Jenny Lind the Artist by Henry Scott Holland

"Land of my birth! Oh, that I could one day show how dear thou art to me! " That had been the deep desire of Jenny Lind, as she toiled in Paris. And, indeed, it had seemed as if the Fates were set on fulfilling her desire. She was, after all, to return to her familiar boards-to put herself under the old yoke. That great Italian Opera, with its famous heroines of song, was to remain a vision of what was doing in the big world outside. She was not to enter, as yet, on that magnificent scene. Enough for her to carry out her bond with that theatre which had been her nursery and her home, in her beloved Stockholm, at the humble salary of 1800 r. d. banco, _i.e._ £150 a year. Very happily, so far as we can see, she set to work; though inwardly conscious of the immense increase of knowledge and power which had become hers since she had begun again with Garcia "at the beginning of the beginning," and had learnt what "Art" meant. She arrived in August, 1842, and rented rooms for herself and Annette, her maid, on the upper floor of the same Bonde Palace, where the Lindblads still lived. With them she had the delight of feeling at home, and all the comfort of domestic affection; but, in the following year, she found it well to establish herself in an independent position, and she took rooms in another house, whither she invited her old friend, Louise Johansson, to come, and be her companion.

On October 10th she opened, at the theatre, with a performance of _Norma_-the very opera in which she had closed her appearances on June 19th, 1841. It must have been a direct challenge to the critical world of Stockholm, to recognise the change that had intervened between the two performances. What that change was, we learn from an estimate which has been kindly supplied us by a most competent and judicious critic, himself a musician, who sang with her often, both before and after her visit to Paris. We give his own words: -