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