C. S. WOODHULL,
R. BAIRD,
R. B. MINTURN,
WM. H. ASPINWALL,
JOHN JAY.”
To the society for improving the condition of the poor,$1,000 00
To the society for relief of widows with poor children,300 00
To the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum,300 00
To the Female Assistance Society,300 00
To the Eastern Dispensary,250 00
To the Northern Dispensary,250 00
To the Eye and Ear Infirmary,250 00
To the Hebrew Benevolent Society,200 00
To the Home Branch of the Prison Association,200 00
To the Home for destitute children of Seamen200 00
To the Institution for education and care of homeless and destitute boys,100 00
To the relief of poor Swedes and Norwegians in the city of New York, per the Rev. Mr. Hedstrom,273 20
To the distribution of Swedish Bibles and Testaments in New York200 00
To the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum,250 00
To the relief of the poor of Williamsburgh,100 00
To the relief of the poor of Newark,100 00
To the relief of the poor of Jersey City,100 00
To the National Temperance Society, $200; to the relief of the poor at the Five Points, by the Temperance Association, Rev. Mr. Pease, President, $200; to the American Temperance Union500 00
To the St. George’s Society500 00
————
Total,$5,073 20

There was also another matter which formed an item in the “squaring up” of the New York accounts on that day. A paragraph had reached her, making mention of a Swedish sailor who had perished in endeavoring to save the lives of passengers, on the wreck of a vessel. Jenny Lind had sent to the Swedish Consul to make inquiries whether he had left a family. His widow and children were found by Mr. Habicht, and Jenny had sent him five hundred dollars for their use. This was mentioned by the Consul to a lady, who mentioned it to us, and by this chance alone it becomes public.

But, while all these sufferers were receiving her bounty, and she was settling with Banks and Managers for the payments—what else was her life made up of, on that day?

It was half-past nine in the morning, and three servants of the hotel, and two of her own servants, had been ordered to guard her rooms till she could eat her breakfast. Well-dressed ladies cannot be stopped by men servants, in this country, however, and her drawing-room was already half full of visiters “on particular business,” who had crowded past, insisting on entrance. Most of them were applicants for charities, some for autographs, some to offer acquaintance, but none, of course, with the least claim whatever on her pocket or her time. A lady-friend, who was admitted by her servant, saw the onslaught of these intruders, as she rose from her breakfast,—(fatigued and dispirited as she always is after the effort and nervous excitement of a concert)—and this friend was not a little astonished at her humble and submissive endurance.

First came a person who had sent a musical box for her to look at, and, as “she had kept it,” he wanted the money immediately. Jenny knew nothing of it, but the maid was called, who pointed to one which had been left mysteriously in the room, and the man was at liberty to take it away, but would not do it, of course, without remonstrance and argument. Then advanced the lady-beggars, who, in so many instances, have “put the screw to her” in the same way, that, without particularizing, we must describe them as a class. To such unexamined and unexpected applications, Miss Lind has usually offered twenty or thirty dollars, as the shortest way to be left to herself. In almost every instance, she has had this sum returned to her, with some reproachful and disparaging remark, such as—“We did not expect this pittance from you!” “We have been mistaken in your character, Madam, for we had heard you were generous!” “This from Miss Lind, is too little to accept, and not worthy of you!” “Excuse us, we came for a donation, not for alms!”—these and similar speeches, of which, we are assured, Jenny Lind has had one or more specimens, every day of her visit to New York! With one or two such visiters on the morning we speak of, were mingled applicants for musical employment; passionate female admirers who had come to express their raptures to her; a dozen ladies with albums; one or two with things they had worked for her, for which, by unmistakable tokens, they expected diamond rings in return; one who had come indignantly to know why a note containing a poem had not been answered; and constant messages, meantime, from those who had professional and other authorized errands requiring answers. Letters and notes came in at the rate of one every other minute.

This sort of “audience” lasted, at Miss Lind’s rooms, all day. To use her own expression, she was “torn in pieces”—and it was by those whom nothing would keep out. A police force would have protected her, but, while she habitually declined the calls and attentions of fashionable society, she was in constant dread of driving more humble claimants from her door. She submitted, every day, to the visits of strangers, as far as strength, and her professional duties, would any way endure—but, as her stay in a place drew to a close, the pressure became so pertinacious and overwhelming as to exceed what may be borne by human powers of attention, human spirits and human nerves. Her imperfect acquaintance with our language, of course, very materially increased the fatigue—few people speaking simply and distinctly enough for a foreigner, and the annoyance of answering half-understood remarks from strangers, or of requesting from them a repetition of a question, being a nervous exercise, for six or eight hours together, which the reader will easily allow to be “trying.”

But—though we have thus explained how there were excuse enough for ever so monosyllabic a reception of introductions, by Jenny Lind, that evening—our own impression of her address and manners was very different from that of the gay Baron. Let us tell, in turn, what we saw, though our discourse is getting long, and though our rule is never to put private society into print except as hominy comes to market—the kernel of the matter, with no clue to the stalk that bore it, or the field in which it grew.

The party was at a most lovely villa, ten miles from town on the bank of the Hudson, and the invitations were to an “At Home, at five P. M.” We were somewhat late, and were told, on reaching the drawing-room, that Jenny Lind had just danced in a quadrille, and was receiving introductions in a deep alcove of one of the many apartments opening from the hall. The band was playing delightfully in a central passage from which the principal rooms radiated; and, while the dance was still going on beyond, and the guests were rambling about in the labyrinths of apartments crowded with statuary, pictures, and exotic trees laden with fruits and flowers, there was a smaller crowd continually renewed at the entrance of the alcove which caged the beloved Nightingale.

Succeeding, after a while, in getting near her, we found her seated in lively conversation with a circle of young ladies, and, (to balance M. de Trobriand’s account of her monosyllabic incommunicativeness,) we may venture to add, that she received us with a merry inquiry as to which world we came from. This was apropos of the “spirit-knockings” which we had accompanied her to visit a few days before; and a remark of her own, a moment or two after, was characteristic enough to be also worth recording. We had made a call on the same “Spirit” since, and proceeded to tell her of the interview, and of a question we asked them concerning herself—her love of fun and ready wit commenting with droll interruptions as the narrative went on. We named the question at last:—“Has Jenny Lind any special talent which she would have developed but for the chance possession of a remarkable voice; and if so what is it?”