An engraving ordered upon the inside of a wedding ring—_Otto
Goldschmidt to Jenny Lind_—gave the news of a certain event to “Ball,
Tompkins & Black,” a week before it was telegraphed to the papers.
Jewellers keep secrets. The ring went to its destiny, unwhispered of.
Its spring—for it is fastened with a spring—has closed over the blue
vein that has so oft carried to that third finger the news of the
heart’s refusal to surrender. _Jenny Lind loves._ She who filled more
place in the world’s knowledge and attention than Sweden itself—the
Swede greater than Sweden—has acknowledged “the small, sweet need of
woman to be loved.” Her star-name, which she had spent half a life, with
energy unequalled, in placing bright and alone in the heaven of renown,
is merged after all in the Via Lactea of common humanity. “=Jenny
Lind=” is a _wife_.
A year or more ago, Jenny Lind stood by the cradle of a sleeping and
beautiful infant. She looked at it, long and thoughtfully, stooped and
kissed its heel and the back of its neck, (the Swedish geography, we
believe, for a kiss with a blessing to a child) and, turning to its
mother, said, with a deep sigh, “_You_ have something to live for!” She
was, at this time, in the busiest tumult of a welcome by half a world.
Her ambition—so athirst from the first dawn of her mind that it seemed
to have absorbed her entire being—had a full cup at its lips. She was,
with unblemished repute, the most renowned of living women, and with the
fortune and moral power of a queen. Yet, up from the heart under it
all—a heart so deep down under pyramids of golden laurels—the
outermost approach to which was apparently hidden in clouds of
incense—comes a sigh over the cradle of a child!
At one of the concerts of Jenny Lind, at Tripler Hall—we forget just
how long ago—a newly arrived pianist made his first appearance. There
was little curiosity about him. The songstress, whom the thousands
present had gone only to hear, sang—lifting all hearts into the air she
stirred, to drop back with an eternal memory of her, when she ceased.
And then came—according to programme—“_Herr_ Otto Goldschmidt.” He
played, and the best-educated musical critic in New-York said to a lady
sitting beside him, “The audience don’t know what playing that is!” But
the audience had another object for their attention. The side door of
the stage had opened, and Jenny Lind, breaking through her accustomed
rule of reserving her personal presence for her own performances, stood
in full view as a listener. The eyes of the audience were on her, but
hers were on the player. She listened with absorbed attention, nodding
approbation at the points of artistic achievement, and, when he closed,
(four thousand people will remember it,) she took a step forward upon
the stage, and beat her gloved hands together with enthusiasm unbounded.
The audience put it down to her generous sympathy for a modest young
stranger; and so, perhaps did the recording angel—with a prophetic
smile!
We are sorry we can give our far-away readers no assistance in their
efforts to form an idea of the Nightingale’s mate. Ladies are good
observers, and one who remembers to have looked to see the effect of
Jenny Lind’s compliment, on the new-comer, tells us he was “a pale,
thin, dreamy, poetical-looking youth.” He will soon be seen and
described, however, if newspapers live; but, meantime, if we were to
give a guess at the sort of man he is, we should begin with one
probability—that he is the most unworldly, unaffected, and
truth-loving, of all the mates that have ever offered to fold wing
beside her. With what she has seen of the world and of the stuff for
husbands, Jenny Lind has probably come round to whence she
started—choosing, like a child, by the instinct of the heart. Her
_Otto_-biography will show how wisely.
The interest in Jenny Lind’s marriage is as varied as it is tender and
respectful. There is scarce a woman in the land, probably, who, if she
felt at liberty to do so, would not send her a bridal token. But there
is more than a sisterly well-wishing, in the general excitement among
her own sex on the subject. The power, in one person, of trying, purely
and to such completeness, the two experiments for happiness—love and
fame—were interesting enough; but it is strange and exciting to see the
usual order reversed—_fame first, and love afterwards_. To turn
unsatisfied from love to fame, has been a common transit in the history
of gifted women. To turn unsatisfied from fame to love—and that, too,
with no volatile caprice of disappointment, but with fame’s most
brimming cup fairly won and fully tasted—is a novelty indeed. Simple
every day love, with such experience on the heart’s record before it,
has never been pictured, even in poetry.
Jenny Lind has genius, and the impulses and sensibilities of genius are
an eternal Spring. She is more right and wise than would seem probable
at a first glance, in marrying one younger than herself. The Summer and
Autumn of a heart that observes the common Seasons of life, will pass
and leave her the younger. Her prospect for happiness seems to us,
indeed, all brightness. The “world without” well tried, and found
wanting—public esteem wherever she may be, and fortune ample and of her
own winning—the tastes of both bride and bridegroom cultured for
delightful appreciation, and the lessons of the school of adversity in
the memory of both—it seems as if “circumstances,” that responsible
committee of happiness, could scarce do more. Frau Goldschmidt will be
happier than Jenny Lind, we venture to predict. God bless her!