Of the “Flute Song” and the “Echo Song” the papers have said enough, and I will save what else I have to say of the great-souled maiden, till I get back to my quarters in the city and have heard her again.
Pardon the gravity of my letter, dear Madam, and believe me
TO THE LADY-SUBSCRIBER IN THE COUNTRY. New York Sept. 1850.
One prefers to write to those for whom one has the most to tell, and I have an ink-stand full of gossip about the great Jenny, which, though it might hardly be news to those who have the run of the sidewalk, may possibly be interesting where the grass grows. Nothing else is talked of, and now and then a thing is said which escapes the omniverous traps of the daily papers. Upon the faint chance of telling you something which you might not otherwise hear without coming to town, I put my ink-stand into the clairvoyant state, and choose you for the listener with whom to put it “in communication.”
Jenny has an imperfection—which I hasten to record. That she might turn out to be quite too perfect for human sympathy, has been the rock ahead in her navigation of popularity. “Pretend to a fault if you haven’t one,” says a shrewd old writer, “for, the one thing the world never forgives is perfection.” There was really a gloomy probability that Jenny would turn out to be that hateful monstrosity—a woman without a fault—but the suspense is over. _She cannot mount on horseback without a chair!_ No lady who is common-place enough to love, and marry, and give her money to her husband, ever climbed more awkwardly into a side-saddle than Jenny Lind. The necessity of finding something in which she was surpassed by somebody, has been so painfully felt, “up town,” that this discovery was circulated, within an hour after it was observed, to every corner of the fashionable part of the city. She occupies the private wing of the New-York Hotel, on the more secluded side of Washington Place, and a lady eating an ice at the confectioner’s opposite, was the fortunate witness of this her first authenticated human weakness. Fly she may! (is the feeling now,) for, to birds and angels it comes easy enough—but she is no horsewoman! Fanny Kemble, whom we know to be human, beats her at that!