Nilsson has come; and, sad to say, has brought dissension and discord
with her. Not that there is any discord in her matchless voice, but
there is a vast amount of wrangling as to her precise merits. Do you
doubt this? Then come with me in my light Fourth Avenue car, while the
stars are bright and the sky is blue, (this is an adaptation of a once
popular love-song by Dr. WATTS,) and we will go to Steinway Hall to hear
the Improved Swedish Nightingale, and feast our eyes on STRAKOSCH'S
flowers.
We pass up the steep staircase--with many misgivings as to our ankles,
if we belong to the sex which considers the possession of those
anatomical features a fact to be carefully concealed, provided they are
not symmetrical. We pass the door-keeper, who, as is the custom of his
kind, frowns malignantly at us, and evidently asks himself--"How much
longer can I refrain from tearing up the tickets of these impudent
pleasure-seekers, and throwing the pieces in their infamously contented
countenances?" We gain the hall, and are sent to the inevitable "other
aisle," by the usher, (by the way, why is it that one always gets into
the wrong aisle, only to be ignominiously ordered to the opposite side
of the house?) and we finally turn various illegal occupants out of our
seats, and begin to fan ourselves in fervid anticipation of the coming
musical treat. A buzz of conversation is everywhere going on. Did any
one ever notice the curious fact that a middle-aged man and woman can
converse at a theatre or concert room without either one finding any
difficulty in hearing what the other says, while no young man can make
his accompanying young lady hear a single word unless his mouth is in
close proximity to her ear? This singular state of things is doubtless
due to the peculiar acoustical properties of public buildings. We
manage, however, to hear a good deal of both young and middle-aged
conversation, of the following improving type.
RURAL PERSON. "I've heard most everybody that's sung in our Philadelphy
opera house, and some of 'em are pretty hard to beat. NILSSON may beat
'em, you know. Mind, now, I don't say she won't, but she's got a mighty
hard row to hoe."
CRITIC. _(Who sent for seats for his eight sisters and their
friends--but who did not get them.)_ "There comes the Scandinavian
Society--fifty Irishmen at fifty cents a head. Did you see the flowers
piled up in the lobby? MAX paid seven hundred dollars for the lot."
YOUNG MAN. "Dearest! I wish you wouldn't look at that fellow across the
way. You know how your own darling loves you, and--"