The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-03-16
JENNY LIND.
BY REV. r. A. WHITE.

Evolution hardly explains the beauti.
full character of the Swedish singer. She
was the very opposite of her heredity
and environment. Not only did she be-
come leader of song and drama, but
woman beautiful in character, her per-
feet voice an interpreter of the divine
melody within.
We see other exceptions to the law of
heredity. How shall we explain the
genius of that great man mourned to-
day. Frederick Douglass) one whose
swarthy hand any white man thought it
an honor to clasp. one who rose above
the inheritance of the slave and COM
PEELED the admiration of two continents
for his power and eloquence. Pehaps in
the realm of soul and mind we are too
hasty in explaining There are minds
that defy environment.
When Jenny Lind had completed her
ten years. contract with the theatre, she
had already won the love of all Sweden.
To pursue her studies further she went
to Paris and here for while her voice
failed, but it was but for few months.
Her great career soon began. In Norway
and Sweden, on the Continent, in Eng
land, in America. the music-loving
world was at her feet. This career was
all too short, SO thought the lovers of
song, for she married in 1851 and after
that seldom sang in public. No mere
success could satisfy her womanly ma
ture and she longed for domestic happi-
ness with home and children.
Thereafter her circle was narrower,
but in that circle of her Malvern Hill
homo she was greatly beloved. Her
beneficence was not limited to the vicin-
ity of her home; her charities had begun
with her success ana many monument
remains to her memory 10 the scholar
ships and the homes she founded.
Jenny Lind stands prominently
above the singers a2d the musicians of
the century as an interpreter of the
deeper meaning of music Music was to
she. ''has his royalty; mine is my voice."
She sang in oratorio not for the artistic
effect first, though in that she excelled,
but that she might move her audience
to sublimer appreciation of a lofty SEN
timent.
Literature, the drama, music and art
are great influences for good in human
life; properly used, they are the adequate
speech of the inmost thought and aspi-
ration. They are often degraded to give
merely sensuous pleasure. Music falls
on our ear and pleases with its melody
and rhy tim. but if culture and deep
feeling enable us to divine the thought
of the composer we gain for the time his
inspiration and the music becomes a
living reality to US. The commercial
spirit of the tines has degraded music
and art. In the old times it was different.
Michael Angelo painted the Sistine
chapel for the love of God. The great
masters worked in the love of their art.
Today and necessity makes it so-art
works for its reward. If genius were
educated at the public expense this
might be remedied. In our educational
work in this country we have done much
in great buildings, but little in scholar
ships; over in Germany they have put
money in men and scholarships instead.
In these anniversary days of Wash
ington and Lincoln, when we recall our
century's great names, we find that wo-
men hold honorable places, and among
their names is enrolled that OF the sweet
singer. Jenny Lind. loved and admired
not only for her genius but for the way
she held that genius in trust for hui
manity.