V.

Yet with all this flattery and admiration, which would have fed the
conceit of a weaker woman to madness, Jenny Lind remained the same
quiet, simple-hearted, almost diffident woman as of yore. The great
pianist and composer Moscheles writes: "What shall I say of Jenny Lind?
I can find no words adequate to give you any idea of the impression she
has made.... This is no short-lived fit of public enthusiasm. I wanted
to know her off the stage as well as on; but, as she lives at some
distance from me, I asked her in a letter to fix upon an hour for me to
call. Simple and unceremonious as she is, she came the next day herself,
bringing the answer verbally. So much modesty and so much greatness
united are seldom if ever to be met with; and, although her intimate
friend Mendelssohn had given me an insight into the noble qualities of
her character, I was surprised to find them so apparent."

From a variety of accounts we are justified in concluding that never had
there been such a musical enthusiasm in London. Since the days when the
world fought for hours at the pit-door to see the seventh farewell of
Siddons, nothing had been seen in the least approaching the scenes
at the entrance of the theatre on the "Lind" nights. Of her various
impersonations during the season of 1847, her _Amina_ in "Sonnambula"
made the deepest impression on the town, as it was marked by several
original features, both in the acting and singing, which were remarkably
effective. Her performance of _Norma_ was afterward held by judicious
critics to be far inferior to that of Grisi in its dramatic aspect; but,
when the mania was at its height, those who dared to impeach the ideal
perfection of everything done by the idol of the hour were consigned
to perdition as idiotic slanderers. Chorley wrote with satirical
bitterness, though himself a warm admirer of the "Swedish Nightingale":
"It was a curious experience to sit and to wait for what should come
next, and to wonder whether it really was the case that music never had
been heard till the year 1847."

Mlle. Lind passed the winter at Stockholm, and it is needless to speak
of the pride and delight of her townspeople in the singer who had
created such an unprecedented sensation in the musical world. All the
places at the theatre when she sang fetched immense premiums, especially
as it was known that the professional gains of Jenny Lind during this
engagement were to be devoted to the endowment of an a