Jenny Lind the Artist

Yet it is to be but a very little longer; for we now come to the year which was, to her, the epoch, the turning-point of her career. It had opened with an immense run, for twenty-two nights, all through January and February, of a French melodrama in two acts, _The American Monkey_, in which she played "Hyacinthe. " Then followed three performances of the serious tragedy, in verse, _The Sons of King Edward_. And then, on the night of March 7th, came the moment of moments. "I got up, that morning, one creature: " she herself often said; "I went to bed another creature. I had found my power! " And, all through her life, she kept the 7th of March with a religious solemnity; she would ask to have herself remembered on it with prayers; she treated it as a second birthday. And rightly; for, on that day, she woke to herself; she became artistically alive; she felt the inspiration, and won the sway, which she now knew it was given her to have and to hold.

She achieved this in the character of "Agatha" in Weber's _Freischütz_.