Jenny Lind, as much as she may have been troubled by uncongenial home environment--for her mother was stern and cruel as well as bigoted and intolerant--never suffered from lack of recognition of her talent. Her official biographers[7] report that: “From her earliest childhood, her gifts were felt to be surpassing; and this feeling never flagged. From the beginning of her dramatic career to its close, it is one unbroken triumph; and she had this singular good fortune of finding her way to the exercise of her gifts, before a sympathetic public, as soon as she had them to exercise.” It was as a child actress that Jenny Lind was first praised, for at the age of ten she took parts in the Royal Theater productions. A Stockholm newspaper protested that it was immoral to allow a child of her age to play with such innocent abandon a part of such immorality in “Thirty Years of a Gambler’s Life.” She also sang at private concerts, and at the age of seventeen made her début in opera and was received with great applause. Throughout her lifetime she kept the seventh of March, for that was the day in 1838 of her début, as a second birthday, that of her art. She won popularity and acclaim almost at once and continued to sing in opera. By her twentieth year Jenny Lind was recognized and idolized by the Swedish public both as a singer and an actress. The musicians of Stockholm, and in fact of all Sweden, had no more to teach her, and they were content to praise her. The directors of the Royal Theater offered her the highest salary they were allowed to offer, $750 a year for three years. But Jenny Lind refused their offer, arguing that it was “not with half-developed, if even happy, natural gifts, that an artist can keep his ground.” She had decided to study abroad. Several influences persuaded her to this decision. Geijer, the eminent Swedish historian, who wrote _lieder_ which Jenny Lind sang, had written a song to her in which he said: “Oh! if from yon Eternal Fire, Which slays the souls that it sets free-- Consuming them, as they aspire-- One burning spark have fallen on thee! “Fear not! Though upward still it haste, That living fire, that tongue of flame! _Thy_ days it turns to bitter waste; But ah! from heaven--from heaven it came!” These words, she afterwards felt, launched her into the open sea of public appearance. They told her that it was not wrong of her to aspire to fame, which was hedged with temptations, or to think of her talent in high spiritual terms, for after all it came from heaven. Where else should the poor daughter of a boarding-school mistress and an accountant with an ear for popular lyrics get a voice that was gaining universal praise? Thus she squared her religious doubts as to the propriety of utilizing her accomplishments.