Some years later, at a comedy given by the élèves of the theatre, several persons were struck by the spirit and life with which a very young élève acted the part of a beggar-girl in the play. Lovers of genial nature were charmed, pedants almost frightened. It was our poor little girl, who had made her first appearance, now about fourteen years of age, frolicksome and full of fun as a child.
A few years still later, a young debutante was to sing for the first time before the public in Weber's Freischutz. At the rehearsal preceding the representation of the evening, she sang in a manner which made the members of the orchestra at once lay down their instruments to clap their hands in rapturous applause. It was our poor, plain little girl here again, who now had grown up and was to appear before the public in the role of Agatha. I saw her at the evening representation. She was then in the prime of youth, fresh, bright, and serene as a morning in May—perfect in form—her hands and her arms peculiarly graceful—and lovely in her whole appearance, through the expression of her countenance, and the noble simplicity and calmness of her manners. In fact she was charming. We saw not an actress, but a young girl full of natural geniality and grace. She seemed to move, speak, and sing without effort or art. All was nature and harmony. Her song was distinguished especially by its purity, and the power of soul which seemed to swell in her tones. Her “mezzo voice” was delightful. In the night scene where Agatha, seeing her lover come, breathes out her joy in rapturous song, our young singer on turning from the window, at the back of the theatre, to the spectators again, was pale for joy. And in that pale joyousness she sang with a burst of outflowing love and life that called forth, not the mirth, but the tears of the auditors.
From this time she was the declared favorite of the Swedish public, whose musical tastes and knowledge are said not to be surpassed. And, year after year, she continued so, though, after a time, her voice, being overstrained, lost somewhat of its freshness, and the public being satiated, no more crowded the house when she was singing. Still, at that time, she could be heard singing and playing more delightfully than ever in Pamina (in Zauberflote) or in Anna Bolena, though the opera was almost deserted. She evidently sang for the pleasure of the song.
By that time she went to take lessons of Garcia, in Paris, and so give the finishing touch to her musical education. There she acquired that warble in which she is said to have been equalled by no singer, and which could be compared only to that of the soaring and warbling lark, if the lark had a soul.
And then the young girl went abroad and sang on foreign shores and to foreign people. She charmed Denmark, she charmed Germany, she charmed England. She was caressed and courted every where, even to adulation. At the courts of kings, the houses of the great and noble, she was feasted as one of the grandees of nature and art. She was covered with laurels and jewels. But friends wrote of her, “In the midst of these splendors she only thinks of her Sweden, and yearns for her friends and her people.”
One dusky October night, crowds of people (the most part, by their dress, seemed to belong to the upper classes of society) thronged on the shore of the Baltic harbor at Stockholm. All looked toward the sea. There was a rumor of expectance and pleasure. Hours passed away, and the crowds still gathered, and waited and looked out eagerly toward the sea. At length a brilliant rocket rose joyfully, far out at the entrance of the harbor, and was greeted with a general buzz on the shore.
“There she comes! there she is!” A large steamer now came whelming on its triumphant way through the flocks of ships and boats lying in the harbor, toward the shore of the “Skeppsbero.” Flashing rockets marked its way in the dark as it advanced. The crowds on the shore pressed forward as if to meet it. Now the leviathan of the waters was heard thundering nearer and nearer; now it relented, now again pushed on, foaming and splashing; now it lay still. And, there on the front of the deck, was seen by the light of lamps and rockets, a pale, graceful young woman, her eyes brilliant with tears, and lips radiant with smiles, waving her handkerchief to her friends and countrymen on shore.
It was she again—our poor, plain, neglected little girl of former days—who now came back in triumph to her fatherland. But no more poor, no more plain, no more neglected. She had become rich; she had in her slender person the power to charm and inspire multitudes.
Some days later, we read in the papers of Stockholm, an address to the public written by the beloved singer, stating, with noble simplicity, that “as she once more had the happiness to be in her native land, she would be glad to sing again to her countrymen, and that the income of the operas in which she was this season to appear, would be devoted to raise a fund for a school where élèves for the theatre would be educated to virtue and knowledge.” The intelligence was received as it deserved, and of course the Opera was crowded every night the beloved singer sang there. The first time she again appeared in Somnambula (one of her favorite roles), the public, after the curtain was dropped, called her back with great enthusiasm, and received her, when she appeared, with a roar of hurrahs. In the midst of the burst of applause a clear and melodious warbling was heard. The hurrahs were hushed instantly. And we saw the lovely singer standing with her arms slightly extended, somewhat bowing forward, graceful as a bird on its branch warbling, warbling as no bird ever did, from note to note—and on every one a clear, strong, soaring warble—until she fell into the retournelle of her last song, and again sang that joyful and touching strain,
“No thought can conceive how I feel at my heart.”