The day that had, among its errands, the duty of showing me the Rhine, made its obeisance in sober grey, a half hour before sunrise. I arose unwillingly, as one does, so early, whatever is to befal; but the steamer was to start at 6, and steamers are punctual, even on the track of Childe Harold. Following my baggage to the water-side, I found myself on board a boat which would hardly pass muster as a ferry boat to Staten Island—decks wet, seats dirty, and all hands, apparently, smoking pipe while the passengers came on board. Many kinds of people were hurrying over the plank, however. A young man who chose to sit in his travelling carriage while it was drawn from the hotel by men’s hands, attracted some notice, and it was soon whispered about that he was Prince Napoleon, nephew to the Emperor. He was a pale discontented looking youth, apparently twenty-two or twenty-five, and his servants waited on him with an impassive doggedness of servility, that made its comment on the temper of the master. The cashmeres thickened, and spurs and moustaches, students’ caps and pedestrians’ knapsacks, soon crowded the decks in most republican condition. I looked around, of course, in the hope of seeing some one to whom I could say, of the beautiful scenery, “how beautiful,” and, as my fellow travellers had passed under my eye, I had mentally ticketed them as one generally does—possible acquaintances, probable or impossible. And, among those who looked to me both possible and desirable acquaintances, were three Englishmen, whose manners and countenances at once took my fancy, and who, on exchanging cards with me at night, gave me names that I had long been familiar with—three of the most distinguished young artists of England. Somehow, in all the countries where I have travelled and made chance acquaintances, artists have been, of all the people I have met, the most attractive and agreeable.
I was taking a turn on the wharf, for the sake of a few minutes of dry footing before the boat should draw in her plank, when, to my surprise, I heard my name, with a feminine ‘good morning,’ from a window overhead. Looking up, I spied a lady, leaning out in shawl and night-cap and smoking a cigar! I immediately recognised her as a handsome person whom I had chanced to sit beside at a table d’hôte, at Brussels, and who had the enviable gift of speaking two foreign languages, French and English, absolutely as well as her own. She was a German. From the soup to the pudding (two-thirds of a hotel-dinner) I had supposed I was listening to an English woman, and as we had French and Germans at table, and her German husband among them, her accomplishments as a practical linguist were put to the test and remarked upon. She certainly presented (to the rising sun and me) rather a startling tableau—one long lock of hair escaping from her cap, ribbons flying, et cetera—but she removed her cigar so carelessly for the convenience of smiling, and showed so little thought of caring about the impression she might make in such trying dishabille, that I rather admired my new view of her, on the whole. The same show from the window of the Astor hotel, in New York, would perhaps be thought odd.
LETTER XI.
TO ANY LADY SUBSCRIBER WHO MAY WISH FOR GLEANINGS FROM THAT FIRST CONCERT OF JENNY LIND WHICH THE CRITICS OF THE DAILY PAPERS HAVE SO WELL HARVESTED.
Highland Terrace, Sept. 21, 1850.
Dear Madam—My delight at Jenny Lind’s First Concert is sandwiched between slices of rural tranquillity—as I went to town for that only, and returned the next day—so that I date from where I write, and treat to sidewalk gossip in a letter “writ by the running brook.” Like the previous “Rural Letters” of this series, the present one would have made no special call on your attention, and would have been addressed to my friend and partner—but, as he accompanied me to the concert, I could not with propriety write him the news of it, and I therefore address myself, without intermediation, to the real reader for whom my correspondence is of course always intended. Not at all sure that I can tell you anything new about the one topic of the hour, I will, at least, endeavor to leave out what has been most dwelt upon.
On the road to town there seemed to be but one subject of conversation, in cars and steamers; and “Barnum,” “Jenny Lind,” and “Castle Garden,” were the only words to be overheard, either from passengers around, or from the rabble at platforms and landing places. The oddity of it lay in the entire saturation of the sea of public mind—from the ooze at the bottom, to the “crest of the rising swell”—with the same un-commercial, un-political, and un-sectarian excitement. When, before, was a foreign singer the only theme among travellers and baggage porters, ladies and loafers, Irishmen and “colored folks,” rowdies and the respectable rich? By dint of nothing else, and constant iteration of the three syllables “Jenny Lind,” it seemed to me, at last, as if the wheels of the car flew round with it—“Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind,” “Jenny Lind” in tripping or drawling syllables, according to the velocity.
The doors were advertised to be open at five; and, though it was thence three hours to the beginning of the concert, we abridged our dinner (your other servant, the song-king and myself,) and took omnibus with the early crowd bound downwards. On the way, I saw indications of a counter current—(private carriages with fashionables starting for their evening drive out of town, and several ruling dandies of the hour strolling up, with an air of leisure which was perfectly expressive of no part in the excitement of the evening)—and then I first comprehended that there might possibly be a small class of dissenters. As we were in time to see the assembling of most of the multitude who had tickets, it occurred to me to observe the proportion of fashionables among them, and, with much pains-taking, and the aid of an opera-glass, I could number but eleven. Of the Five Hundred who give “the ton,” this seemed to be the whole representation in an audience of six thousand—a minority I was sorry to see, as an angel like Jenny Lind may well touch the enthusiasm of every human heart, while, as a matter of taste, no more exquisite feast than her singing was ever offered to the refined. There should, properly, have been no class in New York—at least none that could afford the price of attendance—that was not proportionately represented at that Concert. The songstress, herself, as is easy to see, prefers to be the “People’s choice,” and would rather sing to the Fifty Thousand than to the Five Hundred—but she touches a chord that should vibrate far deeper than the distinctions of society, and I hope yet to see her as much “the fashion” as “the popular rage” in our republican metropolis.
Sept. 21, 1851