette.” She had many admirers in
Europe, and some of these were personal. Lord Clanwilliam, British
Ambassador at Berlin, was so persistent in his unwelcome attentions to
Mme. Sontag that he was called “Lord Montag following Sontag.” After
Barnum retired, Le Grand Smith became an impresario in his own name and
brought Mme. Alboni to this country in 1852. Neither of these stars
enjoyed the success of Jenny Lind, for, aside from any difference in
the qualities of their voices, it was well known that young men in
Europe drank champagne from Henriette Sontag’s slipper, and Alboni’s
lovers were almost as many as Jenny Lind’s charities: church has always
been more popular in America than burlesque.
In 1855 Thalberg came to the United States and was received by
appreciative audiences. Barnum imported an Englishwoman, Catherine
Hayes, who gave concerts in California, where gold was being
discovered. Julien presented a successful series of operas in many
large cities. New musical halls were built in New York, Philadelphia,
and other populous cities. Less than one year after Jenny Lind left
this country, J. S. Dwight, editor of the _Boston Journal of Music_,
wrote in his magazine: “Verily, we need not go abroad for music. The
last ten days at home have been rich with musical events.... There has
been the oratorio of Beethoven, and there has been the Mendelssohn
Festival; and there has been another of the choicest and purest kind of
Chamber Concerts; and there have been three or four nights of Alboni’s
opera; and last, but not the least significant as a sign of the times,
the two weekly afternoon orchestra ‘rehearsals,’ both (as usual)
largely attended, and one inordinately crowded--either of these were
text enough for quite as long a disquisition as could be profitable
for one week. We can only take them in their order and pass lightly
over topics, any one of which would be a perfect God-send and meat for
weeks of gossip and excitement at almost any other time--_as times were
once_.”
Credit must be given to Barnum for the impetus to musical enterprise
in the United States, even though his intentions were not purely
educational or philanthropic. “It is a mistake,” he told a reporter in
1890, “to say the fame of Jenny Lind rests solely upon her ability to
sing. She was a woman who would have been adored if she had had the
voice of a crow.” It would be a mistake to say that music in America
depended for its success on Barnum, but it was his ability as a
publicity entrepreneur that caused thousands to realize for the first
time what pleasure they had been missing in their ignorance of music.
He created a large scale demand, the satisfaction of which was carried
out by men of superior musical judgment, but music in the United States
was advanced many years in its progress by Barnum’s daring importation
and unique exploitation of Jenny Lind.
VI
Jenny Lind continued to give concerts after she and Barnum separated,
but her success was not so great as that she had enjoyed under his
management. This was due in some measure, and probably very largely,
to the absence of Barnum, who was always resourceful in the face of
public indifference, which he combated with new inducements. But it
was also due to the fact that her novelty was wearing off, and even a
public that adored a heroine in white was beginning to find unrelieved
perfection dull. A French writer has set it down, “Pretend to a fault
if you haven’t one, for the one thing the world never forgives is
perfection,” and Jenny Lind had not even a fault she could pretend to.
Disraeli once said of Gladstone that he was “a man without a single
redeeming vice,” and the characterization fits perfectly the public
side of Jenny Lind’s personality. Barnum had succeeded admirably
in keeping her perfection a source of delight to the public. His
manager, Le Grand Smith, remarked, “Well, Mr. Barnum, you have managed
wonderfully in always keeping Jenny’s ‘angel’ side outside with the
public.” This accomplishment was admired by showmen and theatrical
agents throughout this country and England, and it increased Barnum’s
reputation among impresarios as much as the successful management of
the concerts raised his esteem with the general public.
It was only after Barnum and Jenny Lind severed their connection that
the public began to find fault. Possibly this equivocal perfection
would have been penetrated finally, even under Barnum’s management, but
while he was her manager he strove energetically to maintain it, and
afterwards there was no one capable of taking his place. For almost a
year Jenny Lind had been a Dickens heroine in the hearts of Americans,
a David Copperfield doll wife to the great sentimental public, and
the first intense ardors of love were beginning to relax into the
type of criticism in which every husband sooner or later indulges.
Behind the crinolines people began to look for humanity and did not
rest until they found satisfactory flaws. It was inevitable that this
should happen, for, as Fielding has pointed out, characters of angelic
perfection in a story are discouraging to the reader, since he must
accept “a pattern of excellence which he may reasonably despair of ever
arriving at.” The Jenny Lind of public repute represents a character of
angelic perfection and a pattern of excellence it would be difficult
to emulate; and it was more than likely that there were few who would
have cared to make the attempt. While Barnum, another public character,
was in the play there was a villain to whom the audience could fasten
whatever of pique or dissatisfaction assailed them. Almost as soon as
he left the scene, the heroine fell from her pedestal. The newspapers
found in Jenny Lind’s actions signs and portents of temperament and
irritability, stubbornness and irrationality. In the flood tide of its
eulogy the _New York Herald_ had written: “If Jenny Lind has faults,
they are like spots on the sun, swallowed up and lost in the glorious
effulgence of the luminary of the world.” The spots on the sun were
beginning to be faintly discernible, and some newspapers even used
telescopes in their efforts to find them. They discovered that she had
a strong will, which on occasion could be described as pig-headedness,
that when she felt uneasy she was cold and irritable, but instead of
loving these imperfections as part of the character of a human being,
those newspapers which brought them to light used them iconoclastically
to prove that the idol they had set up before their eyes was not pure
gold.
When Otto Goldschmidt joined the concert party, he did not add to her
popularity. Jenny Lind had first met him in England, where she was
attracted to him from the fact that he was a pupil of her friend,
Mendelssohn, and because of his ability as a pianist. He played at one
of her concerts for charity in England, and he also played solos at
several of her provincial concerts. He came to America, and at her
suggestion took Julius Benedict’s place. Soon he fell in love with
her, or she fell in love with him; there is no record. But eventually
they fell in love with each other. There had been rumors of Jenny
Lind’s engagement to many persons while she was in this country. Once
she told Barnum that she had just heard a rumor that he and she were
to be married and asked him how he supposed that had ever originated.
“Probably from the fact that we are engaged,” he answered. According
to Maunsell B. Field’s book, Signor Belletti was frantically in love
with Jenny Lind. Field wrote that “the baritone of the troupe which
accompanied her, who was in the same house [The New York Hotel], was
madly in love with her, and he used to lie in bed all day, weeping
and howling over his unrequited affection.” Before Otto Goldschmidt
joined the party at Niagara Falls, where Jenny Lind was resting, she
had seemed to show interest in Belletti. She invariably selected him
as a companion in her walks, and she appealed to him for advice on all
subjects. But the serious young German, who was eight years younger
than she was, soon became the dominating force in her life. Belletti
despaired and left the company soon after Otto Goldschmidt arrived.
Whenever Otto Goldschmidt played piano solos at her concerts, Jenny
Lind sat near him on the stage and fixed her attention on the player.
The audience took the hint and applauded his playing,--or possibly her
presence. Goldschmidt was apparently a good musician, but there is
plenty of newspaper evidence that the public found him dull, and that
Jenny Lind found it necessary to force her friend upon her audiences.
In Philadelphia he was led to foreshorten his performances on the
program because of the excess of obviously ironical applause, but Jenny
Lind met him as he came off the stage and defiantly shook his hand in
public.
They were married at Boston in February, 1852, and lived quietly for
several months at Northampton, Massachusetts. Jenny Lind had never
had congenial home life, and she always enjoyed the happy surface
surroundings of the families she visited in Germany. There was in her
character from the beginning of her womanhood a tendency to shrink from
the world, with its dangers, into the arms of a protecting husband,
whose intimacy would be a refuge from the distrust she always felt for
strangers.
After her marriage Jenny Lind gave a few concerts, and the
advertisements always read “Madame Otto Goldschmidt (late Mlle. Jenny
Lind).” But she was tired of public life, and although Otto Goldschmidt
was in favor of a few more profitable concerts, she was anxious to
return to Europe as soon as possible. This decision was wise, if we can
judge from a Philadelphia newspaper of December 19, 1851:
“Jenny Lind has resolved to give no more concerts in Philadelphia;
few persons will regret her determination, unless she should be
able to better suppress the evidences of ill temper and vexation
than she did on Tuesday evening last. She looked as stingey as a
hive of wasps, and as black as a thunder-cloud, and all because the
house was not crowded. The fact is that Jenny Lind’s attractions
were not strong enough to counteract the dullness of Goldschmidt’s
piano playing, or the merely mediocre ability of Burke on the
violin. The absence too of orchestra was a disgusting exhibition
of parsimony, and a determination to make the most money she
possibly could. Miss Lind has never succeeded since she left the
guardianship of Mr. Barnum; and then she has had poor advisers, and
has been in ill humor when even the homage paid to her talent was
not manifested with the greatest enthusiasm. The nightingale has
feathered her nest well in our country, and she can go back to her
Swedish home where we wish her long health, a better disposition
and a good husband to cheer her declining years.”
Barnum saw her several times after the end of their agreement, for they
were still very friendly to each other. She told him that she found it
annoying to give concerts under her own management, because people were
constantly cheating her.
Madame Otto Goldschmidt (late Mlle. Jenny Lind) announced her farewell
concert at Castle Garden for Monday, May 24, 1852. The concert was
well attended, but not crowded. It rained heavily on May 24, 1852, and
that may have been one reason for the moderate attendance, but one
cannot believe that Barnum would have allowed rain to interfere with
the positively last appearance in America of The Swedish Nightingale.
It was estimated by a newspaper that the receipts for the last
concert were $7,000; the receipts of the first concert under Barnum’s
management had been $17,864.05, and none of his concerts held in Castle
Garden yielded less than $10,000.
Jenny Lind sang a “Farewell to America,” the words of which were
written specially for her use by C. P. Cranch, but it did not cause
enthusiasm. The _New York Herald_, her erstwhile champion, and many of
the other New York newspapers, did not trouble to review her farewell
concert, contenting their readers with short notes concerning it. The
_Herald_ that had called Jenny Lind the most popular woman the world
had ever known, the same _Herald_ that had compared her genius to that
of Raphael, Shakespeare, Columbus, Eli Whitney, Napoleon, Bacon, Dante
and Michael Angelo, sent her from America with these words: “There has
been very little of the classic or pure artistic in her concerts; and
she has been applauded not as an artist, but as a clever vocalist.”
That sun, whose spots the _Herald_ said were “swallowed up and lost
in the glorious effulgence,” was setting more rapidly, perhaps,
than a real sun should, and the _Herald_ itself with characteristic
inconsistency would doubtless have admitted that possibly it was only a
sky rocket.
Barnum visited Jenny Lind in her dressing room after her last concert.
She told him that she would never sing in public again, but he reminded
her that her voice was a gift Providence had invested in her for the
edification and delight of her fellow men, and that she owed it to God
and man to devote that voice to charity and mankind’s enjoyment, if she
herself no longer needed money. “Ah! Mr. Barnum,” she answered, “that
is very true, and it would be ungrateful in me to not continue to use
for the benefit of the poor and lowly that gift which our kind Heavenly
Father has so graciously bestowed upon me. Yes, I will continue to
sing so long as my voice lasts, but it will be mostly for charitable
objects, for I am thankful to say I have all the money which I shall
ever need.” The New Messiah and her advance agent in pious obeisance
paid tribute to their idea of a beneficent Providence, whose all-seeing
eye watches over both a Swedish Nightingale and a Connecticut Yankee.
At one o’clock of the morning of Jenny Lind’s departure, only a few
hundred people gathered for a farewell serenade. The hour, and the fact
that it was still raining, undoubtedly prevented a larger attendance,
but the conviction that she was no longer a goddess contributed
somewhat to the neglect. The firemen were her only faithful admirers.
In gratitude for her donations they presented her with a copy of
Audubon’s _Birds and Quadrupeds of America_ in a rosewood case, and
also with a gold box, seven inches by three inches, the largest gold
box made in America up to that time, they said. The Musical Society
was not present at the serenade, but the same number of firemen, three
hundred, with their red shirts and their lighted torches, waited in the
rain under her window.
“Jenny Lind O! Jenny Lind O!
Come to the window!”
But in spite of the cries of several hundred admirers, Madame Otto
Goldschmidt and her husband refused to appear on the balcony.
At the dock when her ship left two thousand people gathered to make a
noise, in contrast to the thirty thousand who had shoved their way to
greet her. The _Herald_ on the morning of her departure gave her this
parting thrust: “She has been principally engaged in singing pieces
of operas and catches of all kinds, which were considerably more
of the clap-trap style than in accordance with the rigid rules of
classical music. When she returns to London and makes her reappearance
in opera, she will have to prune away a great deal of her _ad libitum_
redundancies in which she indulged during her career in this land.”
This was the same woman whose song seemed to the _Herald_ of a little
more than a year before to be “melting into the song of the seraphim”
until it was “lost in eternity.”
After her return to England, where she and her husband settled
eventually, Jenny Lind was rarely heard in public. She and Otto
Goldschmidt lived at Malvern Hills, where near by there are the three
things she admired most, “trees, water, and a cathedral.” She gave a
few oratorio concerts in England and several concerts for charity on
the Continent, but after her marriage her retirement was practically
complete. It is significant of her character that without a pang of
regret she could still her voice as soon as she changed her name from
Jenny Lind to Madame Otto Goldschmidt. After 1863 she was seldom heard
in public, even for charity, although she was only forty-three years
old. Her last appearance took place in 1883, and in 1887 she died at
Malvern Hills, England, after suffering from complete paralysis for
five weeks.
At one time Jenny Lind intended to write an autobiography, but when
the public did not receive Carlyle’s _Reminiscences_ with the applause
she thought it deserved, she abandoned her idea with the comment, “No!
let the waves of oblivion pass over my poor little life!” There must
have been moments in those later years of uninterrupted existence
along common family lines when Jenny Lind was restless--for what, she
did not know; but, unfortunately for the development of her talents,
in such moments she could always take quick refuge in God. Some pagan
influences might have made her a great woman, for the God she adored
had done all he could in the way of native gifts. If she had listened
to the dictates of her emotions with half the unresisting attention she
paid to the Bishop of Norwich and Josephine Åhmansson, the world to-day
would know of Jenny Lind as something more than the spiritual toy of
its grandfathers. The development of her talents and personality into
genius was thwarted by suppression of the ordinary aims and aspirations
of men. She smothered her desire for money by an inordinate indulgence
in charity; a more natural appetite for worldly possessions might have
led to artistic tastes, of which there is absolutely no indication
beyond the technical development of her voice. Even in music there is
no important discrimination and no predilection for the great, and of
literature and art she knew nothing, because she did not allow herself
even the little mental freedom necessary for their wide acquaintance.
The desire for fame was lost in a constant consideration of God,
making man’s aspirations unimportant in her mind. She could write to a
young boy who was just entering the University of Heidelberg, when she
herself was still under thirty: “You are just going to begin life, dear
Rudolph; and life has quite as much joy as it has sorrow: but I, for
my part, prefer the sorrow: for there is something exalted about it,
whenever one’s heart is full of pain: for then it is that we first feel
how poor we are on earth, how rich in heaven.” Any tendency towards
intellectual supremacy through the agency of her great natural voice
was thwarted by her weak dependence upon the advice of others, leading
eventually to the retirement of marriage.
It was rumored that Jenny Lind’s last years were unhappy, that she was
treated with indifference by her husband, and that her grave in 1890
had fallen into neglect. This story, printed in a London newspaper
and reprinted by the _New York Tribune_, was denied vigorously by
Barnum. He said that he had visited Otto Goldschmidt in London, and
that he happened to know that Jenny Lind’s husband sent fresh flowers
to her grave every day. The London newspaper had printed that she died
broken-hearted, but Barnum declared confidently, “Her whole life was a
song, and her last days were spent in singing for indigent clergymen.”
In their introduction Jenny Lind’s biographers wrote: “And, certainly,
the tale of Jenny Lind may well be told for the sake of bearing
splendid witness, to all those who feel themselves stirred by some
inherent native power, of the unconquerable force with which a pure and
strong individuality, if it be true to the inner light and loyal to
the outward call, can dominate circumstances, however harsh and rude,
and can, with a single eye on the far goal of artistic perfection, and
upheld by faith in God, move straight to its aim with an unswerving and
irresistible security, shaping its passage, amid pitfalls and snares,
over this perilous earth with a motion as free and sure and faithful
as a star that passes, in unhindered obedience, over the steady face
of heaven.” This is not, to my mind, the main interest of Jenny Lind’s
life. In her existence and triumphs lies a tale wherein is contained
the extraordinary circumstances by which a mädchen who wanted most to
be a hausfrau attained by means of a sweet and charitable disposition
and a superb voice to a celebrity as well, and failed to become a great
artist because she succeeded so well in becoming a hausfrau.