er genius spoke to her with too clamorous and exacting
a voice to be pent up in such a provincial field. There had been some
correspondence with Meyerbeer on the subject of her securing a Berlin
engagement, and the composer showed his deep interest in the singer by
exerting his powerful influence with such good effect that she was
soon offered the position of second singer of the Royal Theatre. Her
departure from Stockholm was a most flattering and touching display of
the public admiration, for the streets were thronged with thousands of
people to bid her godspeed and a quick return.

The prima donna of the Berlin opera was Mlle. Nissen, who had been with
herself under Garcia's instruction, and it was a little humiliating
that she should be obliged to sing second to one whom she knew to be her
inferior. But she could be patient, and bide her time. In the mean while
the sapient critics regarded her with good-natured indifference, and
threw her a few crumbs of praise from time to time to appease her
hunger. At last she had her revenge. One night at a charity concert,
the fourth act of "Robert le Diable" was given, and the solo of _Alice_
assigned to Jenny Lind. She had barely sung the first few bars when the
audience were electrified. The passion, fervor, novelty of treatment,
and glorious breadth of voice and style completely enthralled them.
They broke into a tempest of applause, and that was the beginning of
the "Lind madness," which, commencing in Berlin, ran through Europe with
such infectious enthusiasm. During the remaining three months of the
Berlin season, she was the musical idol of the Berlinese, and poor Mlle.
Nissen found herself hurled irretrievably from her throne. It was about
this time, near the close of 1843, that Mlle. Lind received her first
offer of an English engagement from Mr. Lumley, who had sent an agent to
Berlin to hear her sing, and make a report to him on this new prodigy.
No contract, however, was then entered into, Jenny Lind going to
Dresden instead, where her friend Meyerbeer was engaged in composing his
"Feldlager in Schliesen," the first part of which, _Vielka_, was offered
to her and accepted. She acquired the German language sufficiently
well in two months to sing in it, but it is rather a strange fact that,
though Mlle. Lind during her life learned not less than five languages
besides her own, she never spoke any of them with precision and purity,
not even Italian.

III.

After