Jenny Lind the Artist by Henry Scott Holland

Notwithstanding the temporary interruption of her linguistic studies at Dresden, Mdlle. Lind was far from being unprepared for her approaching trial when the appointed time drew near.

Of the severity of that trial, and the gravity of its inevitable though as yet wholly uncertain consequences, it would have been difficult to form an exaggerated idea. The successes achieved by the young artist in her own country counted as nothing when considered in connection with the ordeal that awaited her in Germany. In so far as her European reputation was concerned, she was really preparing to make, at Berlin, her true _début_ in the great world of Art; though her arrival there had been preceded by rumours which rendered it imperative that she should appear, not in the character of an unknown _débutante_, but in that of a finished artist, to be judged, not by the measure of her own merit, but by the achievements of the greatest _prime donne_ who had appeared before the world since the beginning of the century. For there were critics in Berlin who were familiar with the performances of Mesdames Malibran and Pasta, and Sontag and Schrœder-Devrient, and even of the famous Madame Catalani herself, to say nothing of Mesdames Grisi and Persiani and other brilliant stars in the contemporaneous operatic firmament; and it was absolutely certain that with the performances of these bright luminaries of past and present years would the performances of Mdlle. Lind be mercilessly compared. Yet, for all that, she did not shrink from the ordeal, and when the time of trial came she was ready to meet it.