Chapter IX: Friends in England

Sweden remained ever the veritable home to which Jenny Lind’s heart turned with the affection which is given to no other land but that in which one first draws living breath. “One’s heart is in one’s own country,” she once wrote to an old friend, in her later years, at the time of a visit of the Crown Prince of Sweden to London, “and mine, certainly, is Swedish to the very backbone of my body and soul.”

It was, again, in Germany that she found the home of her artistic spirit. There the music in her kindled into its fullest life. There she breathed the air in which her art knew itself to be in its native dwelling-place.

But England was to become the home of her adoption, in whose soil she was to take root. There she was to build herself a home; to see her children and her grandchildren grow up about her; and there she was, at last, to find her grave.

And we may well stop, therefore, at the close of our account of her appearances in England, to take note of that which drew her to view this country with special favour and affection; and to cast a glance, both backward and forward, over those social and domestic ties which now already began to knit her fast to those friends among whom, in after days, she found such intimate companionship.

In doing this, we are still loyal to our purpose of recording the Artist-life of Jenny Lind; for we have already, at the outset of her career in Stockholm, shown how closely and peculiarly her personal character entered into her artistic effect; how impossible it was to dissociate the one from the other. The genius which showed itself in her song, was identically the same which discovered itself in her private intercourse. Whether off the stage or on it, it was the same characteristic personality, which spoke in every detail of her natural life, and was felt alive behind or within every note of her voice. It is essential, therefore, to her portraiture as an artist that she should be known as a woman.

And it is, perhaps, just here that we find something of the secret of that attachment which drew her towards the English and the English towards her. For, as a people, we find it difficult to appreciate Art in the abstract. We want it clothed in flesh and blood; concrete, personal. We are in haste to relate it to moral and religious considerations, apart from which it is apt to appear to us as a mere pastime. Art that speaks solely in Art’s own name always bewilders us. But when it comes to us in the form of one who, like Jenny Lind, illuminates the seriousness of the artist with the inspiration of a pure and noble womanhood, and with the spiritual fervour of one who holds her gifts as a mission from God, then the English people can see and understand what is going forward.

Therefore it was that the effect told straight home on the English public, and they surrendered themselves to her magic with an intensity which belongs to a strong and reserved people who find it difficult to yield, but, when they yield, yield altogether. Mendelssohn was a good prophet when he assured her that she would find in England a welcome of quite peculiar warmth—a welcome that would recognise the special tone of her character. And, in return, she responded to this welcome with enthusiasm. In spite of the ugly incident which beclouded her early appearances, and which revealed to her the coarse grain of a manager like Mr. Bunn, and the passionate malice that agitated much of the operatic world in London, she became exceedingly happy here. “I am charmed, quite beyond words, with England,” she wrote from Clairville, in July, 1847, to her dear friend Madame Wichmann. She made friends quickly; and she loved the friends she made. And it is of these that we would now speak. For it is in them that we shall see how it was that, in spite of much that she herself had to complain of in us,—in spite of our stupid practicality, our insensibility to artistic ideals, our coldness of manner, our sunless skies,—she yet found here in England a temper that responded to her aspirations, and gave full and encouraging scope to her endowments.

Let us take a look at one or two circles which will specially illustrate the attachments which she formed at this time.

We have already heard much of her alliance with Mrs. Grote, whose friendship for her played a large part in her earliest days among us. The Grotes were fascinated by her; and they devoted themselves to chaperoning her through that brilliant London Society into which she had been plunged. Mrs. Grote was in the very heart of the literary and musical world. At her house might be found Mendelssohn, Chopin, Thalberg, Lablache. Her husband, the historian of Greece, was in intimate contact with the chief writers and thinkers of the day—with John Stuart Mill, Cornewall Lewis, Milman, Sydney Smith. All that was moving would be heard of, and touched, in the circle into which Mrs. Grote introduced her new friend; and she was only too eager to take her everywhere and show her everybody.

But that new friend was singularly unlike her busy chaperone. She loathed the bustle and glitter of the big world. She shrank from the public gaze; she could not endure to be made an object of curiosity. Nor, indeed, could the tempers and minds of the two women have ever fallen closely together. Nothing could be more remote from Jenny Lind’s estimates of life than the ideas and principles which reigned in that house. George Grote was the intellectual pupil of James Mill; he was the depository of the traditions of Benthamism. He was a stiff political economist of the abstract school; an ardent republican, a hater of churches and creeds. He professed that dry and tough Utilitarianism, which holds Idealists cheap. His wife was a woman of keen and strong intellectual character, delighting in the stir of men and things; a forcible figure in the thick of the thronging world of cultivated society.

With such intense difference of atmosphere, it is greatly to the credit of Mrs. Grote’s kindness, that she succeeded in making Jenny Lind so pleased with her intimacy. She evidently threw herself in, heart and soul, with her young friend’s fortunes; she put her house at her disposal; she advised and directed her; she gave up her time to her; she listened to her confidences; she introduced her to her many acquaintances; she took her on rides and picnics to Wimbledon, and gave her the free run of the Burnham Cottage, where she could wander freely in the woods, and freshen her voice. She accompanied her on provincial tours, and encompassed her about, in the midst of that hurrying and exciting turmoil, with pleasant companionship. To one, like Jenny Lind, who was besieged by fears, and suspicions, and dismays, and needed always to feel the succour of friendly advice close at hand, it was everything to have such a constant and kindly refuge to turn to, as Mrs. Grote’s house. And that house held in it, also, the presence of one, whose faithful loyalty to her service was invaluable. Edward Lewin, Mrs. Grote’s brother, was one of the best and truest friends she ever possessed. He was already well known to her through his sister, Madame Koch, at Stockholm. It was at his house there, that she had appeared in the Tableaux Vivants, as St. Cecilia. It was he who went to Vienna, to persuade her to venture on the English journey; and now that she was come, he patiently attended to her interests; he looked after her affairs; he did everything for her that a wise and good man could, in the way of kind-hearted direction, and supervision; and always with a reserved and unobtrusive devotion, that was as delicate as it was true. He must have done more than any one to smooth her path, and to save her from trouble and blunder, during those two years in England; and his friendship remained a constant source of comfort and strength to her.

Such was the circle into which she came at the start. But she was very soon to find her way into another home of a very different type, where she passed under influences which affected her whole life and character. She was engaged to sing at Norwich in the September of 1847; and in the preceding July she got the letter of invitation, which has already been given,[133] from the Bishop of Norwich, in which he expresses his desire “to make acquaintance with one whose high character and principles were on a par with her superior talents.” In those days, such an invitation to one who was engaged at the Opera, was remarkable enough. English society, and especially English religious society, was strangely and stupidly conventional. The Bishop’s act was a striking evidence of the unique position which Jenny Lind had already, from the very beginning, assumed. And it proved to be much more than this. It was an introduction into a household, where she found that affectionate and intimate environment which was so dear to her. Bishop Stanley brought to her the watchful care of a father; Mrs. Stanley gave to her a motherly devotion, to which she could entrust her tenderest confidences. And, then, there was Mary Stanley, the daughter, her close friend for years, full of character and interest; and there was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the son, whose enthusiasm for her was the spring of an enduring intimacy, which lasted until his death, in the Deanery at Westminster, in 1881.

We have read already the letter in which Arthur Stanley describes, with delicious freshness, her first arrival, in September, 1847.[134] In that letter, everything has been said that could make vivid the personal impression she produced. We will notice, here, but one little matter in it; and that is, the startling comparison of her smile to that of Dr. Pusey. The comparison would, no doubt, have surprised no one more than herself. But even those who only knew the face of the great Oxford Doctor in extreme old age, would understand at once the allusion, as they recall the sudden lift of those grey eyebrows, and the beaming kindliness of the fatherly outlook from under them, that lit up the whole countenance as with an illumination.

Here, then, in this household, she kindled an interest, and established an intimacy, which had lasting effects upon her future. On the 28th of September, the Bishop wrote a farewell letter to Jenny Lind, which marks the depth and reality of the friendship which these few days had been enough to seal. It will reveal how profoundly the influences, then set moving, entered into the secret places of her life. The letter accompanied portraits of himself and his wife.

“MY DEAR MISS LIND,—

“I am well aware that it is with you a general rule not to accept
presents; but I persuade myself that the enclosed two portraits will
be received as an exception, and that when restored to your relatives
and friends in your native land, you will, in looking upon them,
recall to mind one whose interest in your welfare has been increased
tenfold during the few short days you were his guest.

“Believe me, it will be my earnest prayer, that, in the high and
perilous position in which you are placed, the God whom you so
devotedly serve with such humility and simplicity, may ever bless and
protect you, and enable you to carry out more and more the objects you
have at heart. Under His guidance, go on and prosper. You have left
us; but we shall never forget you, and I look forward with deep
interest to the time when I again may meet you, as one who has gained
the affections of every member of my family: and when I may have
further conversation with you on the many subjects of vital importance
on which I would willingly have spoken more at large when you were
with us. Believe me,

“Yours, very sincerely,
“E. NORWICH.”

There was another Bishop, a guest in the Palace at the time, who both received, and gave, a vital impression. A year and a half later when she returned to Norwich she spoke of the many things said to her by the Bishop of Tasmania, which she had not understood at the time, but had seen the truth of since. His words had clung about her: and they had evidently been on the deep matters of life. And if he had impressed her, she, certainly, in those brief four days, had profoundly stirred him. A letter written to her by him in July, 1849, from Hobart Town, Tasmania, is a touching revelation of the way in which her memory lived with him, amid interests so remote, and so alien. He begins by telling her of his difficulty in addressing her; for he can no more call her “_Miss_ Lind” than he would speak of “_Mr._ Shakespeare,” or “_Mr._ Milton.”

“They are names endeared to English people. And so with you. We know
you, esteem you, admire you, and talk of you, as ‘Jenny Lind.’ By that
name the poor bless you; and the rich regard you as one who has by her
noble example, exalted at once her profession and herself. By that
name you are known even in this distant part of the world, 16,000
miles away from your own home.... You have had a rare, a most rare
gift from God. And He has given you the grace to use it, not merely
for your own profit, or the delight of others, but for the suffering
children—even as He would have you use it.... We may never meet again;
but believe me, dear friend (if I may call you so), I shall never
forget you though half the world lies between us, and though it is
scarcely possible that I may be permitted to see your face again on
earth.

“Believe me, “Most sincerely your friend, “F. R. TASMANIA.”

In January, 1849, she was once again at the Palace at Norwich. Mrs. Stanley in a letter to her sister tells how she received a surprise prepared for her by the Bishop.

“She did look so delighted to be here, and when somebody hoped that
she would not forget the step up into the library, said, ‘Oh, I have
forgotten nothing!’ I took her to her room where the Swedish Bible was
open on her dressing-table with the texts inscribed in the Bishop’s
best hand. She bent down to read them earnestly; and then opened the
book at various places; and then, she returned to the texts, and went
slowly over them, drawing her finger emphatically under the words ‘The
Lord preserve thy going out and thy coming in, etc.,’ then she broke
out into something like Arthur at the Pyrenees, ‘What shall I do? What
shall I do?’”

Below the Bishop’s signature in the Bible, he had written out the selected verses, Psa. cxxi. 7, 8, and Phil. i. 9, 10.[135]

It is worth while to give all this in detail, in order that we may understand at what level her friendship with the family was pitched. The Bible, with its texts, and its graceful letter, is an index of the depth and the force of the influences which drew her to the Stanleys, and they to her. As we hear of these little tendernesses, as we read the strong words of commendation, as we follow Mrs. Stanley’s affectionate transmission of it all to her listening sister, we can measure what it meant to Jenny Lind to be encompassed with all the home intimacies which she held so dear, and, above all, to find that those intimacies of the heart were so closely concerned with the spiritual fortunes of the soul. She thoroughly sympathised with this high language, which held the religious interests of life so near to the surface, and inwove them into the common texture of daily intercourse. It was a house entirely to her mind, with its warm sympathies, and its simple, earnest pieties. Here is Mrs. Stanley’s report to her sister at the end of this visit:

“Her future will be most interesting to watch. There is such a depth
of veneration in her, such a reverence for all that is holy, such
capabilities of love and devotion. She said she had no wish to make
more friends, she had enough; and her manner is that of preventing any
intimacy. One very remarkable thing, which did not strike me till
afterwards, is that she treats her superiors as we do royalty—never
originates anything, never speaks first, never comes to sit down by
you. To her equals and inferiors nothing could be more courteous or
frank. She never speaks of herself, never appears to think of herself;
she has just that self-forgetting earnestness about everything, which
is _the_ desideratum in ——. I was glad, however, to hear her say that
though she never kept a journal, her memory was strong, and that there
was nothing that had ever happened to her of which she had not a most
distinct recollection. To some one who was speaking of the world she
said, ‘The world is one great lie.’ Yesterday, Mr. Richmond, the
artist, dined here; and it was beautiful to hear him speak of her; it
was just with that same appreciation of the peculiar charm of her
character and countenance that Mr. Lawrence had; but he said that he
would himself shrink from the attempt to paint her....

“All our previous impressions of her have been confirmed, and all
change in her is for the better.”

Madame Salis-Schwabe was another friend in whose house she was made at home, and with whom grew up, during these same years, a lasting and confidential intimacy. Her husband, a rich manufacturer at Manchester, was a man of culture, a refined, and cultivated musician, full of both religious and philanthropic interest. They received Jenny Lind at the time of her visit to Manchester; they invited her to their beautiful place on the Menai Straits. To Madame Schwabe she spoke and wrote freely of things that were on her mind. Already, in 1848, they were on most affectionate terms; and, evidently, from the fun that came bubbling out in the letters, Jenny Lind felt herself to be thoroughly understood, so that she could write with unhindered freedom. Madame Schwabe, too, was a relative of a young pianist of Hamburg, in whose fortunes Jenny Lind had already taken a warm interest, “a very amiable young man, who, certainly, has much talent and much feeling,” as she writes in August, 1848, to her friend. His name was Otto Goldschmidt.

Two other friends there were, who, in 1849, called out her special affection—Baroness French, and her daughter Georgina. Her letters to them brim over with touching fondness; and it is delightful to see in them her strong feelings struggling through the English language, which she is determined to use, however uncertain her control over it.

“I don’t know if you can understand my miserable English,” she writes
to Miss French, “but I prefer to write ever so bad English than the
very best French!”... “I feel a great deal for you, my dear Miss
French. And as I can never change when I once love a person, you may
be assured that I shall always and for ever be yours truly
affectionate,

_“JENNY LIND.”_

In these letters comes out that anxious clinging to the love of those of whom she was fond, which was noticeable in her. She is in suspicion lest it should be withdrawn from her; she needs reassurance of its survival. Was it her harsh experiences in childhood which had left in her this note of fear, lest she should find herself forgotten?

“Take not away, I entreat you, your kindness and friendship towards
me, dear lady,” she writes to the Baroness, “and be assured that I
think of you, and remember you with true and sincere affection! My
sister-love and sister-blessing to Miss Georgina. Send me sometimes a
few words which tell me about your health and happiness. For such
kindness my heart will always feel thankful!”

There are many passages, in these letters, full of the same tender longings. We have touched on them just to illustrate both the intensity of her personal affection, which flowed out with the enthusiasm of a child towards those whom she felt congenial; and also the pathetic anxiety which seemed to plead against the dreaded relapse into the loneliness of her wandering dramatic career. As she wrote from Paris, “she needed much love.” Yet she found it hard to wholly shake off a haunting distrust of the love given her, as if it was too good and precious a boon to endure.

These letters reveal, also, how intimate, and how loving were the ties that now knit her to the English. Not only had the public welcome been all that Mendelssohn had foretold, but behind that, she had found an entry into hearts which responded eagerly to her own. She felt herself cherished and nourished; the fountains of affection were freely opened, and she drank at them with thankful delight. True, there was no home that could surpass, in dearness, and in comfort to her soul, that house of the Wichmanns in Berlin, whither her deepest confidence still turned to rest. But yet we can see that there was much in England to explain the burst of enthusiasm with which she closes a letter, written in 1850, from Lübeck to Madame Salis-Schwabe, after a delightful wandering in Central Europe.

“Ah! Meran! how splendid, how divine it is there! And Switzerland too!
how lovely and magnificent! But nowhere can I find England again! I
love England with all my soul, and I long to be there again!”