The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-06-14
Jenny Lind.

Only middle-aged people remember
the furore which was caused a quarter
of century ago by the passage through
the country of Jenny Lind, the "Swed-
ish Nightingale" the first of that band
of sweet voiced ladies who reaped i'm
mense fortunes from the uncultured but
liberal Americans. No succeeding singer
has eclipsed the fervor of the excitement
caused by the almost unknown Swedish
cantatrice. Tickets were sold as high as
$25, and the rush for seats was at times
desperate. How much of this phenom-
email success was due to her own merits.
and how much to the fact that she was
managed by p. T. Barnum, it is impos-
sible to say. There is no doubt that she
was a singer of remarkable ability but she
never obtained the hold on the people of
Europe that she did in America. On
her return home she married a music
teacher named Goldschmidt, and retired
from professional life. She is now 56
years old.
Recently she wrote letter to "a lady
friend in Boston, of which the following
extract will interest thousands of readers
who still cherish her memory:
"You wish to hear about my baby.
Well, l will satisfy your kind desire by
telling you that God gave my beloved
husband and myself a charming little
girl, who was born ON the 31st of March
last; she is also now Just three months
old, and is picture of health and hap
piness. She talks and laughs that ones
very heart can rejoice. l can thank God
very well. Jenny-there is Catharine
in her name, but Jenny is she called, at
ter whom suppose need not say.
"My Walter will now soon be four
years old (on the fifth of August) He is
gifted child, very spirited, and as soon
rs he is to be punished or has done any
thing wrong, you would be touched to
see how earnestly he prays to God to
help him to be good again, poor little
child. He loves me; he obeys me, and
can so well understand the child, for he
is very much like me in most things, eX-
ceedingly impassionable, sensitive, act
i've, lively, impatient, atfectionate, wild,
passionate, loving toward everybody, not
caring for eating, but readily forgetting
his pudding for anything that interests
him, quick in learning q read over the
alphabet for HIM, a most wonderful con-
ception of everything he sees and hears,
loving best an old, ugly, terrific looking
doll, because she has been with him the
longest time, not caring anything for fine
dressing, but else fine enough and win
ming to be an object of attraction, | be-
lieve. Musical? Not ut all.
"This is about picture of my son.
How do you like thata You see have
got my hands full. God bless him. He
is truly religious. l hope that he will
be believer. Do you laugh when you
read my description! About my baby
cannot give you any such long account.
She only sleeps, drinks, laughs, wears
shoes. Her character is not yet so legi-
BILE. My beloved husband is in England
at present. We intend to settle there on
account OF our children. He is every
thing to me; truer friend never had.
He is more spirited that fast-in fact, re-
markably little of the latter. He is n
sincere Christian, and to me the most
self-sacrificing husband. Few are like
him. This say because it is so, else |
would not speak about him. He is my
Z.
She loves the boy like her own children,
and he, to be sure, is very fond of Atty
as he calls her (from Aunt"
SAILING OVER BURIED NATIONs.-The
whole channel of the Mediterranean must
be strewed with human bones. Cartha-
genians, Syrians, Egyptians, Sidonians,
Persians, Greeks and Romans-there they
lie, side by side, beneath the eternal wa
tiers, and the modern ship that fetches
freight from Alexandria sails in its whole
course over buried nations. 1t may be
the corruption of the dead that now adds
brightness to the phosphorescence of the
waves. All told me in the East that a
superstition exists on this subject, which
represents the spirits of the departed as
lowering, whether on land or water, over
the spots where ruins of their tabernacles
are found; so that in blowing the Medi-
terranean we sail through armies of ghosts
more multitudinous than the waves.
These patient spirits sometimes ride on
the foam, and at other times repose in
those delicious little hollows which look
like excavated emeralds between the
crests of the waves. 1t is their union and
thronging together, say the Orientals, that
constitute the phosphorescence of the
sea; for wherever there is light the bill
lows flash with the luminousness of van
ished generations, that concentrate, as it
were, the starlight on their wings.
DIR. FRANKLIN concludes a letter to
his friend, G. Whatley written May Is,
1850, in the following words: "You are
now seventy eight, and am eighty-two