It was by way of a flight from the capital that Senator Clay and I and a few congenial friends were enabled to hear Parepa Rosa and Forrest; and Julia Dean, in “Ingomar,” drew us to the metropolis, as did Agnes Robertson, who set the town wild in the “Siege of Sebastopol.”
JENNY LIND
From a photograph made about 1851
I remember very well my first impression of Broadway, which designation seemed to me a downright misnomer; for its narrowness, after the great width of Pennsylvania Avenue, was at once striking and absurd to the visitor from the capital. Upon one of my visits to New York my attention was caught by a most unusual sight. It was an immense equipage, glowing and gaudy under the sun as one of Mrs. Jarley’s vans. It was drawn by six prancing steeds, all gaily caparisoned, while in the huge structure (a young house, “all but”——) were women in gaudy costumes. A band of musicians were concealed within, and these gave out some lively melodies as the vehicle dashed gaily by the Astor House (then the popular up-town hotel), attracting general attention as it passed. Thinking a circus had come to town, I made inquiry, when I learned to my amusement that the gorgeous cavalcade was but an ingenious advertisement of the new Sewing Machine!
Charlotte Cushman, giving her unapproachable “Meg Merrilies” in Washington, stirred the city to its depths. Her histrionism was splendid, and her conversation in private proved no less remarkable and delightful. “I could listen to her all day,” wrote a friend in a brief note. “I envy her her genius, and would willingly take her ugliness for it! What is beauty compared with such genius!”
A most amusing metrical farce, “Pocahontas,” was given during the winter of ’7–58, which set all Washington a-laughing. In the cast were Mrs. Gilbert, and Brougham, the comedian and author. Two of the ridiculous couplets come back to me, and, as if it were yesterday, revive the amusing scenes in which they were spoken.
Mrs. Gilbert’s rôle was that of a Yankee schoolma’am, whose continual effort it was to make her naughty young Indian charges behave themselves. “Young ladies!” she cried, with that inimitable austerity behind which one always feels the actress’s consciousness of the “fun of the thing” which she is dissembling,
“Young Ladies! Stand with your feet right square!
Miss Pocahontas! just look at your hair!”
and as she wandered off, a top-knot of feathers waving over her head, her wand, with which she had been drilling her dusky maidens, held firmly in hand, she cut a pigeonwing that brought forth a perfect shout of laughter from the audience.