Perhaps the most noteworthy incident connected with the public rendition of _Home, Sweet Home_ occurred in Washington at one of the theaters where Jenny Lind was singing before an audience composed of the first people of our land. In one of the boxes sat the author, then on a visit to this country, and a favorite everywhere. The prima donna sang her greatest classical music and moved her audience to the wildest applause. Then in response to the renewed calls she stepped to the front of the stage, turned her face to the box where the poet sat, and in a voice of marvelous pathos and power sang: "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home, Home! Sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! There's no place like Home! [Illustration: THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME] "An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain! O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gaily that came at my call;-- Give me them! and the peace of mind dearer than all! Home, Home! Sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! There's no place like Home!"[226-1] The audience were moved to tears. Even Daniel Webster, stern man of law, lost control of himself and wept like a child. Payne's later life was not altogether a happy one, and he felt some resentment against the world, although it may not have been justified. He was unmarried, but was no more homeless than most bachelors. He exiled himself voluntarily from his own country, and so lost much of the delightful result of his own early popularity. He may have been reduced to privation and suffering, but it was not for long at a time. Some writers have sought to heighten effect by making the author of the greatest song of home a homeless wanderer. The truth is that Payne's unhappiness was largely the result of his own peculiarities. He was given to poetic exaggeration, for there is now known to be little stern fact in the following oft-quoted writing of himself: "How often have I been in the heart of Paris, Berlin, London or some other city, and have heard persons singing or hand organs playing _Sweet Home_ without having a shilling to buy myself the next meal or a place to lay my head! The world has literally sung my song until every heart is familiar with its melody, yet I have been a wanderer from my boyhood. My country has turned me ruthlessly from office and in my old age I have to submit to humiliation for my bread."