Chapter III: Lübeck

Lübeck, to which she had gone to accompany Herr Berg homewards, was to hold her yet awhile; and was to be the scene of that momentous decision which is to form the close of these volumes. She wrote, during her stay there, letters which carry with them much of her innermost mind. Altogether, it is a marked spot in her story.

She seems to have been delayed there by an accident.

“Dearest Amalia,” she wrote on the day of Herr Berg’s departure, “I
write with no very bright spirits to you, for I have no chance of
seeing you and yours again so soon as I had hoped. My good Josephina
has fallen ill. It is nothing dangerous, thank God! on the contrary,
the doctor thinks that, after it is over, she may be better than she
was before.

“But you will understand well enough, that I cannot, and will not
leave her. So that I shall not be able to be with you, my dear ones,
by Christmas Eve, but must wait for the New Year, to knock at your
door.... Ah! write me some few words, before that, dearest, and say
that you are still good to me, and how it goes with them all.

“Your grateful, and loving
“J. L.”

There she stayed: and, from there, just at this same moment, she wrote a long, and personal letter to her old friends, of whom we have heard before,—Baroness French and her daughter. She had suddenly had a letter from them, and this reminded her of her long silence; and her heart is touched: and she offers eager and characteristic apologies.

We leave her English just as she wrote it, because she herself apologises for its “funny” style, in the letter, and it will serve to show what was her command over the language at that time. The sentence on Madame Catalani shows how deeply that swift death had impressed her:—

“Lübeck, the 6th of December, 1849.

“MY DEAR MADAM,

“I wish you really could see how pleased I am to receive a few kind
words from you and Miss Georgina. Accept my very best thank for the
last letter. I must confess that I have safely got the one you were so
kind to write me when I was at Ems. I was for a long time so very
low-spirited. Madame Catalani stood always before my eyes, and her
smiling face does still follow me very often. I thank you a thousand
times, my dear Baroness, that you still remember me so very kindly,
although I have not given you any sign of life since long ago. I have
long wished to write you a few words, but I had dropped your address
at London, and did not know whether you were to return to that place
or not. I very often think of my dear Miss Georgina, who I really love
a great deal! I hope that blessed sweet young lady is in perfect
health. I wished very much to have the happiness of seeing you and
your daughter very soon again, my dear Madam, but I have no idea of
going to England at present. You are very kind in asking about my head
and health—I feel myself rather stronger, my head is _very_ naughty at
some times, but seldom to the _highest_ degree. My nerves are better,
and I feel _much less_ agitated and more quiet than before. I believe
that my having left the stage may be the chief reason for this happy
change; my whole nature and my way of feeling was always very opposite
to that sort of being, who can bear the calumnies of a theatrical
life. Can you understand my ‘funny’ English, dear Madam?

“My good Miss Åhmansson, who is such a valuable and solid friend to
me, is not at all well! She is ill at this moment—she has got a sort
of low ‘fièvre’ with small red (rouge) spots over her body (excuse my
bad English, I don’t know how to express myself in this medical case).
It is nothing dangerous, but we are kept up in this little place for
four weeks; and, it is really a good thing, that I don’t much care for
the world and its amusements; for I should, if the case was contrary,
feel rather lonely and tiresome; but so, I am happy with my music, my
little dog—my books—my study—and the great number of sublime
remembrances. We intend to go from here to Berlin, as soon as Miss
Åhmansson will recover; we remain in Berlin a few weeks, I should
think, and then we probably go to Russia; I must try to get money; I
wonder how I will like _that_ part of the world, and how that part of
the world will like such a thing as myself! In the month of May I
return to Sweden, as I suppose, only for a short time, because my
doctor will most likely get me to Ems once again! I have sung (chanté)
a few times, and my voice is grown stronger and better.

“I hope now, my dear Baroness, you have got plenty of news from me!
Will you kindly forgive my so much speaking of myself—but I do this
only to persons I love and respect. Take not away your kindness and
friendship towards me, dear respected Madam, I entreat you; 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!

“I am,
“Dear Madam,
“Your most affectionate,
“J. LIND.”

“Little Beauty (her King Charles dog) is _quite_ well!”

This letter is full of her most instinctive feelings. There is the old hunger to be assured, by visible token, that affections for her are still strong, with the haunting fear lest they should have ceased in absence; while, after all, it turns out that she herself, whether through lack of time, or possibly, through a dim sense of vague distrust, fails and forgets to keep communication constant.

Then, again, how noticeable is her sense of peace in having left the agitations of the stage behind her! It is her old familiar manner of expressing her repugnance, such as we saw it at the first, when she opened her heart to Mrs. Grote. It is not the Drama as such on which she passes judgment. But “the calumnies”—the warfare, the strain, the anxiety—which the career involved—_these_ are wholly opposite to her nature. She cannot bring herself to contemplate a return under their yoke. So she remains very happy, with her music, her little dog, her books, and her store of splendid memories.

But she needs money—not for herself, but for her great scheme of home charity. It is for this that she is contemplating Russia. What the overtures made to her on this matter were, she does not say; but, as we shall see, the Russian trip is, very soon, to be discarded in favour of a new proposal from the West. She writes, on January 8th, from Lübeck, to Madame Wichmann:—

“I am not to go to Russia after all, for Russia is thrown into the background by another big plan. But I shall come to you as was planned at first, though it be for only a short time.”

The “other plan” is indeed a big one. It is the great American tour. Through the person of his agent, Mr. J. H. Wilton, who has planted himself at her side, Mr. Barnum has come into action, and is pressing his trip with the decision, the vigour, the imagination, the practical confidence which he knows so well how to throw into a scheme.

We remember how the idea of America had floated before her ever since she left London; and tentative American gentlemen had hovered about her, in her Meran retreat. But there is nothing floating, nothing tentative, in Mr. Barnum’s conception of what is to be done. He sees, and knows, exactly what it is which can be achieved. He is absolutely resolute; he has complete command of resources; he is ready to give the most positive pledges, and his offer is not only generous—it is magnificent. Everything that she has dreamed of, will be possible to her, if she is free to apply to her schemes on behalf of poor children the splendid fruits which Mr. Barnum is prepared, confidently, and without reserve, to promise her. Three days later than his last letter, she writes to say that the thing is done;—the contract is signed. It was the largest contract, probably, that had then ever been made for such a purpose; and had about it the stamp of that boldness which is so characteristic of its American author, who was the first to perceive the new and immense scale on which the world’s amusements could be carried out, now that steam, by sea and land, had knit the vast population of the wide earth together into one mass, which could be dealt with as a single whole. This is why Mr. Barnum’s name is noticeable. He has gone high and low, in his actual range; he has sometimes brought near to man a splendid gift like this voice of Jenny Lind; he has, at others, dropped to providing them with food for the stupid gaze of mere blind wonder. But, always, he has understood the condition of his day. Always, he has seen that the same resources which have made the face of the earth a single market, can be turned to the purpose of making it also a single fair. Just as each of us now draws upon the whole world for food, so each of us may draw upon the whole world for joy. The railways, that hurry up to us the one, can equally convey the other. And as this new fact enlarges the scale of the world’s market, so it will enlarge the scale of the world’s fair. Enormous accumulations of population, and wealth, all united under the network of a world-wide commerce, can all be touched, at one time, by a single pleasure. Amusements, therefore, can now be universal, popular, democratic. They need no longer be confined to the few who can afford to pay high for them, paying higher because they are few: for they can appeal, now, to a far larger purse than the wealthiest clique could ever possess—the deep purse of the multitudes upon multitudes, who, through minute subdivision of the general expense, can be cheaply brought together to taste enjoyment. The American tour of Jenny Lind was one of the very earliest manifestations of this modern characteristic.

To this contract Jenny Lind engaged herself, while seated alone, in the Hôtel du Nord, Lübeck, with no one but Mdlle. Åhmansson. She was accustomed to mistrust her own judgment, and to take much counsel; but, here, she seems to act with free decision. No doubt, she was in communication with Herr Munthe, her guardian; from Lübeck letters passed easily to Stockholm. But she herself carried on the necessary correspondence, putting herself, by the help of Mr. Benedict, into communication with Mr. Bates, of the firm of Baring Brothers, London, from whom she obtained assurances of Mr. Barnum’s stability and position. Belletti, too, was in London at the time, and both to him, and to Benedict, she wrote constantly, as the negotiations went on.

Here is the contract itself, in its chief points. It is preceded by a letter from Mr. Barnum to his agent, authorising him to enter into the engagement with Miss Jenny Lind, including also a “tenor and a pianist.” For the pianist, Julius Benedict was secured, the musician so well known to all in England; instead of “the tenor,” she herself pleaded for, and obtained, the help of her old helpmate, and counsellor, Giovanni Belletti, the famous baritone, who had been one of the first, in quite old days, to inspire her with a sense of what a high artistic style might mean.

The contract is made between J. H. Wilton, as agent for Phineas Barnum as the one party, and Fröken Jenny Lind, as the other. In it, she agrees to sing at one hundred and fifty concerts, including Oratorios, within the space of one year, if possible, or eighteen months, counting from the day of her arrival in New York; the concerts are to be given in the United States and Havannah. She is to have full power regarding the _number_ of evenings or concerts in each week, at which she would sing, as well as over the number of pieces sung by her; only that the concerts were not to be less than two a week, nor the pieces sung less than four. All was to be regulated in accordance with the preservation of her health, and voice. There is an express stipulation that she shall in no case have to appear in Opera.

In consideration of these services, she is to have all expenses paid for journeys and hotels, both for herself and for a lady companion and a secretary; besides this, she is to be allowed a maid and a servant at her own disposal, and a carriage and pair; and £200 (or 1000 dollars) for every concert or oratorio in which she sings.

“A guarantee for all this is to be deposited with Baring Brothers, in London, before her departure.”

There is a special and noticeable stipulation, that Jenny Lind shall “have perfect freedom whenever she feels inclined,” to sing for charitable purposes, independently of her present engagement; only she is to consult him as to times, and places, “with regard to their reciprocal convenience”; and in no place, may she so sing, until after two concerts have been given there under her engagement to him. The remaining stipulations are of the usual type. Finally, she is pledged to start for America from Liverpool by the last steamer in August, or the first in September, 1850.

So it runs; and it is signed and sealed, by the two parties, on January 9, 1850, in the presence of the Consul for Sweden and Norway, Mr. C. A. Nölting.

On the basis of this contract, she sailed for America; but two days after her arrival at New York Mr. Barnum, on his own initiative, tore it up in her presence, and proposed to her a new form of it, with several amendments made to meet her wishes. Her astonishment and delight at this generous treatment are recorded in Barnum’s ‘Autobiography,’ p. 109;[151] and Mr. Frith, in his memoirs,[152] has told his memory of her own version of it, given him at a dinner-party where he met her. The chief alterations were (1), a half share of profits whenever the receipts of a concert were above 5,500 dollars; (2), a careful stipulation in view of the American climate not suiting her voice; and (3) her right to give up after sixty concerts—or again after one hundred concerts, with fixed penalties in either case.

Of this last right, she availed herself at the close of the ninety-third concert. Mr. Barnum himself wrote to her, proposing to relinquish the remaining seven concerts, which would complete the full hundred. They parted the best of friends; and she, then, gave forty more concerts on her own speculation, _i.e._, nineteen during the month of June and July, 1851, in New England, and twenty-one more during October, November, and December, in Canada, Illinois, &c., winding-up with Boston and Philadelphia, at which town she sang, on December 13th, the last concert that she ever gave under her maiden name of Jenny Lind.

Such was the general issue of this Lübeck contract. The offer, made and secured, was certainly magnificent, and it may be well here to recall the motives with which she accepted, and fulfilled it. None of it was intended to be taken for any personal use. She was set on other aims— above all, on her endowment of a hospital for poor children. She carried out her intention with care and fidelity. Apart from the concerts on behalf of special charities, and apart from her own endless gifts to charitable purposes during the royal progress through the States, the entire sum gained was thrown into a “private or separate fund,” which was kept clear and distinct to the end of her life, and was finally left by her will, to be administered by trustees, for certain definite purposes. Only twice did she ever consent, in after years, to dip into the capital for her own benefit; in the first case, it was for the sake of a small purchase of land, the value of which could be realized and was, as a fact, returned to the fund. In the second instance she bought the cottage with its plot of mountain land on the Malvern Hills, at which she spent such happy holidays during the last few years of her life, in which she died. The purposes laid down by her will, for the final distribution of the fund, which in its original form stood at about £20,000, include a sum of 50,000 Swedish crowns to the University of Upsala and another equal sum to the University of Lund.[153] These moneys are to take the shape of scholarships to poor students under a scheme passed by her trustees. The balance of the fund, after the various deductions, to which it was liable before and after her death, have been discharged, will go to a Children’s Hospital at Stockholm, of which she so often has spoken.

The interest of the fund, during her life, was largely pledged to the innumerable pensions for which she made herself responsible, in her native land.

We must, however, go back, from these afternotes, to the hotel at Lübeck. There she remained, after the contract was settled, apparently with great contentment. She saw her way, now, ahead for the next two years; she had full proof that the abandonment of the drama would not cut her off from adequate opportunities of exercising her art. A career was assured her, in the concert-room, which would fulfil all her aims, both as an artist, to enrich the world by her splendid gifts, and, as a woman, to endow the poor by her generosity. She might look forward, with security, and peace. Nothing which she valued was lost, as she felt; while much that she detested, had been thrown aside. She records her satisfaction to Madame Wichmann in a letter written on January 12th:—

“Hôtel du Nord, Lübeck.
“January 12, 1850.

“BELOVED AMALIA!

(First page entirely personal.)

* * * * “I now wish to give you a clear idea of my future plans, so
that you—and all yours—may know the truth and be able to distinguish
the facts from mere reports.

“I have decided to go to America. The offer from there was very
brilliant, and everything was arranged so nicely, that I would have
been wrong in declining it; and since I have no greater wish than to
make much money in order to found schools in Sweden, I cannot help
looking upon this journey to America as a gracious answer to my prayer
to Heaven!

“I shall be able to gain there in the course of one or two years a
very large fortune, and, after three years, should not require to sing
a note unless I wished to do so. My heart resisted my going to England
at the present time; and indeed it is heavily weighted and I often
have a hard time of it; now I need not think of England and I feel
quite relieved, since three days ago I signed the contract. Herr
Benedict (son of the M. Benedict you saw at Meran) comes with me, and
you could not meet with a more honourable man or better friend, and at
the same time with a more reliable musician. An old friend of mine,
Signor Belletti, goes also. He is a distinguished singer, and we have
known one another from old times in Sweden, for the last twelve years.
In short, nothing could have been arranged more admirably. I gave over
at once any plans as to Russia, and did so gladly; for Josephine could
not have stood a Russian journey.... So now we remain—and more
particularly Josephine—here in Lübeck until we take the first steamer
leaving for Stockholm, which I hope will be in April. Then I go home—
sing there a few times in concerts (as I have promised my King to do),
make arrangements in view of my long absence from Sweden, and leave
Stockholm again the last day of June or the beginning of July, in
order to go through a ‘Milch Kur’ somewhere (only not too far away).
This I must have concluded by the middle of August in order to leave
for Liverpool, there to take the steamer for America the first days of
September! It would be something soothing and strengthening to my
feelings, if I could pass the latter weeks of my stay in Europe in
your company, my beloved friends. I therefore need not say further,
how I should rejoice loudly (Germ.: ‘himmelhoch jauchzen’) were such a
prospect open to me. I should much like to go to Salzburg! but more of
this when we meet at Berlin; for I fancy I shall come to you at about
the end of February, or beginning of March. I shall probably soon pay
a visit of some days at Hanover, in order to sing for the good Crown
Prince; I have been so much urged to go there, that I mean to comply
with the request.

“Well! I hope I have now told you something about us, and that,
besides, you know now that we do not go during the winter to Sweden.
Greet my beloved revered father! Greet the brothers also, and the good
Schröder! When shall I receive the letter from her? How good it was of
Hermann to write to me! and how clearly do I see the scene on
Christmas-eve at your home! We also had a Christmas-tree! Good people
here are fond of us. Next Thursday, the 17th, I am giving—a concert,
you think? Nay, a children’s ball! and I look forward to it with a
right royal joy!

“Farewell, beloved soul. Preserve to me your inestimable love, as I
remain for life

“Your ever grateful and loving
“JENNY.”

Her Christmas-tree! That was what she could never miss: all through her life, she loved, like a child, the home-feast, the children’s fun of Christmas-tide. Those who knew her can recall no scene to which she could more deliciously abandon herself with brimming joy than a children’s dance at Christmas. All the old Swedish merriment and motion would bubble up in her at such a time: and her face would laugh all over with exuberant humour, and her whole body seemed to dance. She had a gaiety that was infectious: and no wonder, that she managed to make even a Lübeck hotel merry with her radiance. “Good people here are fond of us,” she writes; and moreover it may possibly have added to the pleasure of the Ball that young Mr. Otto Goldschmidt came over to it from Hamburg, and danced with her many a time. The painful memories of the last English visit are still heavy upon her heart; and she is profoundly relieved to think that she is not called upon for the present to face scenes so charged with recent trouble. All, therefore, is smiling. The American tour offers just the escape which she needs: and, in the meantime, she is pleasantly employed in a series of concerts, in the North German towns, one of which becomes the opening of a friendship which had a deep interest for her, and which accompanied her path far on into life. She sang at Hanover on January 29th, and the King and Queen[154] returned “enraptured, and overpowered” from hearing her in her Swedish songs; and her Majesty the Queen has graciously put together for this book, from her diary, her own record of the intimacy which that concert initiated. She tells how “her relations with this gifted and noble-minded artist form one of the pleasantest recollections of her life.” It was not, indeed, the first time that she had heard her sing: for she had been present in March, 1845, when she sang ‘_Norma_,’ and in June, 1846, when she gave ‘_La Sonnambula_’—

“I shall never forget,” her Majesty writes, “the touching and
elevating impression which the incomparable singer produced on all
those present, even on those least easily moved, by her exalted
conception of these parts. She made of ‘_Norma_,’ in the most
wonderful manner, a sublime female figure and prophetess, so that the
part became, throughout, a perfect and glorious new creation. No eye
remained dry while listening to the magic of this divine voice which
stirred to the innermost even those who sang with her. In a word, such
emotions can never be repeated.”

So it had been; and, now, in 1850, their Majesties saw an opportunity of making acquaintance with one whom already they so highly admired.

“Several times,” the Queen records, “the King and I had the
unspeakable happiness of hearing the lovely ‘Northern Nightingale,’ as
he always called her, sing to us at home, in a small and intimate
circle; and we were, of course, from that time forth, quite under the
fascination of her lofty and religious spirit. For my dear husband
especially, with his deep feeling, his vivid imagination, and his
great mental gifts, these days of musical delight remained for long in
his memory, as a source of unclouded joy.

“From Hanover, Jenny Lind went to Göttingen, and then came back to us,
to say good-bye. She told us, with real delight, and in the joyous
childlike manner so peculiarly her own, how greatly the fresh
enthusiasm of the young students at the University had gratified her.
They had unharnessed the horses from her carriage after the concert,
and had dragged it to the hotel with endless shouts of joy: and, then,
had serenaded her, so that she had had to raise her voice in thanks to
them from the balcony. Enthusiastic shouts of applause had gone up
again and again from a thousand throats, together with a perfect
shower of flowers.”

The concert, to which the Queen refers, was given on February 4th. Jenny Lind had sung for herself on the 2nd and she gave this second concert for the poor. It was, indeed, one of her wonderful triumphs; she swept the students into a storm of rapturous enthusiasm by her delivery of Mendelssohn’s ‘Rheinisches Volkslied,’ throwing into the last stanza, with its outburst of arch and ringing delight—“O Jugend, o schöne Rosenzeit!”—an energy, and a glow, which were absolutely irresistible. The F-sharps that occur so frequently in the song would lend themselves to the most exciting capabilities of her voice; and then her look of archness, her surrender of herself to the swing and the motion of the music as it broke out on the high notes, her speed, and her thrill, and her power of personal magic—Ah! no wonder that the Göttingen students lost their heads that evening.

She was elected, by the enthusiastic students, a member of a famous guild of theirs, known as the “Burschenschaft Hannovera,” which, at that particular date, was enjoying a period of special success. She became a “Sister-Associate,” and was presented with the red, white, and green ribbon of the guild. Her portrait was hung up in their Assembly Room. On her leaving Göttingen on February 5th the whole guild accompanied her to Nordheim, a distance of four hours, where a halt was made at the inn “The Sun,” and addresses delivered, in return for which she sang several songs for a farewell. She sent off to a small shop in the town, and bought green and white ribbon, which she tore up into small shreds and gave each student a piece. So freely and delightedly did she surrender herself to the glow and the fun of this scene.

A few days later she received a silk ribbon, of the guild colours, on which were inscribed the thirty-two names of the students who had sent it. She wrote, on the 13th February, the following reply:—

“GENTLEMEN,

“I accept, with sincere gratitude, the ribbon which you have sent me:
and shall preserve it faithfully to my dying day.

“Even without this outward token, the 5th of February, 1850, would
have remained engraven on my memory with indelible letters of gold;
but, nevertheless, I regard the ribbon with pride and joy, well aware
of the honour thereby conferred upon me. Oh! that the sun may often
shine as softly upon us all as it did on that day, though such moments
cannot often be a mortal’s lot! Let us then retain their memory, long
after youth has forsaken us!

“And so I once again stretch out my hand to you all, even from a
distance, as a loving sister; in the hope that you will accept
indulgently these poor and inadequate words of mine.

“May Heaven protect you all! That is the prayer of your grateful, and
deeply moved

“JENNY LIND.”

She was faithful to her word: for the ribbon was found, preserved among her memorials, after her death. The escort to Nordheim, with its boyish gaiety is still vividly remembered by those who took part in it.

She came back to Hanover to sing for the poor on the 9th, after a concert on the 7th at Bremen. “The Good-bye,” which she then said to the Queen of Hanover was but the beginning of a friendship which so well illustrates her character, and has so much of interest in itself, that we venture to insert, at this place, all that the Queen has kindly recorded for us of this after-intimacy, even though it carry us far beyond the limits of time set us in this book. The personal warmth and affection of the Queen’s memories will more than compensate to the reader for the breach that we are compelled to make in the continuity of our story.

“Our second meeting with Jenny Lind,” continues the Queen, “took place
several years later[155] in the island of Norderney, where she, in
company with a dear old friend from Hamburg, spent the season with
us.”

“This was the highest point of our friendship with this gifted soul;
for she came to us daily in the morning, telling us stories out of her
full life, or interchanging ideas with us whereby we could fully
estimate the depth and purity of her feelings, the greatness of her
mind. Often in the midst of our conversation, she jumped up and sat
down at the piano, and her singing at that time was more full of soul,
if possible, than at other times.

“What a powerful effect the following little episode had on us! My
youngest daughter, Mary, then scarcely three years old, was on my arm
while I stood beside the piano. The child listened attentively to the
heavenly song, then suddenly she threw her arms round my neck and
burst into tears! ‘That is my greatest triumph!’ cried Jenny Lind,
greatly moved.

“Oh! those happy hours, spent with her, flew but too quickly by, but
the remembrance of them lives to this day, unchanged, in my heart.

“In the afternoon, when we took our walk on the shore, Jenny Lind
sometimes accompanied the King on horseback. She rode very well; and
took great pleasure in these excursions. She also seemed much pleased
when we visited her, and her dear old friend, in their pretty
fishing-cottage. She frequently came to supper, after which we
generally had some music; and I even had the delight of singing duets
with her, of which I was not a little proud.

“For our sake, Jenny Lind remained in Norderney till the end of our
stay there, and then returned with us to Hanover. On the steamer that
took us all to Bremen, she was in such ecstasy at the beauty of the
North Sea, that she began to sing Taubert’s song ‘Vöglein, was singst
im Walde,’ and when she came to the line, ‘Ich muss nun einmal
singen,’ her voice sounded clear as a bell over the noise of the
waves. We were all completely electrified by the overpowering
impression, and the tears ran down from my dear husband’s eyes. In
Hanover, our two fellow-travellers rested some hours under our roof,
and when the sad hour for parting struck, our hearts were quite heavy.

“The next time we met was in Düsseldorf, at the great musical festival
of the Rhine, when the _Elijah_ was performed under the conductorship
of her amiable and talented husband in 1863. It was in this _Elijah_
that we heard for the last time the voice of our dear Northern
Nightingale. The magnificent scene between the widow and Elijah, which
she sang with Stockhausen, was one of the most powerful and
heart-stirring performances we ever heard: and the excellent
conducting of Mr. Goldschmidt contributed greatly to the perfection of
the whole performance.”

The Queen records how the friendship, thus begun, lasted on through the troubles which fell on the Throne of Hanover in 1866, to their final meeting in London in 1876.

Such was the depth, and warmth, of that intimacy which sprang up during those winter months in 1850, when the Hôtel du Nord in Lübeck was the centre of so much quiet activity. It illustrates the character of the attraction she exercised over people of high cultivation. They were drawn towards a personality which broke through her song, even as it mingled with it; and which spoke to them of that which would, when the music had died away, abide as an enduring basis of friendship to which they would turn in time of spiritual need.

But we must return to Lübeck, and pick up the thread of our story again. She sang on February 9th at Hanover for the poor; at Oldenberg on the 12th and at Bremen on the 20th; again at Hanover, for charity, on the 25th; and at Brunswick on the 27th, where she received two illuminated addresses. So she passed to Berlin.

By the opening of March, she found herself ensconced in the house which was so dear to her, in the old room so crowded with earlier associations, encompassed about with that home-warmth which she cherished with all the powers of her soul. Everybody in the house was taken to her heart, from her “father” at the top, to the servants, and porters, whom she remembers in her letters. She sang on the 8th for charity: and she seems to have been persuaded to throw in another concert, for the same good purpose, on the 13th, postponing her concert for Herr Hendrichs until the 18th, after a rapid journey to sing at Dresden on the 15th. She was in excellent force at this moment. “My voice is behaving well, thank God,” she wrote from Berlin on the 13th to her guardian, Herr Munthe. “And what a joy it is to see the people so satisfied! Always the houses are crowded. And what an amount I have got together for the poor, by singing during these few weeks! Yes! Praise be to God!” Such was her own simple account of what was happening. Let us hear from others what they were thinking. In the _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, at Leipzig, a notice appears of the Berlin concert of March 8th. The writer goes, that he may once again offer himself to the wonderful magic of her voice and presence. He can tell of the crowd, of the price of the tickets, of the excitement: but of her singing itself, he will not speak a word. What could be said, has been said; and as to the strange, overwhelming power of her tones, no words can ever avail to portray it. Only so much will he say—that, far from the strain of time having told upon it, it is fresher, and stronger than before.

“And, then, the unspeakable charm of the rendering, the deep truth of the expression, the wonderful grace of the nature so profoundly harmonious and artistic—that is all unchanged!” The mastery with which she sang the Italian pieces from the _Puritani_, and the _Turco in Italia_, made him regret all the more that she does not sing “the German music, which she loves; for in the rendering of this music, which depends, above all, on feeling and inner spirit and taste, she is unsurpassed.” She was altogether magical “in her singing of Meyerbeer’s duet ‘La Grand’mère’—and the _pianos_ at its close could not possibly have been rendered more gracefully and more exquisitely. But the crown of the evening was her rendering of the songs—Schumann’s ‘An den Sonnenschein’—Lindblad’s ‘Schlottfegerbub,’ and Taubert’s ‘Ich muss nun einmal singen.’ Those who have once heard her sing these, can never forget them!”

Here is another delicate record of the impression she produced on a cultivated hearer on the Berlin visit. It is a letter written by Professor Jüngken, a famous physician attached to the Court of Berlin, in answer to inquiries about her from her anxious friend, Professor von Jäger, in Vienna.

“For a month,” he writes, “the town was on the stretch for the arrival
of Jenny Lind. For a month had the Wichmanns engaged her her rooms; at
last, she appeared! We saw her first at a brilliant soirée at Count
Redern’s which all the royalties now in Berlin honoured with their
presence. The Lind, as soon as she caught sight of me, came across to
me, and her first question was ‘How are the Jägers? They have written
to me about you. Tell me a great deal about them!’

“Two days after this, we heard her at a concert. She is, certainly, a
marvellous apparition, with an attraction that is irresistible. Her
voice is very beautiful; her deliverance is noble; but her play of
expression!—that is positively bewitching. She will sing no more on
the stage; but, then, there lies in her eyes, in her mien, an
expressiveness which is equal to the most perfect acting. It is a
delight indeed to listen to her; but a still greater delight to _see_
her sing. Her deliverance of her songs is, undoubtedly, unsurpassable,
and it is peculiarly her own. I have heard greater artists than the
Lind; and, for instance, the Rossi (Madame Sontag) stands on a grander
level of art. But I have never heard but one Lind, nor any artist who
knew better how to fascinate.

“A day before her departure, Madame Wichmann was good enough to ask us
to tea alone with the Lind, where we delighted ourselves for a couple
of hours with her in the highest possible degree, and learnt to know
what a really charming and dear child she is. I had to tell her
everything about your family, your fortunes, your affairs, she would
know it all.”

Nor did Herr Rellstab fail to offer his tribute. Indeed, he proudly welcomes the wonderful singer back from her European fame to the scene of those first triumphs, which he had himself so enthusiastically saluted. Berliners cannot forget, he writes, in the _Berlin Zeitung_ on the 10th of March, that the first tones of that world-famous voice, which now rings, like a bell, wide over land and sea, were heard, by those outside her native home, at Berlin on that day in December, 1844, when she sang to us her ‘Norma.’ She returns now as to a genuine home—to be greeted as a daughter whom they had seen, with joy and pride, go abroad to try her worth in the world, and who now comes back to them, decorated with every gift of fame and honour—a yet more perfect artist and woman than before. He then goes on to tell how her very first notes recalled him to the unique peculiarities of her gifts.

“The sorrowful _andante_[156] in the aria from the _Puritani_ gave her
an opportunity of revealing that utterly magical sweetness of her
voice, that pathos in its ring, that smoothness in its phrasing, that
dying-away and vanishing of the _pianissimo_, which the supreme artist
delivered with the most absolute precision.”

He notices how half at least of the spiritual effect of her singing is
lost, if she is not seen as well as heard.

“For it is her peculiar charm, in which no other artist can touch her,
that the expression of the melody seems to play around her very life,
to breathe itself over her features, to stream forth through her
eyes....”

“The singer’s voice has gained in power, her execution in certainty;
yet, perhaps, the strain and effort were a little more marked than
they used to be, in the high notes, and at passages of the strongest
colouring, where, of old, it was so perfect that one never used to
notice that the difficulties were difficult at all. One hardly can say
whether it be a habit that has crept in, or the custom of singing in
very large spaces, or the different taste of a different public,
needing stronger material, that has drawn the artist to just exceed,
here and there, that fine line, which, for us, marks the limit of the
purest beauty, and which she, formerly, clung to with such absolute
and unerring self-command.”

She sang Meyerbeer’s duet ‘La Grand’mère’ with our old friend Fräulein Tuczec, and here “she gave us,” says Herr Rellstab, “the most fascinating and innocent and playful grandchild on whom a grandmother has ever looked down and smiled.”

In the Rossini aria, brilliant as was the execution, he missed the spiritual and tender qualities, which are found to perfection in her singing of the ‘Lied,’ in which she seems to create the music, and to reveal herself as a poetess in musical expression. Each song is given a living colour of its own.

In one of these she made us feel as if a “maiden was talking to children—to children such as we all would wish to be for ever.”

In the national ballad, which she sang on her recall, “it was,” says Herr Rellstab, “as if she were once more greeting her own home with her mother tongue—so full of heart-blessings were her tones; and everything seemed bathed in the fresh flood of pure mountain air.”

Our Berlin critic has lost, as we see, nothing of his old enthusiasm. And he follows her, song by song, through the second and third concerts, with a devotion that knows no bounds. He proclaims her absolute supremacy now as a concert-singer, no less than before as a dramatic artist. And it is now, in this context, that he, again and again, calls attention to her creative dramatic intensity, by which she spreads about her song the colour and atmosphere of the scene which it embodies, lending to this purpose her whole frame, so that features and motions and look and expression all combine with the music to convey a single and overwhelming impression. In this, it is remarkable how he repeats the very words of Professor Jüngken, in conveying that which so struck them both.

He tells us how, in giving Weber’s song from _Oberon_, ‘Ocean du Ungeheuer,’ with orchestral accompaniment, “she managed to bring before us the whole majestic scenery of Nature with its terrors and its charms,” so that no one could tell whether it is eye or ear which was most captivated. “Both look and tone can never be forgotten, with which she wove a woeful image round about the words ‘Wo die Fluth ein Leben raubt.’”

On the 20th of March, he wrote in the same journal a criticism of her concert on behalf of Herr Hendrichs.

After brief thanks to the other performers whom he cannot stop to praise in presence of the one overwhelming impression, he goes on to assert that, of all the three evenings, the great singer reached, in this last, her highest level. In the aria from Mozart’s _Figaro_ (the last air of “Susanna”)[157] she filled the music with the sense of moonlight, and the stillness of the garden, and the scent of flowers. The soft depth which she put into the words “notturna face”—the light play of the hovering breath, made one say “This is not Susanna who waits for Figaro— it is Juliet who looks for Romeo!” so powerfully did the artist’s ideal work upon the real, to draw from it a beauty beyond its own.

Her second piece was a little spring ballad—sung for the first time by her—“Song of the Bird and the Maiden.”[158]

And she followed this with Mendelssohn’s _Suleika_.

“That Eastern wonder-dream, with its violets that peep, its stars that
twinkle, its roses that yield their perfumes, its holy river with its
rushing stream—was it all real? And he who could forget the
‘Forget-me-not!’ must be one who, in the poet’s words, ‘Can never be
remembered in life or death.’”

After “the roses, and violets,” of the German she gave an Italian aria, which was full of sunlight and sparkle, as it ran laughing from her lips. And then yet once again the critic cannot but ask himself what it is, beyond all the marvellous technical skill, which breathes through every form, and gives light to every colour, in this supreme singing? And, once again, he is compelled to give the old answer, “The simple truth can express itself quite simply; it is the purity of soul which speaks through all the artistic form.” It is for this he gives her thanks with all the thousands who share his feelings. And with this he wishes her God-speed to that far land to which she goes across the ocean—and a happy return once more to this her home.

She was off on the 20th to Hamburg, bent on a purpose, of which the record has been supplied to us by one who was deeply interested in its success. Madame Clara Schumann has kindly written down, out of her diary kept at the time, the following account of what occurred. The picture given by her of Jenny Lind’s swift and vivid appearance on the scene, from entry to exit, is warm with affection, and coloured with the reality of life. The words bubble up out of a thankful heart, with all the quickened insight of a free delight; they can best be left to tell their own tale in their own native freshness and unaided force.

“March, 1850. Hamburg.

“Wednesday, the 20th.—I was just lying down a little after dinner and
reading in a letter about Jenny Lind’s appearance in Dresden, when she
herself came in, having only just arrived from Berlin. I was very
pleased and so was Robert, who, however, had had a sort of
presentiment of her coming all day. She was most amiable and said she
had come from Berlin so quickly, as she wished to sing at my concert
in Hamburg; she was not a little astonished to hear that it was over,
for Robert had written to her that we were going to leave on the 23rd,
from which she concluded that the concert would take place on the
22nd. She immediately offered to sing at my concert in Altona,[159]
which was fixed for to-morrow, a proposal I of course most gladly
accepted. I felt inclined to smother her with delight and gratitude.

“On _Thursday, the 21st_, Lind called on us for a small vocal
rehearsal, but which turned out something more, for she sang a good
many of Robert’s songs, and how she sang them, with such truth, with
such deep feeling and simplicity, how she sang at _first sight_
‘Marienwürmchen,’ ‘Frühlingsglaube,’ from an album unknown to her,—
that is a thing never to be forgotten! What a grand, heaven-inspired
being she is, what a pure, true artist’s soul, how all she says
refreshes one, how she always hits upon the right thing and expresses
it in few words! in short, never perhaps have I loved and reverenced a
woman as I do her. These songs will for ever sound in my heart, and
were it not wrong, I should say that I don’t wish to hear these songs
sung by any one else but herself. I need scarcely mention that Robert
is equally charmed with her; for a composer it is a special delight to
hear his songs rendered as coming from the depths of his own heart.
She left, and each time she left, I stayed behind in a state of
intense excitement, her notes and words continuously quivering in my
soul.

“The Soirée in Altona on the evening of the 21st was splendid. Rarely,
I should think, you would find so much combined as to-day,—a crowded
hall, tremendous enthusiastic cheering, the exquisite singing, my own
performance not so bad, Robert’s beautiful second trio with Boie and
Kupfer,—in short, nothing was wanting to make it all perfection. How
she sang, how the ‘Rheinisches Volkslied,’ by Mendelssohn, how the
‘Sonnenschein,’ by Robert, no—that cannot be described! Robert said to
her: ‘That really makes the sun shine on one’s back;’ such freshness,
such childlike innocence and simplicity; one must hear that again and
again,—and the audience indeed insisted on an encore. And how she sang
‘Der Himmel hat eine Thräne geweint,’ with such intelligent rendering,
putting her very soul into it!

“It cannot be expressed in words what a heavenly impression is made by
such rendering of such songs!

“Otten called on us, and urged us to give another matinée at Hamburg
to-morrow, and to persuade Lind to sing. But much as I might wish it,
I should nevertheless not like to do it for my own benefit. I proposed
her giving concerts at which I would play, or our giving a matinée
together for the poor; but she disapproved of all this, and said, she
would only sing if I were to give a matinée for myself, and she would
then leave for Lübeck in the afternoon, instead of in the morning. She
pressed me hard and I accepted, for who could have resisted so
tempting an offer? Evidently she wished also to obtain a pecuniary
advantage for us, for later on she expressed her great satisfaction on
hearing that the matinée would be very well attended. She also
insisted on high prices, but that I did not approve of, and she at
last gave in.

“Towards evening dear Jenny came to us, and we again had a vocal
rehearsal, which as before turned out something grander. She sang the
‘Nussbaum,’ ‘Widmung,’ ‘Frühlingsnacht,’ ‘Stille Liebe,’ and a good
many others besides, also from Robert’s opera _Genoveva_ in the last
act.

“I should have preferred a thousand times spending the whole evening
with her in this way to having to go to a party. Jenny Lind was also
invited, but she wished to devote her last evening to her hosts
(Madame Brunton and Frl. Seminoff); altogether she does not like going
into society, it is even difficult to get at her at home, and quite
_impossible_ for the curious.

“She takes the greatest care of her voice; she does not dance, and
drinks neither wine, nor tea, nor coffee. She is in every way an
ethereal being! She was most attentive to me in other things besides
singing so very kindly at two of my concerts, staying on here on
purpose for them, &c.; so, for instance, she never suffered me to go
to her for a rehearsal,—further, she always fetched us to the concert,
and so on! On the other hand, what pretensions are made by inferior
songstresses!”

“Saturday, 23rd.

“Matinée. Exceedingly full, great cheering. Jenny Lind had seated
herself behind the lid of the piano, whereupon a general commotion
ensued, for few only could see her and yet every one wished to see
her. She again sang most exquisitely,—Mozart’s aria from _Figaro_ with
enchanting simplicity (Frl. W. might have learnt respect for the
composer from her)—besides songs by Mendelssohn, four songs by Robert,
winding up again with the ‘Sonnenschein’ twice over. To-day she gave a
proof of how she takes in everything that she sings, by singing the
latter part of the ‘Frühlingsnacht’ by heart, the leaves having got
into confusion in being turned over. All Robert’s songs she sang in
the manner which I had pictured to myself as ideal, but in which I had
never dreamed to hear them sung. She does not pass by any delicate
point, which others overlook completely; in the same way it is a real
pleasure to watch her, when others are performing, for nothing escapes
her, not even the softest, most subtle harmonic change.

“After the matinée Jenny Lind would on no account allow us to take her
home, but said good-bye to us at our house, and the parting pained me
very much indeed. Robert has a warm admirer in her! She whispered to
me one day: ‘What a genius your husband is, how much I reverence him!’
How pleased she always was on noticing that she had sung his songs to
his satisfaction! But let this suffice, for words are but a poor
reproduction of the feelings.”

Nothing can be more engaging than this picture of her. These days were, indeed, singularly happy. She was in the full tide of her power. She moved from triumph to triumph. She was free from all the harassing turmoil and distracting emotions of the stage. She had left behind and shaken off the agitation and distresses of the heart, with which the last year had been so clouded. She was at her own disposal: she could come and go as she chose. She saw her way ahead along a road that teemed with promises. She was ever close to affectionate friends: and new intimacies were springing up all round her. Her great gift was there, to use for the ends to which she loved to dedicate it: she had but to lift her voice, and the poor on whom her pity alighted, were relieved with boons, or her fellow-artists, whom she admired and reverenced, were released from their anxieties. Wherever she went, she carried blessing with her. And life was young in her: and spirits were high: and she revelled in the liberty of movement that was now so easy, and so possible. There is a sense of springing vivacity left upon us by the memorials of this time. We can feel it in the rapidity of her musical insight which so struck the great pianist: and in the irresistible zeal with which she throws herself into the congenial task of doing her best for her friends. And, yet, how noticeable, in this record of Madame Schumann, is the touch of domesticity which she noticed in Jenny Lind! Still, with all this gaiety, she held herself aloof: she suspected and disliked “Society”; she reserved to herself a private corner, which it was almost impossible to penetrate, where she hedged herself in against all but the chosen few; and even they had to approach it with care and caution. This was eminently characteristic. Her enthusiasm for Schumann’s genius, which had begun under the guidance of Mendelssohn in 1846, who had first shown her the beauty of his Lieder, seems to have let her, instinctively, inside his music: and even Madame Schumann was surprised at the speed with which she took possession of his songs, and at the delicate security of her interpretation of his mind. “Ah! who was it that made that sun shine?” she rejoined when the composer said that her singing made him feel it warm on his back. She felt her whole being move under his sensitive hand; and she knew all the vibrations of his sentiment. At the very close of her life, while she lay on her death-bed at Malvern, in weakness and misery, once as her daughter opened the shutters and let in a ray of morning sun, she just let her lips shape the first bars of the old song she loved, ‘An den Sonnenschein.’ They were the last notes that she ever sang on earth.

Everything conspired to be good at this particular time. From Sweden came a grateful acknowledgment of a kindness which she had been able to do on behalf of Lund University, where an effort to establish a large institute for the “Academic Union,” had come to a block for lack of funds. The building was for the use and pleasure of the youth of the university: and the cause touched her; and, with the sanction of Herr Munthe, she had lent them 10,000 crowns to save the scheme. A thankful recognition of this act was drawn up and signed, on March 14th, by the representatives of all the “Academic Nations” of Lund. “That the building can now be continued without interruption,” it declared; “and that it will be ready, in all probability, for the Oscar Day this year (Dec. 1), the Academic Union have to thank principally a name which is full of good omen wherever it is heard in the whole civilised world, but nowhere has it such a musical sound as in the ears of the young men of Sweden.”

This pleasant piece of gratitude would have greeted her probably at Lübeck, whither she got back about the 26th of March to find Mdlle. Åhmansson much better than when she left her. “My little dog, too,” so she writes to Madame Wichmann, “was so affectionate to me; and jumped up at once on to my lap, and lay there as quiet as possible!... Just think, dearest,” she goes on, “that I sang twice in Altona and Hamburg! The Wieck-Schumanns were there, and they were too delightful, and too remarkable, and too gifted not to kindle love and admiration. And I count it a special honour to have been allowed to sing a couple of little songs at their concerts.”

A bracelet had come, it appears, through the Lord Chamberlain, from Berlin as a tribute for her singing. “The thing is pretty, and artistic;” she goes on in the same letter: “and it cannot but be a great pleasure that their Majesties should have personally chosen the gift. But my singing has ever received such appreciation, and reward, that it was a kind of recreation to be allowed just once to sing freely on an occasion like that.—But kings, and queens, and such like, must always put a high value on their pleasures!”

The happy time at Lübeck is running rapidly out: and she is close on the date fixed for her return to Sweden. She writes yet once again, in her own English, to Baroness French in return for letters received from her on February 6th:—

“How kind, how very kind of you not to forget me! I remember so well
how pleased I was when I first had the honour of meeting you (in the
carriage, when we were going off to Manchester), and how I felt sure
that it would be very easy to love you, and your dear, dear daughter!

“I am, thank God, much better than before I left England; I feel only
very seldom that bad headache; and what deliverance I cannot tell! Our
doctor here has so perfectly understood my whole constitution that he
has made me a different person in that respect that my head is
restored!! We are now waiting for the Swedish boat to take us to
Sweden ... in about fourteen days. I intend to remain in my dear
country till about the end of June; and then, we are going to
Schlangenbad and Ems; and from thence to London (for a few days only)
for Liverpool. And _there_ is the great point! From Liverpool we will
be saying farewell to Europe for one or two years.... I will keep you
in a very constant memory.... A kiss on dear Miss Georgina’s forehead
from her friend Jenny; and for you, dear Madam, the expression of my
sincere love, and deep attachment.

“Your devoted
“JENNY.”

“Lübeck, April 10th, 1850.

One other letter, full of her innermost heart, she wrote to Augusta von Jäger, the Professor’s daughter, of whom she was very fond, and who had sent her a water-colour picture of Meran, where such happy days had been spent with the Wichmanns.

The letter will show how deeply she was moved, at this time, by an evangelical piety, which had stirred her during her last English visit, and which woke in her a vivid sense of human sin, and of the peace to be found in God’s forgiveness. She was full of eager desire to speak to others of the peace which she had found for herself; and her affection for Augusta von Jäger prompts her zeal, as a messenger to her soul.

“MY OWN DEAREST GUSTI,

“Whenever I hear anything of you, and of Vienna, my whole heart goes
out to it; and I feel how deep and fast my soul clings to you!

“I call it friendship indeed, my dear Gusti, that you should, in spite
of my long long silence, still prove true in thought of me, and not
only in thought, but had also made for me so precious a remembrance.
You cannot think what joy I have taken in it. Would that I could speak
my thanks in words! At any rate, believe most assuredly, that I not
only have ‘a little tiny bit of love’ for you, but that it must ever
have a profound part in my own life-story, without my even troubling
myself to bring this about; for were I never to hear from you again,
or were I never to let you hear of me—still it would remain through
fair or foul, through life and death. And I believe, and hope that you
think so of me—do you not?... How glad I shall be to get to Vienna,
and spend some evenings with you! Ah! much, very much, must one live
through, before one learns to fasten on the Life, the Higher Life.
Much—very much—should I like to tell, in quiet, to you, my dearest
friends—you and your mother—that I might share it with you! My life is
so full, so beautiful, so wonderful, so great, that I often feel a
lively desire to share all its memories with those whom I love! I have
for long had the most eager wish to earn, somewhere, a great deal of
money, so as to endow a school for poor lost children in my own
country. And the invitation to America came as a direct answer; so
that I go there in this confidence; and I pray God in Heaven, out of a
full heart, that He will guide me thither, as ever before, with His
gentle hand; and will graciously forgive me my sins, and my
infirmities. I shall have much to encounter; it is a very big
undertaking. But since I have no less an aim before me than to help in
widening God’s kingdom, the littlenesses of life vanish in face of
this!

“My dearest Gusti, my Bible was never more necessary to me than now—
never more truly my stay! I drink therein rest, self-knowledge, hope,
faith, love, carefulness, and the fear of God; so that I look at life
and the world in quite another fashion to what I did before. Would
that all men could come to this knowledge, and that we all daily
feasted on this Divine Book; and would that my own Gusti would take
all her trouble to this Book! Then first should we all know how to
taste the true life!”

She tells her of her plans, and closes thus:—

“You see how little peace they let me enjoy. But I am very, very
happy! There is nothing I want; and everything goes well with me. My
voice is better than ever. I have long left the stage; and I firmly
believe that this decision has brought my soul happiness and peace.
And now, farewell, my own sister! Heaven send you its blessing; may my
image bring you always courage and joy, for indeed I mean you well!
Let me, sometimes, have a word or two from you; and count ever on my
true attachment, and on my unchanging love. For life,

“Your sister,
“JENNY.”

Already, she had intended to have been at home; but the Baltic ice still delayed the steamers, so that it is May before she is off. She gave three concerts before leaving the town in which she had found herself so entirely at home—one on the 6th of April, for the poor of Lübeck, another on the 20th for the widow of the orchestral director, Bach, and yet another on the 26th for the pianist Schreinzer. On the 7th of May, she wrote a very affectionate letter to her great friend, Madame Schwabe. She is to sail on the morrow. She apologises much for not having written before, and tells of herself, and all her plans. “I am much better than ever before; my head is incomparably better, and my whole being is in good order.” She has greatly enjoyed singing to the Germans, who are so wonderfully alive to the touch of music. She is impatient to see America, and the Falls of Niagara, and the Atlantic Ocean. Alas! she will not get any stay in her beloved England for a long time! She asks for her friend’s prayers. Young Mr. Goldschmidt has been over from Hamburg, and has played in a concert, and tasted a little spring air, and heard the nightingales. And so good-bye!

It is a bright, hopeful letter, during a time of special cheerfulness and ease. She had thoroughly enjoyed it. Her health was renewed, her voice was at its finest, her spirits were high, her soul was at peace. High and low, rich and poor, artists and public—all were at her feet. She had carried out her dearest aims with unhindered liberty. She revelled in her new-found freedom. So home, with a glad heart—home yet once again, for a triumphal passage over the familiar scene, before she launched out on to the great ocean, to the far land, where a wholly new life awaited her into which she passes out of our sight, beyond the range set us in this record of her artistic career.