WOODSTOCK, N. Y.
August, 1913
| CONTENTS | ||
|---|---|---|
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [I]. | My First Notes | [1] |
| [II]. | Girlhood | [11] |
| [III]. | "Like a Picked Chicken!" | [22] |
| [IV]. | A Youthful Realist | [33] |
| [V]. | Literary Boston | [43] |
| [VI]. | War Times | [55] |
| [VII]. | Steps of the Ladder | [62] |
| [VIII]. | Marguerite | [77] |
| [IX]. | Opéra Comique | [90] |
| [X]. | Another Season and a Little More Success | [99] |
| [XI]. | The End of the War | [110] |
| [XII]. | And so—to England! | [119] |
| [XIII]. | At Her Majesty's | [129] |
| [XIV]. | Across the Channel | [139] |
| [XV]. | My First Holiday on the Continent | [152] |
| [XVI]. | Fellow-Artists | [163] |
| [XVII]. | The Royal Concerts at Buckingham Palace | [177] |
| [XVIII]. | The London Season | [188] |
| [XIX]. | Home Again | [200] |
| [XX]. | "Your Sincere Admirer" | [212] |
| [XXI]. | On the Road | [227] |
| [XXII]. | London Again | [235] |
| [XXIII]. | The Season with Lucca | [245] |
| [XXIV]. | English Opera | [254] |
| [XXV]. | English Opera—Continued | [266] |
| [XXVI]. | Amateurs and Others | [276] |
| [XXVII]. | "The Three Graces" | [289] |
| [XXVIII]. | Across the Seas Again | [300] |
| [XXIX]. | Teaching and the Half-Talented | [309] |
| [XXX]. | The Wanderlust, and Where It Led Me | [324] |
| [XXXI]. | Saint Petersburg | [334] |
| [XXXII]. | Good-bye to Russia—and then? | [346] |
| [XXXIII]. | The Last Years of my Professional Career | [357] |
| [XXXIV]. | Coda | [370] |
| [Index] | [373] | |
| ILLUSTRATIONS | ||
|---|---|---|
| PAGE | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg Strakosch | [Frontispiece] | |
| Lydia Atwood | [2] | |
| Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg | ||
| Charles Atwood | [4] | |
| Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg | ||
| From a Daguerreotype | ||
| George Kellogg | [10] | |
| Father of Clara Louise Kellogg | ||
| From a photograph by Gurney & Son | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg, Aged Three | [12] | |
| From a photograph by Black & Case | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg, Aged Seven | [14] | |
| From a photograph by Black & Case | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as a Girl | [20] | |
| From a photograph by Sarony | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as a Young Lady | [28] | |
| From a photograph by Black & Case | ||
| Brignoli, 1865 | [42] | |
| From a photograph by C. Silvy | ||
| James Russell Lowell, in 1861 | [46] | |
| From a photograph by Brady | ||
| Charlotte Cushman, 1861 | [52] | |
| From a photograph by Silabee, Case & Co. | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Figlia | [56] | |
| From a photograph by Black & Case | ||
| General Horace Porter | [58] | |
| From a photograph by Pach Bros. | ||
| Muzio | [66] | |
| From a photograph by Gurney & Son | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Lucia | [72] | |
| From a photograph by Elliott & Fry | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Martha | [74] | |
| From a photograph by Turner | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1865 | [82] | |
| From a photograph by Sarony | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1864 | [88] | |
| From a silhouette by Ida Waugh | ||
| Gottschalk | [106] | |
| From a photograph by Case & Getchell | ||
| Jane Elizabeth Crosby | [108] | |
| Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg | ||
| From a tintype | ||
| General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1877 | [116] | |
| From a photograph by Mora | ||
| Henry G. Stebbins | [122] | |
| From a photograph by Grillet & Co. | ||
| Adelina Patti | [130] | |
| From a photograph by Fredericks | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Linda, 1868 | [134] | |
| From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co. | ||
| Mr. James McHenry | [138] | |
| From a photograph by Brady | ||
| Christine Nilsson, as Queen of the Night | [146] | |
| From a photograph by Pierre Petit | ||
| Duke of Newcastle | [188] | |
| From a photograph by John Burton & Sons | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen | [230] | |
| From a photograph | ||
| Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicarand Olivia | [234] | |
| From a photograph by Window & Grove | ||
| First Edition of the "Faust" Score, Published in 1859 by Chousens of Paris, now in the Boston Public Library | [240] | |
| Newspaper Print of the Kellogg-Lucca Season | [250] | |
| Drawn by Jos. Keppler | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg in Mignon | [252] | |
| From a photograph by Mora | ||
| Ellen Terry | [284] | |
| From a photograph by Sarony | ||
| Colonel Henry Mapleson | [290] | |
| From a photograph by Downey | ||
| Clara Louise Kellogg as Aïda | [292] | |
| From a photograph by Mora | ||
| Faust Brooch Presented to Clara LouiseKellogg | [298] | |
| Carl Strakosch | [364] | |
| From a photograph by H. W. Barnett | ||
| Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara LouiseKellogg | [366] | |
| "Elpstone," New Hartford, Connecticut | [370] | |
Memoirs of
An American Prima Donna
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST NOTES
I was born in Sumterville, South Carolina, and had a negro mammy to take care of me, one of the real old-fashioned kind, of a type now almost gone. She used to hold me in her arms and rock me back and forth, and as she rocked she sang. I don't know the name of the song she crooned; but I still know the melody, and have an impression that the words were:
| "Hey, Jim along,—Jim along Josy; |
| Hey, Jim along,—Jim along Joe!" |
She used to sing these two lines over and over, so that I slept and waked to them. And my first musical efforts, when I was just ten months old, were to try to sing this ditty in imitation of my negro mammy.
When my mother first heard me she became apprehensive. Yet I kept at it; and by the time I was a year old I could sing it so that it was quite recognisable. I do not remember this period, of course, but my mother often told me about it later, and I am sure she was not telling a fairy story.