who would compare her accomplishments with the memories, and in some cases the present talent, of these cherished favorites. But this thin, pale, plain girl, with marked broad Scandinavian features, who looked at first glance to an observer “like a very shy country school-girl,” was accepted by kings and queens, critics and composers as soon as she opened her mouth. She made her public début in Bellini’s _Norma_ and was received with tremendous enthusiasm by the Germans, and when she followed this with Meyerbeer’s _Camp of Silesia_, which had been written for her, she became the rage of Berlin. From this time on Jenny Lind’s career becomes a series of unbroken triumphs which trailed themselves through every country she visited and increased in volume as they progressed. In Vienna a staid music critic of the _Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung_ declared the appearance of Jenny Lind “an event altogether exceptional; such as has never before been witnessed, and will probably never be repeated.” She was called before the curtain twenty-five times there, and the Empress Mother of Austria dropped a wreath before her feet. Thousands of people waited for her to leave the opera house until daybreak, and then the horses of her carriage were unharnessed by enthusiastic students, and she was only able to proceed to her lodgings with the aid of a detachment of cavalry. And all the time she was homesick for Sweden, and melancholy. She had not wanted to sing in Vienna and only did so at the earnest solicitation of Prince Metternich and Baron Rothschild. Again she had feared she might lose the reputation she had won in Germany, and once more she felt repugnance for the stage. Even after accepting Herr Pokorny’s offer to appear at his theater in Vienna, she wrote to her friend and adviser, Madame Birch-Pfeiffer: “Tell Herr Pokorny that I am very grateful to him for the offered half-receipts and quite satisfied on the score of money; but--that he must engage some other singer; for he cannot reckon on me, as I cannot accept the engagement, and cannot believe that I should be able to carry it out in Vienna. Break it off, good mother. I am contented with very little, and shall perhaps sing no longer than till next spring, as I can then go home, by Hamburg, and afterwards live in peace. For, you see, mother Birch, this life does not suit me at all. If you could only see me--the despair I am in whenever I go to the theater to sing! It is too much for me. This terrible nervousness destroys everything for me. I sing far less well than I should, if it were not for this enemy. I cannot understand how it is that everything goes so well with me. People all take me by the hand. But all this helps nothing! Herr Pokorny would not be very well pleased, for instance, if I were to sing there once only and, that once, fail. For the money he offers me he can get singers anywhere who are not so difficult to satisfy as I am, and who, at least, wish for