So, perhaps, in the march of improvement, where none sing unless they possess a voice that would electrify a whole opera house audience, it is well the dear old songs of long ago are not resurrected and amplified to suit the tastes and requirements of to-day. I recall though, with a thrill of tender memory, hearing Jenny Lind sing “Home, Sweet Home”—just the simple ballad—without a single flourish when she was in New Orleans in 1851. I was in deep mourning and did not dream I would have the pleasure of hearing her, but a friend secured a loge grillée, and insisted upon my going, accompanied by my brother. It was all arranged so courteously and so sympathetically and so kindly that I could not refuse, and thus I heard that incomparable artist sing “Home, Sweet Home.”
No longer can mother sit in her “old arm chair” waving a turkey tail fan warm summer evenings, and be comforted and soothed by sweet warblings of her girls at the piano. No longer can the tired father call for his favorite, “Oh! Would I Were a Boy Again,” or “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother,” or Mrs. Hemans’ “Bring Flowers, Fresh Flowers,” the sweet old flowers that all girls were singing sixty years ago. The old mothers and fathers, the bright young daughters are scarce buried more deeply or mourned more deeply than are the songs of long ago.
XXIII
A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY
In the days of which I write New Orleans bore a very different aspect from the present, and it may be well for me to take my readers on a gossipy ramble through the thoroughfares which I so often traverse nowadays in my thoughts.
Canal Street in the early forties was, par excellence, a resident street. From Camp and Chartres Streets, way back as far as sidewalks were flagged or bricked, which was only a few blocks, Canal Street was lined with homes, side by side, often without even an alley to separate them, as though land was scarce and one need economize space, whereas just beyond was land in plenty, but no sidewalks or easy approaches to speak of. From Camp Street to the levee were, as I remember, large wholesale business houses, convenient to the shoppers of large supplies, who arrived at regular intervals from their plantations on Belle Creole, or some other coast packet, frequently retained their quarters on the boat the short time it was in port, and so monsieur and madame could accomplish their necessary shopping, untrammeled by the elegancies and inconvenient hours of a hotel.
Things were conducted on a very liberal basis in those days. I have a liking for that old way—it was so debonair and generous, putting the captain on the same social standing as his guests.
On the lower side of Canal Street, about where Holmes’ store now stands, were more homes, in a row, all the houses exactly alike, with narrow balconies stretching clear across the fronts, in a most confidentially neighborly way. The lower floors were doctors’ or lawyers’ offices or exchange brokers’. Fancy goods, dry goods, retail shops, in fact of every kind, were on Chartres or Royal Street; none on Canal. R. W. Montgomery had his home also on that fashionable thoroughfare.
Christ Church was on the corner of Baronne and Canal, and Dr. Laycock was the pastor at the date of which I write, and, with few exceptions, all these families were of his flock.