Chapter II: Home Again

“I feel so strangely content,” she wrote on December 15, to Madame Wichmann; “I am so happy and so quiet, at home again. It suits me so well; and the people are my own country-folk; and they love me for that.”

Her friends gathered quickly about her.

“The only thing that gladdened me,” writes Fräulein Von Stedingk in
her Diary, “was that Jenny Lind came back to Sweden. She was to spend
the winter here; not for taking rest, though she greatly needed it,
but to enchant us by her unsurpassed talent, and to devote her
receipts to the founding of Art Scholarships and to the Royal Theatre.

“She spoke of England with delight; and she seemed to prefer it to all
other countries. I could have wished that she was not to return
there!”

We must, now, hear what she was doing with these receipts to which Fräulein Von Stedingk refers.

Her first appearance was to be in _La Figlia_, on December 3rd. The price of the tickets for all her appearances was raised 50 per cent, on their ordinary cost; and on December 2nd, in an evening paper, the _Aftonblad_, an explanation of this raised demand was given by Jenny Lind herself. She wrote a letter, addressed to the owner of the newspaper, Mr. Lars Hierta, a great merchant and distinguished citizen of Stockholm, requesting the insertion in the _Aftonblad_ of the following communication:—

“At the moment of reappearing, after an interval of two years, on the
stage of my native country, before that public, which, from the time
of my first steps on the path of Art, has shown me so much favour, it
is the desire of my heart to ask for a continuance of the same rare
goodwill for the performances, in which I am now going to appear. I am
moved to this by a special reason, which I beg respectfully to submit
to the attention of the enlightened public; and I also consider myself
in duty bound to furnish an explanation of the reason for raising the
prices at the representations in which I am now going to take part.

“My most ardent wish is to be allowed to be of some lasting use to
Native Art; to offer some kind of souvenir, more permanent than the
quickly-passing moments of my appearance on the boards; and to prepare
for my countrymen enjoyments of the loftier kind, for the years to
come, when my own efforts shall have ceased. I hope to do this by
laying the foundations of a College, where young minds may be
consecrated to both Art and Virtue.

“Having been, myself, in childhood, a witness to the privations and
trials through which the young and needy have to struggle in this
profession, which holds so many thorns amongst the roses, I should
count it the most beautiful gain of the Singer’s gift if, by means of
this, I could contribute to help those who are favoured by nature but
ill-treated by fortune, to a development of their talent in
comparative ease and comfort, and to a culture that will be helpful
alike from a moral and artistic point of view.

“With this intention, I have assigned the whole amount of my portion
of the receipts from the representations in which I shall appear,
towards establishing a fund, the income of which is to be devoted to
an institution for educating poor children who, while specially
endowed for the stage, lack the care of parents or relatives, without
which, in a moral and artistic respect, they either lose, or else fail
to reach, the higher development, for which their gifts would give
reasonable hopes.

“The money obtained will be received and managed by two Trustees,
until the amount of the Capital will allow of the interest being used
for the object in view.

“The lenient kindness of the public which hitherto has encouraged my
efforts in the service of Art, will—I trust—follow me also now that
these endeavours are dedicated to a work, the success of which must be
a matter of interest to every friend of Dramatic Art within our
Fatherland.

“JENNY LIND.

“Stockholm, 2nd December, 1847.”

This communication to the paper signalises an intention which, for some time forward, became one of her primary interests. It was her tribute to Sweden. From the time that she won her place in the European drama, she never sang in her native land again on her own behalf. She would take no penny from it. Rather, she bent herself to repay to it, by gifts, the support and the kindness which it had given her in her youth. She had been “a child of the State,” brought up by its fatherly solicitude, at its charge, at its risk. She felt herself pledged by her honour, as well as by her affection, to make to it a thankful, a generous recognition.

Then, too, she had a great desire to find adequate work and interest to occupy her in her northern home. It should not be for idleness, or for uselessness, that she would retreat thither from the big world. If she ceased to do good by her Dramatic talents, as she must, through leaving the stage, she would, yet, find other ways of helping men. “I have no fear of feeling any void,” she writes during this very month to Madame Wichmann, “for I can do much good here, and have already begun to set about it.”

And there were special reasons, as she thought, for some such effort at doing good. For, profoundly as she loved her people, she felt, on her return this time to Stockholm, an increased sense of their peculiar moral perils. It may have been that the religious influence, under which she had passed in England, had deepened her alarm at all that was superficial, and thoughtless. Certainly, she was at times, during the winter, greatly afflicted at the lack of seriousness which she met on all sides: “I love my fatherland as much as ever,” she wrote, on the 14th of February, 1848, to Madame von Jaeger, her devoted Viennese friend, whom she salutes as “Loved and honoured Mother;” but—

“There is, here, I confess, such frivolousness in everything, that I
am sad.... I sometimes doubt whether I can find joy and happiness
here.... The last three years have given me a great deal clearer
insight. Do not imagine that they do not treat me well; on the
contrary: I have nothing at all to complain of, myself: only, it does
pain me that our nation should, through French influence, have lost so
much of its true self.”

So she felt: and, it was in order to attempt to rescue the stage from these perverting influences which had largely dominated it since the early part of the century, that she set about her present scheme on behalf of her own old Theatre-School.

It was a touching naturalness, which drew her heart towards the scene of her childhood. Her first deliberate act of permanent charity was to be devoted to sparing other children some of the trials and perils, which had been her own lot. Her own experience had taught her how hard it is for the gifts inbred by nature to spring up into their full estate, unless they are compassed about with moral succours. In this School of hers, the young lives are to be consecrated to virtue as well as Art.

As years went on the design itself was changed, owing to certain mental changes which passed over her own spirit. Enough now to say that the Royal Theatre was crowded night after night in spite of the raised cost, and that the entire sum of her own gains from the season went to the proposed fund. Her agreement with the theatre was that she should receive a third of the receipts which remained, after the payment of current expenses, on each night of her appearance; and that she should be entitled to name for herself the date of a benefit performance. She was also given the right to select her own pieces. The contract is signed by Count Hugo Hamilton, the Intendant.

Her voice, about which a few suspicious rumours had been flying about, owing to the fatigue and strain of her incessant efforts in Germany, was in its normal splendour. “She is now in her beloved Stockholm,” wrote Madame Wichmann, on December 27th, to Madame Jaeger, whom these rumours had disquieted, “and has rested herself, and has appeared in her fullest power and glory, at the theatre.”

She sang in the _Figlia_ ten times during the winter and spring months, three of these performances being given for the benefit of (1) the Theatre Pension Fund; (2) the Chorus, and (3) the Conductor, J. F. Berwald.

She gave four performances of the _Sonnambula_ in January, and four of _Lucia_ in March and April—singing this part for the fifty-sixth time on the Stockholm stage on April 3rd. The _Freischütz_ was sung twice, once on behalf of Strandberg, the first tenor at the Royal Theatre, once on behalf of the Chapel at the Deaf and Dumb Institute, near Stockholm. The first of these performances was given on March 7th, the anniversary of her _début_ in the part of Agatha on the memorable 7th of March, 1838. She now sang it for the forty-first time on those boards.

Besides this work at the Opera, there were concerts—one at Her Majesty the Queen Desideria’s on December 1st;[110] and all the rest for old friends, and associates; for Mina Fundin, her dear ally in childhood; for Randel, the concert-master; for the Artists’ Guild Pension Fund; for Josephson, the composer; for Arnold, an organist and composer; for the Royal Orchestra Pension Fund; for D’Aubert, the concert-leader; for Theodor Sack, the principal violoncellist at the Royal Opera. So it went on.

And finally, for the thirty-third and thirty-fourth time in Stockholm, she gave _Norma_, first for the machinists of the theatre; and secondly for sundry other persons, now unnamed, on whose behalf the tickets were sold by public auction.

With _Norma_, it all ended, on April 12th. It was her last appearance on the Swedish stage—her last representation in the theatre, which had heard the first notes of her child-voice, as she tripped over its boards, a tiny girl hardly ten years old, bewitching the audience by her astonishing, “almost unnatural” cleverness—the theatre which had thrilled to the revealed splendour of her genius on the historic night when she discovered her power, and “went to bed a new creature.” There, on those boards, familiar to her feet as the very floor of home, she had won for herself those early dramatic experiences, with which she had fascinated and enthralled Europe; there she had, step by step, moved from triumph to triumph, until the artistic resources of her native land had been exhausted, and she had been driven, by the impulsion of an aspiring spirit, to seek, elsewhere, for that development which should be level with her fullest powers. Thither she had returned, with the required power, to find the same faithful enthusiasm ready to respond to her, only with more ardent loyalty than ever. So long, so close was the story which knit her to that Stockholm theatre; such deep memories lay about her there: such a record of hopes and fears and wonders: and, now, that page was to be closed for ever. For the very last time, she had waited in those wings for the step forward which should carry her into the roar of welcome. For the very last time within the well-known walls, she had felt the whole body of silent people absorbed into her own masterful and magnetic influence, as she held them, spell-bound, within the power of her gaiety or her passion. It was all over, on that night of April the 12th when the last notes of _Norma_ died on the ear.

Fräulein Von Stedingk was present and writes:

“She surpassed herself. When she came before the curtain at the close,
the whole audience rose; and many an eye was wet.”

The famous picture of her as Norma, by Södermark, which is the treasured pride of Stockholm, was painted during this season. It was subscribed for by the employés at the Royal Theatre, and presented to the theatre to be placed there, on January 6th, 1849. It put the seal on the belief of her own people, that her delineation of Norma was her most triumphant achievement; and most certainly it was the character which she herself always selected, whether as a challenge to criticism on her entry upon some new boards, or as her best farewell to any familiar stage.

In the middle of all this smooth happiness, came the irritating news of the verdict in the suit of Bunn _v._ Lind. That wearisome tangle had, at last, come to a close. On the 23rd of February, the case was heard in London before Sir W. Erle, sitting in the Court of Queen’s Bench. The damages claimed were £10,000; and these were based on the standard receipts of Madame Malibran in the height of her fame. The Attorney-General pleaded that the contract had dropped through Mr. Bunn being unable, on his own showing, to provide the music for _Vielka_ by the date mentioned in the contract. He argued that, as to damages, all Mr. Bunn could claim of positive loss was the price of a journey to Berlin, and the £150 spent by him in translating the _Feldlager_ into English. Sir W. Erle summed up minutely; and the jury finally gave a verdict in favour of Mr. Bunn, with £2,500 damages.

Mr. Lumley had, as we know, made himself responsible for the loss. But the result must have been bitterly vexatious. Of course, she had let the proper date pass before which she was to make her objections to the contract, and so had put herself legally wrong. But we are aware how ignorant she was of all the arts by which to escape the meshes of the law, or to guard herself against the brutalities of managers. She had been trapped into the engagement before she knew what she was doing or the situation into which she was coming. Her reasons against the contract were real: she _could_ not have learned English in the time; her nervous dread of failure through singing in a foreign tongue, was profoundly genuine, however improbable it might sound in the atmosphere of a law court. We know the extremity of her self-mistrust, the agony of her diffidence. Bunn treated her appeals with a vulgar insolence, that was bad enough to deprive him of all claims to compensation. As we read his rough letters, it softens our regret that, for conduct of this type, he was once soundly thrashed by Macready.

_Jenny Lind in the character of Norma from a picture by Södermark._

Stockholm 1848.
]

However, so, at last, the tiresome business is over; and we can be thankful to hear no more of it. It was the only occasion, in all her life, in which she ever heard herself accused of motives which it was a degradation to her even to be charged with. To those who ever knew her, it sounds like a silly jest that she should ever have had to endure the accusation of rapacity, or sharp dealing—so incomprehensible and so remote would such motives have always been to her. But, jest as it may sound to us, to her it was cruel and bitter enough; and, no doubt, the verdict stung her like a sharp blow.

Yet no record remains of its effect upon her; and home was kind and tender and soothing; and every trouble there, was clearing; and, in witness of this, we will make one little record which will happily mark this season of farewell to the Swedish stage. The time of her entry upon its boards, in 1829, had been, it will be well remembered, a time of much domestic trouble; and that theatre had been to little Jenny, a refuge and a home, to which she ran for peace. But, now, things were bettered. Her mother, who had, with such a shrinking heart, handed over her child to a scene so alien and so dreaded, was now freed from the conflict of a pinched and broken life, and had softened, and sweetened.

“My own real mother is just come in;” Jenny writes on the 14th of February, to the Viennese lady, Madame Jaeger, whom she always addressed as “mother.”

“She and my father live in the country” (in the house she had given
them), “and have come in to-day to see the _Elisir d’Amore_, in which
I am ‘Adina.’ My mother begs to send a thousand greetings to you,
unknown as you are to her, and as I tell her what you have been to me,
her eyes fill with tears of joy.... My mother is so sympathetic
towards me (which, perhaps, was not always the case); and she seems to
be so happy, and contented,—a happiness which I had hardly dared to
hope for.”

In contrast to this home-gladness, there lay heavy on her soul, all this time, the misery of Mendelssohn’s death.[111]

She could not bear even to open a letter to her from Madame Birch-Pfeiffer in which she felt that there would be reference to it: for, as she wrote back:—

“As soon as I am obliged to hear or read anything about him, I get
almost incapable of carrying out the great duty which I have taken
upon my shoulders.

“Death has lately robbed me of several of my dearest friends: so that
I am afraid I shall soon begin to feel cold here in the North! And
yet, dear good mother, my heart is tied and chained to this ground and
this people. God be praised for it!

“I am well: though I have no rest. All is right now with my parents.
Besides singing in Operas, I sing two or three times a month in
concerts, and can thus help some on to a better lot in time.

“To-day the sun is shining brightly. Oh! if you could but see the
white sparkling snow on the roofs! From my window I see several mills:
and a few churches; and on one of them sits a gilt cock who probably
amuses himself. Oh! how I wish that I too could be in the air, for the
earth oppresses me. Mother, mother, I do not belong to this world; my
heart will not stay in its narrow prison!...

“But, in spite of all this, there is no being who could have more
reason to be happy and grateful than I! I am both. Farewell! God keep
you all!

“Your loving
“JENNY.”

So she wrote to her “German mother” on Jan. 22. In the following month, in the letter already quoted to her “Austrian mother,” Madame Jaeger, she wrote:—

“Ah! mother! what a blow for me was the death of Mendelssohn! That is
why I have been silent so long. For the first two months after it, I
could not put a word down on paper: and everything seemed to me to be
dead. Never was I so happy—so lifted in spirit, as when I spoke with
him! and seldom can there have been in the world two beings who so
understood one another, and so sympathized with one another as we! How
glorious and strange are the ways of God! On the one hand, He gives
all! On the other, He takes all away! Such is life’s outlook.”

For two whole years after that fatal November, she could not bear to sing a “Lied” of Mendelssohn’s. With his loss, there had passed out of her life the profoundest and most intimate influence under which she had ever come; for it was an influence which touched her whole being, at once in its most real and its most ideal elements. With him, she felt the same blending of the artistic aspiration with the personal character which she knew in herself; and both with character and with aspiration, she was in innermost sympathy. To both, the artist-life was a reverential trust, endowed with awe, hallowed by mystic responsibilities. Drawn to one another by this vital unity of motive, they responded, each to the other, with a glad and delightful freedom such as belongs only to those whose central selves are in perfect touch. Each word that one or the other spoke was known to be understood. There is a joy in such sympathetic intimacies which is electric. Both had felt it in its most ideal form. And, now, it is this which is gone from her. It left a blank which the slow years could never quite fill; but the loss would have been yet more deadening, were it not that her enjoyment of his influence had been so very, very brief, that the heart was bound to recover its freshness; and nowhere sooner than at home, in the thick of good and happy work.

We have seen to what charitable purposes eight of her special operatic performances, and all her concerts had gone.

There remained the winnings earned by twenty-seven nights at the Royal Opera,—about £2,200—all of which went to the fund which she had planned for the Theatre-School. This fund was to be allowed to accumulate by interest until it had reached a certain limit.

So the final season on the home boards came to its end. She must leave for England.

“I delight in thinking of my next London season,” she wrote to Madame
Jaeger: “for I have so many reasons for being grateful towards the
London public that it lays a necessity upon me to make a worthy return
for it all! I believe that the coming summer will bring me many joys,
for I am taking to London, as my companion, my good, old master (Herr
Berg) and his wife, and little daughter; and I cannot be better off
than with them!”

There was another long-standing friend, besides Herr Berg, who was particularly concerned with her happy hopes at this moment. This was Herr Julius Günther. We do not propose, in this work, to enter into all the private and domestic incidents of our heroine’s life, except so far as they touch her artistic career. It is not for us, therefore, to follow minutely the long story, over which we, here, must give a rapid glance. We need but indicate, in the briefest manner, how matters had stood between her, and Herr Günther, before they reached this decisive moment. With him she had sung continually both before and after her visit to Paris—both in Opera, and in the concert-room. The obvious contact, which this involved, had grown into a closer intimacy during her triumphant season, in 1844, at Stockholm; and just before leaving for her great experiment in Berlin in 1845, this intimacy had been recognised as tending to an engagement. This understanding had become strained, and practically suspended, under the busy and wonderful experiences of her long absence on the Continent, and in England. Herr Günther had been wandering, as well as she: he had been in Paris, under Garcia; much had been happening on both sides. But, now, that they were both back again in Sweden, the former relations revived, and culminated. Herr Günther saw reasons to trust that, in spite of his fears lest this European success, this splendid career, should carry her beyond his scope and influence, she, still, would respond to his appeal; and he spoke; and he found favour, and rings were exchanged. She sailed on April 13th.

When the hour of departure arrived, everything was done to heighten its excitement. The Swedes, touched by her magnificent generosity, were eager to signalize their admiration in a special outburst of enthusiasm. “No one can remember a more solemn farewell offered to any private person,” wrote one of the officials at the theatre.

“She left at 2 P.M. by the steamer ‘Gauthiod.’ Already, as early as twelve o’clock huge heaps of people began arriving, at Skeppsbron, which was filled with foot-passengers and carriages. The ships nearest the ‘Gauthiod’ were also crowded, even up in the rigging, and so were numbers of rowing-boats, moving about in the port. The choir of the Opera were placed in barges near to the steamer, and sang several pieces, conducted by choir-master Wennbom. In another boat, the band of the Uplands regiment had taken their stand, performing airs from the Operas in which she had appeared.

“As the steamer weighed anchor, the multitude gave repeated cheers, men and women waving hats and handkerchiefs, which continued as long as a glimpse of the ‘Gauthiod’ could be caught. She seemed very much moved; and often had to interrupt her friendly responses with her handkerchief, to use it to wipe away her tears.”

As she reviewed, in her memory, this winter in Stockholm, she was stirred to even more than her usual fervour for all that was Home.

She put her retrospect into words, in a letter from London, written on July 10th, to Madame Kaulbach at Munich:—

“I have been in my beloved country, and have felt most deeply how
powerful is the love for it that I have cherished from childhood. My
King—the whole Royal Family—the country—the ground—oh! I could have
kissed them all! And with tears of profound reverence in my eyes! What
a glorious time I have had there! The cordiality, the feeling of home,
the language,—all enchanted me. And I was staying so pleasantly with
my dear good aunt; and I got together a great deal of money for the
poor.... See, my dearest friend! This is what I have experienced!”