TO ANY LADY SUBSCRIBER WHO MAY WISH FOR GLEANINGS FROM THAT FIRST
CONCERT OF JENNY LIND WHICH THE CRITICS OF THE DAILY PAPERS HAVE
SO WELL HARVESTED.
Highland Terrace, Sept. 21, 1850.
DEAR MADAM—My delight at Jenny Lind’s First Concert is sandwiched
between slices of rural tranquillity—as I went to town for that only,
and returned the next day—so that I date from where I write, and treat
to sidewalk gossip in a letter “writ by the running brook.” Like the
previous “Rural Letters” of this series, the present one would have made
no special call on your attention, and would have been addressed to my
friend and partner—but, as he accompanied me to the concert, I could
not with propriety write him the news of it, and I therefore address
myself, without intermediation, to the real reader for whom my
correspondence is of course always intended. Not at all sure that I can
tell you anything new about the one topic of the hour, I will, at least,
endeavor to leave out what has been most dwelt upon.
On the road to town there seemed to be but one subject of conversation,
in cars and steamers; and “Barnum,” “Jenny Lind,” and “Castle Garden,”
were the only words to be overheard, either from passengers around, or
from the rabble at platforms and landing places. The oddity of it lay in
the entire saturation of the sea of public mind—from the ooze at the
bottom, to the “crest of the rising swell”—with the same un-commercial,
un-political, and un-sectarian excitement. When, before, was a foreign
singer the only theme among travellers and baggage porters, ladies and
loafers, Irishmen and “colored folks,” rowdies and the respectable rich?
By dint of nothing else, and constant iteration of the three syllables
“Jenny Lind,” it seemed to me, at last, as if the wheels of the car flew
round with it—“Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind” in tripping or
drawling syllables, according to the velocity.
The doors were advertised to be open at five; and, though it was thence
three hours to the beginning of the concert, we abridged our dinner
(your other servant, the song-king and myself,) and took omnibus with
the early crowd bound downwards. On the way, I saw indications of a
counter current—(private carriages with fashionables starting for their
evening drive out of town, and several ruling dandies of the hour
strolling up, with an air of leisure which was perfectly expressive of
no part in the excitement of the evening)—and then I first comprehended
that there might possibly be a small class of dissenters. As we were in
time to see the assembling of most of the multitude who had tickets, it
occurred to me to observe the proportion of _fashionables_ among them,
and, with much pains-taking, and the aid of an opera-glass, I could
number but _eleven_. Of the Five Hundred who give “the ton,” this seemed
to be the whole representation in an audience of six thousand—a
minority I was sorry to see, as an angel like Jenny Lind may well touch
the enthusiasm of every human heart, while, as a matter of taste, no
more exquisite feast than her singing was ever offered to the refined.
There should, properly, have been no class in New York—at least none
that could afford the price of attendance—that was not proportionately
represented at that Concert. The songstress, herself, as is easy to see,
prefers to be the “People’s choice,” and would rather sing to the Fifty
Thousand than to the Five Hundred—but she touches a chord that should
vibrate far deeper than the distinctions of society, and I hope yet to
see her as much “the fashion” as “the popular rage” in our republican
metropolis.
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