Of course I, who had been so protected, was horrified by all this. I could not understand how a girl could succeed in doing that kind of thing. She told me, furthermore, that she took care of her mother, brothers, and sisters.
"I must go to the post-office now and see if there's a letter from mother!" she exclaimed presently, jumping up. It was pouring rain outside.
"Show me your feet!" I said.
She grinned ruefully as she exhibited her shoes, but she was off the next moment in search of her letter. When she came back to the hotel, I got hold of her again, gave her some clothes, and took her to the concert in my carriage. After I had sung my first song she rushed up to me.
"Let me look down your throat," she cried excitedly, "I've got to see where it all comes from!"
After the concert we made her sing for us and our accompanist played for her. She asked me frankly if I thought she could make her living by her voice and I said yes. Her poverty and her desire to get on naturally appealed to me, and I was instrumental in raising a subscription for her so that she could come East. My mother immediately saw the hotel proprietor and arranged that what money he had collected the night before should be turned over to her. It has been said that I am responsible for Emma Abbott's career upon the operatic stage, but I may be pardoned if I deny the allegation. My idea was that she intended to sing in churches, and I believe she did so when she first came to New York. She was the one girl in ten thousand who was really worth helping, and of course my mother and I helped her. When we returned from my concert tour, I introduced her to people and saw that she was properly looked out for. And she became, as every one knows, highly successful in opera—appearing in many of my own rôles. In a year's time from when I first met her, Emma Abbott was self-supporting. She was a girl of ability and I am glad that I started her off fairly, although, as a matter of fact, she would have got on anyway, whether I had done anything for her or not. Her way to success might have been a longer way, unaided, but she would have succeeded. She was eaten up with ambition. Yet there is much to respect in such a dogged determination to succeed. Of course, she was never particularly grateful to me. Of all the girls I have helped—and there have been many—only one has ever been really grateful, and she was the one for whom I did the least. Emma wrote me a flowery letter once, full of such sentences as "when the great Prima Donna shined on me," and "I was almost in heaven, and I can remember just how you sang and looked," and "never can I forget all your goodness to me." But in the little ways that count she never actually evinced the least appreciation. Whenever we were in any way pitted against each other, she showed herself jealous and ungenerous. She made enemies in general by her lack of tact, and never could get on in London, for instance, although in her day the feeling there for American singers was becoming most kindly.
Emma Abbott did appalling things with her art, of which one of the mildest was the introduction into Faust of the hymn Nearer My God to Thee! It was in Italy that she did it, too. I believe she introduced it to please the Americans in the audience, many of whom applauded, although the Italians pointedly did not. And yet she was always trying to "purify" the stage and librettos! I have always felt about Emma Abbott that she had too much force of character. Another thing that I never liked about her was the manner in which she puffed her own successes. She was reported to have made five times more than she actually did; but, at that, her earnings were considerable, for she would sacrifice much—except the character—to money-getting. Indeed, she was a very fine business woman.
I have spoken about George Conly's tragic death by drowning and of the benefit the Kellogg-Hess English Opera Company gave for his widow. Conly had also sung with Emma Abbott and, when the benefit was given, she and I appeared on the same programme. She knew my baritone, Carlton, and sent for him before the performance. She explained that she wanted him to appear on the bill with her in Maritana and, also, to see that all donations from my friends and colleagues were sent to her, so that her collection should be larger than mine. Carlton explained to her that he was singing with Miss Kellogg and so would send any money that he could collect to her. It seems incredible that any one could do so small an action, and I can only consider it one of many little attempts to be spiteful and to show me that my erstwhile protégée was now at the "top of the ladder."
Her thirst for profits finally was the indirect means of her death. When Utah was still a territory, the town of Ogden, where many travelling companies gave concerts, was very primitive. The concert hall had no dressing-room and was cold and draughty. I always refused outright to sing in such theatres, or else dressed in my hotel and drove to the concert warmly wrapped up. Emma Abbott was warned that the stage in the concert hall of the town of Ogden was bitterly cold. The house had sold well, however, and the receipts were considerable. Emma dressed in an improvised screened-off dressing-room, and, having a severe cold to begin with, she caught more on that occasion, and suddenly developed a serious case of pneumonia from which she died, a victim to her own indiscretion.