Kellogg Memoirs

THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
Memoirs of an
American Prima Donna
By
Clara Louise Kellogg

(Mme. Strakosch)
With 40 Illustrations
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
fmfcfeerbocfcer press
1913
COPYRIGHT. 1913
BY
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH
Ube UnCcfecrbocfeec pteas, flew Sorb

WITH AFFECTION AND DEEPEST APPRECIATION OF HER WORTH
AS BOTH A RARE WOMAN AND A RARER FRIEND

I INSCRIBE THIS RECORD OF MY
PUBLIC LIFE TO
JEANNETTE L. GILDER
*"
f ^^
FOREWORD
name of Clara Louise Kellogg is known to the
THEimmediate generation chiefly as an echo of the
past. Yet only thirty years ago it was written of her,
enthusiastically but truthfully, that "no living singer
needs a biography less than Miss Clara Louise Kellogg ;
and nowhere in the world would a biography of her be

so superfluous as in America, where her name is a house-
hold word and her illustrious career is familiar in all its
triumphant details to the whole people."
The past to which she belongs is therefore recent;
it isthe past of yesterday only, thought of tenderly by
our fathers and mothers, spoken of reverently as a
poignant phase of their own ephemeral youth, one of
their sweet lavender memories. The pity is (although
this is itself part of the evanescent charm), that the
singer's best creations can live but in the hearts of a

people, and the fame of sound is as fugitive as life itself.
A record of such creations is, however, possible
and also enduring; while it is also necessary for a just
estimate of the development of civilisations. As such,
this record of her musical past presented by Clara
Louise Kellogg herself will have a place in the annals
of the evolution of musical art on the North American
continent long after every vestige of fluttering personal
reminiscence has vanished down the ages. A word of
appreciation with regard to the preparation of this
record is due to John Jay Whitehead, Jr., whose
diligent chronological labours have materially assisted
the editor.
vi Fore-word
Clara Louise Kellogg came from New England stock

of English heritage. She was named after Clara
Novello. Her father, George Kellogg, was an inventor
of various machines and instruments and, at the time
of her birth, was principal of Sumter Academy, Sumter-
ville, S. C. Thus the famous singer was acclaimed in
later years not only as the Star of the North (the role
of Catherine in Meyerbeer's opera of that name being
one of her achievements) but also as "the lone star of
the South in the operatic world." She first sang
publicly in New York in 1861 at an evening party given
by Mr. Edward Cooper, the brother of Mrs. Abram
Hewitt. This was the year of her debut as Gilda in
Verdi's opera of Rigoletto at the Academy of Music in
New York City. When she came before her country-
men as a singer, she was several decades ahead of her
musical public, for she was a lyric artist as well as a
singer. America was not then producing either singers
or lyric artists; and in fact we were, as a nation, but
just getting over the notion that America could not
produce great voices. We held a very firm contempt
for our own our knowledge, and our taste in
facilities,
musical matters. If we did discover a rough diamond,
we had to send it to Italy to find out if it were of the first
water and to have it polished and set. Nothing was
so absolutely necessary for our self-respect as that some
American woman should arise with sufficient American
talent and bravery to prove beyond all cavil that the
country was able to produce both singers and artists.
For rather more than twenty -five years, from her
appearance as Gilda until she quietly withdrew from
public life, when it seemed to her that the appropriate
moment for so doing had come, Clara Louise Kellogg
filled this need and maintained her contention. She
Fore-word vii
was educated in America, and her career, both in Amer-

ica and abroad, was remarkable in its consistent tri-
umphs. When Gounod's Faust was a musical and an

operatic innovation, she broke through the Italian
traditions of her training and created the role of Mar-
guerite according to her own beliefs; and throughout
her later characterisations in Italian opera, she sus-
tained a wonderfully poised attitude of independence
and of observance with regard to these same traditions.
In London, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, as well as in
the length and breadth of the United States, she gained
a recognition and an appreciation in opera, oratorio, and
concert, second to none: and when, later, she organised
an English Opera Company and successfully piloted it
on a course of unprecedented popularity, her personal
laurels were equally supreme.
In 1887, Miss Kellogg married Carl Strakosch, who
had for some time been her manager. Mr. Strakosch is
the nephew of the two well-known impresarios, Maurice
and Max Strakosch. After her marriage, the public
career of Clara Louise Kellogg virtually ended. The
Strakosch home is in New Hartford, Connecticut, and
"
Mrs. Strakosch gave to it the name of Elpstone" be-
cause of a large rock shaped an elephant that is the
like
most conspicuous feature as one enters the grounds
through the poplar-guarded gate. Mr. and Mrs.
Strakosch are very fond of their New Hartford home,
but, the Litchfield County climate in winter being
severe, they usually spend their winters in Rome. They
have also travelled largely in Oriental countries.
In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch celebrated their
Silver Wedding at Elpstone. On this occasion, the
whole village of New Hartford was given up to festivi-
ties, and friends came from miles away to offer their

viii Foreword
congratulations. Perhaps the most pleasant incident of

the celebration was the presentation of a silver loving
cup to Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch by the people of New
Hartford in token of the affectionate esteem in which
they are both held.
The woman, Clara Louise Kellogg, is quite as distinct
a personality as was the prima donna. So thoroughly,
indeed, so fundamentally, is she a musician that her
knowledge of life itself is as much a matter of harmony
as is her music. Sheher melody; applying the
lives
basic principle that Carlyle has expressed so admirably
when he says See deeply enough and you see musically. "
:
' '
ISABEL MOORE.
WOODSTOCK, N. Y.
August, 1913
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. MY FIRST NOTES ..... PAGE
i
II. GIRLHOOD . . . . . .11

III. "LIKE A PICKED CHICKEN!" ... 22
IV. A YOUTHFUL REALIST .... 33
V. LITERARY BOSTON ..... 43
VI. WAR TIMES 55
VII. STEPS OF THE LADDER .... 62
VIII. MARGUERITE ...... 77
IX. OPERA COMIQUE ..... 90
X. ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE

SUCCESS 99
XI. THE END OF THE WAR . . . .no

XII. AND so TO ENGLAND ! . .
.119
XIII. AT HER MAJESTY'S . . .
.129
XIV. ACROSS THE CHANNEL . . .
.139
XV. MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT .
152
XVI. FELLOW- ARTISTS . . . .

.163
XVII.
PALACE ......
THE ROYAL CONCERTS AT BUCKINGHAM
177
x Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
XVIII. THE LONDON SEASON . . . .188
XIX. HOME AGAIN ..... 200
XX. "YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER" .212

.....
.
XXI. ON THE ROAD 227
XXII. LONDON AGAIN ..... 235
XXIII. THE SEASON WITH LUCCA . . .

245
XXIV. ENGLISH OPERA ..... 254
XXV. ENGLISH OPERA Continued . . . 266
XXVI. AMATEURS AND OTHERS . .

.276
;
XXVII. "THE THREE GRACES" . .
.289
XXVIII. ACROSS THE SEAS AGAIN . . .
300
XXIX. TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED .

309
ME ....
XXX. THE WANDERLUST, AND WHERE IT
.
LED
324
XXXI. ....
SAINT PETERSBURG 334
XXXII. GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA AND THEN ? .

346
XXXIII.
CAREER ......
THE LAST YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL
357
XXXIV. CODA . .
370
ILLUSTRATIONS
PACK
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH

.......
Frontispiece
LYDIA ATWOOD 2
Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg
CHARLES ATWOOD 4
Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a Daguerreotype
GEORGE KELLOGG. . . . . . .10

Father of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a photograph by Gurney & Son
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED THREE . . 12

From a photograph by Black & Case
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED SEVEN . . 14

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A GIRL

From a photograph by Sarony
... 20
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A YOUNG LADY . 28

BRIGNOLI, 1865 .......

From a photograph by C. Silvy
42
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN 1861

From a photograph by Brady
.... 46
CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN,
From a photograph by
1861
Silsbee,
.....
Case & Co.
52
xii Illustrations
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS FIGLIA

... PAGE
56
GENERAL HORACE PORTER

From a photograph by Pach
.....
Bros.
58
Muzio. . . .

. .... 66
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LUCIA

From a photograph by Elliott & Fry
... 72
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARTHA

From a photograph by Turner
... 74
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1865 . 82

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1864 . 88

From a silhouette by Ida Waugh
GOTTSCHALK. . IO6
From a photograph by Case & Getchell
JANE ELIZABETH CROSBY 108

Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a tintype
. 116
HENRY G. STEBBINS . . . . . .122

From a photograph by Grillet & Co.
ADELINA PATTI . . . . . .
.130
From a photograph by Fredericks
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LINDA, 1868 . .

134
From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co.
MR. JAMES MCHENRY 138

Illustrations xiii
PAGE
CHRISTINE NILSSON, AS QUEEN OF THE NIGHT. . 146
From a. photograph by Pierre Petit
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE . . . . . .188

From a photograph by John Burton & Sons
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS CARMEN . .

.230
From a photograph
SIR HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY AS THE VICAR

AND OLIVIA 234
From a photograph by Window & Grove
FIRST EDITION OF THE "FAUST" SCORE, PUBLISHED

IN 1859 BY CHOUSENS OF PARIS, NOW
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY .... IN THE
240
NEWSPAPER PRINT OF THE KELLOGG-LUCCA SEASON 250
Drawn by Jos. Keppler
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG IN MIGNON . . .

252
From a photograph by Mora
ELLEN TERRY 284

COLONEL HENRY MAPLESON

From a photograph by Downey
..... 290
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS AIDA

.... 292
FAUST BROOCH
KELLOGG
CARL STRAKOSCH
.......
PRESENTED TO CLARA LOUISE
298
364
From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
LETTER FROM EDWIN BOOTH TO CLARA LOUISE

KELLOGG 366
"ELPSTONE," NEW HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT . 370

Memoirs of
An American Prima Donna
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST NOTES
WAS born in Sumterville, South Carolina, and had

I a negro mammy to take care of me, one of the real
old-fashioned kind, of a type now almost gone. She
used to hold me in her arms and rock me back and forth,
and as she rocked she sang. I don't know the name of
the song she crooned; but I still know the melody, and
have an impression that the words were:
"Hey, Jim along, Jim along Josy;

"
Hey, Jim along, Jim along Joe!
She used to sing these two lines over and over, so

that I slept and waked to them. And my first musical
efforts, when I was just ten months old, were to try to
sing this ditty in imitation of my negro mammy.
When my mother first heard me she became appre-
hensive. Yet kept at it; and by the time I was a
I
year old I could sing it so that it was quite recognisable.

I do not remember this period, of course, but my mother
2 A.n American Prima Donna
often told me about it later, and I am sure she was not

tellinga fairy story.
There is, after all, nothing incredible or miraculous
about the fact, extraordinary as it certainly is. We
are not surprised when the young thrush practises a
trill. And in some people the need for music and
the power to make it are just as instinctive as they are
in the birds. What have achieved and what
effects I
success I have found must be laid to this big, living
fact: music was in me, and it had to find expression.
My music was honestly come by, from both sides of

the house. When the family moved north to New Eng-
land and settled in Birmingham, Connecticut, it is
called Derby now my father and mother played in the
littletown choir, he a flute and she the organ. They
were both thoroughly musical people, and always kept
up with musical affairs, making a great many sacrifices
all their lives to hear good singers whenever any sort
of opportunity offered. As for my maternal grand-
mother she was a woman with a man's brain. A
widow at twenty-three, with no money and three child-
ren, she chose, of all ways to support them, the busi-
ness of cotton weaving; going about Connecticut and
Massachusetts, setting up looms cotton gins they were
called and being very successful. She was a good
musician also, and, in later years, after she had married
my grandfather and was comfortably off, people begged
her to give lessons; so she taught thorough-base, in that
day and generation! Pause for a moment to consider
what that meant, in a time when the activity of women
was very limited and unrecognised. Is it any wonder
that the granddaughter of a woman who could master
and teach the science of thorough-base at such a period
should be born with music in her blood?
Lydia Atwood
Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg
My First Notes 3
My other grandmother, my father's mother, was

musical, too. She had a sweet voice, and was the so-
prano of the church choir.
Everyone knew I was naturally musical from my

constant attempts to sing, and from my deep attention
when anyone performed on any instrument, even when
I was so little that I could not reach the key-board of
That particular piano, I remem-
the piano on tip-toe.
ber, was very old-fashionedone of the square box-
shaped sort and stood extremely high.
One day my grandmother said to my mother:
"I do believe, Jane, if we lifted that baby up to the
piano, she could play!"
' '
Mother said "Oh, pshaw
: !
But they did lift me up, and Idid play. I played not
only with my right hand but also with my left hand;
and made harmonies. Probably they were not in
I
any way elaborate chords, but they were chords, and

they harmonised. I have known some grown-up
musicians whose chords did n't !
I was three then, and a persistent baby, already

detesting failure. I never liked to try to do anything,
even at that age, in which I might be unsuccessful,

and so learned to do what I wanted to do as soon as
possible.
My mother was gifted in many ways. She used
to paint charmingly; and has told me that when she
was a young girl and could not get paint brushes, she
made her own of hairs pulled from their old horse's
tail.
My maternal grandfather was not at all musical.

He used to say that to him the sweetest note on the
piano was when the cover went down! Yet it was he
who accidentally discovered a fortunate possession of
4 j\n American Prima Donna
mine something that has remained in my keeping

ever since, and, like many fortunate gifts, has at times
troubled as much as it has consoled me.
One day he was standing by the piano in one room
and I was playing on the floor in another. He idly
struck a note and asked my mother:
"What note is that I am striking? Guess!"
"How can I tell?" said my mother. "No one could
tell that."
"Why, mother!" I cried from the next room, "don't
"
you know what note that is?
"
"I do not," said my mother, "and neither do you.
"I do, too," I declared. "It 's the first of the three
black keys going up!"
It was, in fact, F sharp, and in this manner it was
discovered that I had what we musicians call "absolute
pitch"; the ability to place and name a note the
moment it is heard. As I have said, this has often
proved to be a very trying gift, for it is, and always has
been impossible for me to decipher a song in a different
key from that in which it is written. If it is written
in C, I hear it in C; and conceive the hideous discord
in my brain while the orchestra or the pianist renders
it in D flat! When I see a "Do, " I want to sing it as
" "
a "Do, and not as a "Re.
This episode must have been when I was about five
years old, and soon afterward I began taking regular
piano lessons. I remember my teacher quite well. He
used to come out from New Haven by the Naugatuck
railway that had just been completed and was a great
curiosity for the purpose of instructing a class of
which Iwas a member.
I had the most absurddifficulty in learning my notes.
I could play anything by ear, but to read a piece of
Charles Atwood
Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise
Kellogg
From a daguerreotype
My First Notes 5
music and find the notes on the piano was another

matter. My teacher struggled with this odd incapacity ;
but I used to cheat him shockingly.

"Do play this for me!" I would beg. "Just once,
"
so I can tell how it goes.
In spite of this early slowness in music reading, or,
perhaps because of it, when I did learn to read, I
learned to read thoroughly. I could really play; and
I cannot over-estimate the help this has been to me all
my life. It is so essential and so rare for a prima

donna to be not only a fine singer but also a good
musician.
There was then no idea of my becoming a singer,
All mytime was given to the piano and to perfecting
myself in playing it. But my parents made every effort
to have me hear fine singing, for the better cultivation
of my musical taste, and I am grateful to them for
doing so, as I believe that singing is largely imitative
and that, while singersneed not begin to train their
voices very early, they should as soon as possible famil-
iarise themselves with good singing and with good
music generally. The wise artist learns from many
sources, some of them quite unexpected ones. Patti
once told me that she had caught the trick of her best
"
"turn from listening to Faure, the baritone.
My father and mother went to New York during the
Jenny Lind furore and carried me in their arms to hear
her big concert. I remember it clearly, and just the
way in which she tripped on to the stage that night with
her hair, as she always wore it, drawn down close over
her ears a custom that gave rise to the popular report
that she had no ears.
That concert is my first musical recollection. I
was much amused by the baritone who sang Figaro lei
6 A.n .American Prima Donna
Figaro qua from The Barber. I thought him and

his song immensely funny and everyone around us was
;
in a great state over me because I insisted that the

drum was out of tune. I was really dreadfully annoyed
by that drum, for it was out of tune! I remember

Jenny Lind sang:
"
Birdling, why sing'st thou in the forest wild?
"
Say why, say why, say why!
and one part of it sounded exactly like the call of a

bird. Sir Jules Benedict, who was always her accom-
panist, once told me many years later in London that
she had a "hole" in her voice. He said that he had
been obliged to play her accompaniments in such a way
as to cover up certain notes in her middle register.
A curious admission to come from him, I thought, for
few people knew of the "hole."
Only once during my childhood did I sing in public,
and that was in a little school concert, a song Come
Buy My
Flowers, dressed up daintily for the part and
carrying a small basketful of posies of all kinds. When
I had finished singing, a man in the audience stepped
down to the footlights and held up a five-dollar bill.
"To buy your flowers!" said he.
That might be called my first professional perform-
ance! The local paper said I had talent. As a matter
of fact, I don't remember much about the occasion;
but I do remember only too well a dreadful incident that
occurred immediately afterward between me and the
editor of the aforesaid local paper, Mr. Newson by
name.
I had a pet kitten, and
went to sleep in a rolled
it
up rug beside the kitchen door one day, and the cook
My First Notes 7
stepped on it. The kitten was killed, of course, and

the affair nearly killed me. I was crying my eyes out
over my poor little pet when that editor chanced along.
And made fun of me
he !
I turned on him in the wildest fury. I really would

have killed him if I could.
"Laugh, will you!" I shrieked, beside myself.
"Laugh .'laugh! laugh!"
He said afterwards that I absolutely frightened him,
I was so small and so tragic.
"I knew then," he declared, "that that child had
great emotional and dramatic possibilities in her. Why,
she nearly burned me up!"
Years later, when I was singing in St. Paul, the
Dispatch printed this story in an interview with Mr.
Newson himself. He madea heartless jest of the allit-
eration "Kellogg's Kitten Killed" and referred to
my "inexpressible expression of sorrow and disgust"
as I cried, "Laugh, will you!" Said Mr. Newson in
summing up :
"It was a real tragedic act!"

Mr. Newson 's description of me as a child is: "A
black-eyed little girl, somewhat wayward as she was
an only child kind-hearted, affectionate, self-reliant,
and very independent!"
Well sight-reading became so easy to me, presently,
that I could not realise any difficulty about it. To see
a note was to be able to sing it and I was often puzzled
;
when people expressed surprise at my ability. When

I was about eleven, someone took me to Hartford to
"show me off" to William Babcock, a teacher and a
thorough musician. He got out some of his most
difficult German songs; songs far more intricate than
anything I had ever before seen, of course, and was

8 .An American Prima Donna
frankly amazed to find that I read them just about as

readily as the simple airs to which I was accustomed.
Mychildhood was very quiet and peaceful, rather
commonplace in fact, except for music. Reading was
a pleasure, too, and, as my father was a student and had
a wonderful library, I had all the books I wanted. I
was literally brought up on Carlyle and Chaucer.
I must have been a rather queer child, in some ways.
Even as a little thing I liked clothes. When only nine
years old I conceived a wild desire for a pair of kid
gloves. Kid gloves were a sign of great elegance in
those days. At last my clamours were successful and
I was given a pair at Christmas. They were a source
of great pride, and I wore them to church, where I did
my little singing in the choir with the others. By this

time I could read any music at sight and would sit up
and chirp and peep away quite happily. As I spread
my kid-gloved hands out most conspicuously, what I
had not noticed became very noticeable to everyone
else the fingers were nearly two inches too long.
: And
the choir laughed at me. I was dreadfully mortified
and sat there crying, until the kind contralto comforted
me.
In my young days the negro minstrels were a great
diversion. They were amusing because they were so
typical. There are none left, but in the old times they
were delightful, and it is a thousand pities that they
have passed away. All the essence of slavery, and the
efforts of the slaves to amuse themselves, were in their
quaint performances. The banjo was almost unknown

to us in the North, and when it found its way to New
England it was a genuine novelty. I was simply fas-
cinated by it as a little girl and used to go to all the
minstrel shows, and sit and watch the men play. Their
My First Notes 9
banjos had five strings only and were played with the
back of the nail, not like a guitar. This was the only
way to get the real negro twang. There was no refine-
ment about such playing, but I loved it. I said :
"I believe could play that if I had one!"

I
My father, the dignified scholar, was horrified.

"When a banjo comes in, I go out," said he.
At last one, and I watched and
a friend gave me
studied the darkies until I had picked up the trick of
playing it, and soon acquired a real negro touch. And
I also acquired some genuine darky songs. One, of
1
which I was particularly fond, was called: Hottes

1
co'ny ever eat.

I really believe I American girl who ever
was the first
played a banjo ! In a few years along came Lotta, and

made the banjo a great feature.
Banjo music has natural syncopation, and its pecu-
"
liarities undoubtedly originated the rag- time" of
our present-day imitations. There was one song that
I learnedfrom hearing a man sing it who had, in turn,
caught from a darky, that has never to my knowledge
it
been published and is not to be found in any collection.

It began :
It'll set this dar -

key era -
ry, I don't know what I'll do,
and remains with me in my repertoire unto this day.

I have been known to sing it with certain effect for
when I am asked, now, to sing it, my husband leaves
the room! The last time I sang it was only a couple
of years ago in Norfolk. Herbert Witherspoon said:
"Listen to that high C!"
"Ah," said I, "that is the last remnant the very
last!"
io .An American Prima Donna
But this chapter is to be about my first notes, not

my last ones.
In 1857, my father failed, the beautiful books were
sold and we went to New York to live. Almost
directly afterward occurred one of the most important
events of my
career. Although I was not being trained
for a singer, but as a musician in general, I could no
more help singing than could held breathing, or sleep-
I
ing, or eating; and, one day, Colonel Henry G. Stebbins,

a well-known musical amateur, one of the directors of
the Academy of Music, was calling on my father and
heard me singing to myself in an adjoining room. Then
and there he asked to be allowed to have my voice
cultivated; and so, when I was fourteen, I began to
study singing. The succeeding four years were the
hardest worked years of my life.
To young girls who are contemplating vocal study,
I always say that it is mostly a question of what one is
willing to give up.

you really are prepared to sacrifice all the fun that
If
your youth is entitled to to work, and to deny yourself

; ;
to eat and sleep, not because you are hungry or sleepy,

but because your strength must be conserved for your
art; to make your music the whole interest of your
existence; if you are willing to do all this, you may
have your reward.
But music will have no half service. It has to be
all or nothing.
In Rostand's play, they ask Chanticleer:
"What is your life?"
And he answers:
"My song."
"What is your song?"
"My life."
George Kellogg
Father of Clara Louise Kellogg
Photograph by Gurney & Son
CHAPTER II
GIRLHOOD
taking up vocal study, however, I had no fixed

IN intention of going on the stage. All I decided was
to make as much as I could of myself and of my voice.
Many girls I knew studied singing merely as an accom-
plishment. In fact, the girl who aspired professionally
was almost unknown.
I first studied under a Frenchman named Millet, a
graduate of the Conservatory of Paris, who was teach-
ing the daughters of Colonel Stebbins and, also, the
daughter of the Baron de Trobriand. Later, I worked
with Manzocchi, Rivarde, Errani and Muzio, who was
a great friend of Verdi.
Most of my fellow-students were charming society
girls. Ella Porter and President Arthur's wife were
with me under Rivarde, and Anna Palmer who married
the scientist, Dr. Draper. The idea of my going on
the stage would have appalled the families of these
girls. In those days the life of the theatre was regarded
as altogether outside the pale. One did n't know stage
people; one could n't speak to them, nor shake hands
with them, nor even look at them except from a safe
distance across the footlights. There were no "decent
people on the stage"; how often did I hear that
foolish thing said!
ii
12 An American. Prima Donna
It is odd that most musical and artistic

in that
country, Italy, much the same prejudice exists to this

day. I should never think of telling a really great
Italian lady that I had been on the stage; she would
immediately think that there was something queer
about me. Of course in America all that was changed
some time ago, after England had established the
precedent. People are now pleased not only to meet
artists socially, but to lionise them as well. But
when I was a girl there was a gulf as deep as the Bottom-
less Pit between society and people of the theatre;
and it was this gulf that I knew would open between
myself and the friends of whom I was really fond as,
in time, I realised that I was improving sufficiently
to justify some definite ambitions. My work was
steady and unremitting, and by the time I began
study with Muzio my mind was pretty nearly made
up.
A nervous, brusque, red-headed man was
queer,
Muzio, from the north of Italy, where the type always
seems so curiously German. Besides being one of the
conductors of the Opera, he organised concert tours,
and promised to see that I should have my chance.
It was said that he had fled from political disturbances
in Italy, but this I never heard verified. Certainly
he was quite a big man in the New York operatic
world of his day, and was a most cultivated musician,
with the "Italian traditions" of opera at his fingers'
ends. It is to Muzio, incidentally, that I owe my
trill.
Oddly enough, I had great difficulty with that trill
for three years; but in four weeks' study he taught

me the trick, for it is a trick, like so many other big
effects. I believe I got it finally by using my sub-
Clara Louise Kellogg. Aged Three
GirlKood 13
conscious mind. Don't you know how, after striving

and straining for something, you at last relax and let
some inner part of your brain carry on the battle?
And how, often and often, it is then that victory
comes? So it was with my trill; and so it has been
with many difficult things that I have succeeded in
since then.
No account of my education would be complete
without a mention of the great singers whom I heard
during that receptive period; that is, the years between
fourteen and eighteen, before my professional debut.
The first artist I heard when I was old enough really to
appreciate good singing was Louisa Pine, who sang in
New York in second-rate English Opera with Harrison,
of whomshe was deeply enamoured and who usually
sang out of tune. We did not then fully understand
how well-schooled and well-trained she was; and her
really fine qualities were only revealed to me much
later in a concert.
Then was D'Angri, a contralto who sang
there
Rossini to perfection. Italiani in Algeria was pro-
duced especially for her. About that same time Mme.
de la Grange was appearing, together with Mme. de la
Borde, a light and colorature soprano, something very
new in America. Mme. de la Borde sang the Queen
to Mme. de la Grange's Valentine in Les Huguenots,
and had a French voice if I may so express it light,
and of a strange quality. The French claimed that
she sang a scale of commas, that is, a note between
each of our chromatic intervals. She may have; but
it merely sounded to the listener as if she was n't
singing the scale clearly. Mme. de la Grange was a

sort of goddess to me, I remember. I heard her first
in Trovatore with Brignoli and Amodio.

14 An American Prima Donna
Piccolomini arrived here a couple of years later
and I heard her, too. She was of a distinguished
Italian family, and, considering Italy's aristocratic
prejudices, it is strange that she should have been an
opera singer. She made Traviata, in which she had
already captured the British public, first known to us:
yet she was an indifferent singer and had a very limited
repertoire. She received her adulation partly because
people did n't know much then about music. Adula-
tion it was, too. She made $5000 a month, and
America had never before imagined such an operatic
salary. She looked a little like Lucca; was small and
dark, and decidedly clever in comedy. I was fortunate
enough to see her in Pergolese's delightful, if archaic,

opera, La Serva Padrona "The Maid as Mistress "-
and she proved herself to be an exceptional comedienne.
She was excellent in tragedy, too.
Brignoli was the first great tenor I ever heard;
and Amodio the first famous baritone. Brignoli but
all the world knows what Brignoli was As for Amodio
!
;
he had a great and beautiful voice; but, poor man, what

a disadvantage he suffered under in his appearance.
He was so fat that he was grotesque, he was absurdly
short, and had absolutely no saving grace as to phy-
sique. He played Mazetto to Piccolomini's Zerlina, and
the whole house roared when they came on dancing.
I heard nearly all the great singers of my youth;
all that were to be heard in New York, at any rate,
except Grisi. I missed Grisi, I am sorry to say,
because on the one occasion when I was asked to hear
her sing, with Mario, I chose to go to a children's
party instead. I am much ashamed of this levity,
although I was, to be sure, only ten years old at the
time.
Clara Louise Kellogg. Aged Seven
Photograph by Black & Case
Girl Hood 15
Adelina Patti I heard the year before my own debut.

She was a slip of a girl then, when she appeared over
here in Lucia, and carried the town by storm. What
a voice! I had never dreamed of anything like it.
But, for that matter, neither had anyone else.

What histrionic skill I ever developed I attribute
to the splendid acting that I saw so constantly during
my girlhood. And what actors and actresses we had!
As I look back, I we half appreciated them.
wonder if
It is certainly true that,viewed comparatively, we

must cry "there were giants in those days!" Think
of Mrs. John Wood and Jefferson at the Winter Garden ;
of Dion Boucicault and his wife, Agnes Robertson; of

Laura Keene a revelation to us all and of the French
Theatre, which was but a little hole in the wall, but
the home of some exquisite art (I was brought up on the
Raouls in French pantomime) and all the wonderful
;
old Wallack Stock Company! Think of the elder

Sothern, and of John Brougham, and of Charles Walcot,
and of Mrs. John Hoey, Mrs. Vernon, and Mary
Gannon, that most beautiful and perfect of all in-
genues! Those people would be world-famous stars if
they were playing to-day we have no actors or com-
;
panies like them left. Not even the Comedie Francaise

ever had such a gathering.
It may be imagined what an education it was for
a young girl with stage aspirations to see such work
week after week. For I was taken to see everyone
in everything, and some of the impressions I received
then were permanent. For instance, Matilda Heron
in Camille gave me a picture of poor Marguerite
Gautier so deep and so vivid that I found it invaluable,
years later, when I myself came to play Violetta in
Traviata.
saw both Ristori and Rachel too. The latter I

I
heard recite on her last appearance in America. It
was the Marseillaise, and deeply impressive. Personally,
I loved best her Moineau de Lesbie. Shall I ever forget
her enchanting reading of the little scene with the
jewels? Suis-je belle?
The father of one of my fellow students was, as I
have said Baron de Trobriand, a very charming
before,
man of the old French aristocracy. He came often
to the home of Colonel Stebbins and always showed a
great deal of interest in my development. He knew
Rachel very well; had known her ever since her girl-
hood indeed, and always declared that I was the
image of her. As I look at my early portraits, I can
see it myself a little. In all of them I have a desperately
serious expression as though life were a tragedy. How
well I remember the Baron and his wonderful stories
of France! He had some illustrious kindred, among
them the Duchesse de Bern, and we were never tired
of his tales concerning her.
I find, to-day, as I look through some of old my
press notices, that nice things were always said of me
as an actress. Once, John Wallack, Lester's father,
came to hearme in Fra Diavolo, and exclaimed:
"I wish to God that girl would lose her voice!"
He wanted me to give up singing and go on the
dramatic stage; and so did Edwin Booth. I have a
letterfrom Edwin Booth that I am more proud of
than almost anything I possess. But these incidents
happened, of course, later.
From all I saw and all I heard I tried to learn and
to keep on learning. And so I prepared for the time
of my own initial bow before the public. As I gradually
studied and developed, I began to feel more and more
Girlhood 17
sure that I was destined to be a singer. I felt that it
was my life and my heritage; that I was made for it,
and that nothing else could ever satisfy me. And

Muzio told me that I was right. In another six
months I would be ready to make my debut. It was
a serious time, when I faced the future as a public
singer, but I was very happy in the contemplation of
it.
That summer I took a rest, preparatory to my first
season, how thrillingly professional that sounded, to

be sure! and it was during that summer that I had
one of the most pleasant experiences of my girlhood,
one really delightful and young experience, such as
other girls have, a wonderful change from the hard-
working, serious months of study. I went to West
Point for a visit. In spite of my sober bringing-up, I
was the joy of life, and loved the days spent in
full of
a place filled with the military glamour that every

girl adores.
West Point was more primitive then than it is now.
But it was just as much fun. I danced, and watched
the drill, and walked about, and made friends with the
cadets, to whom the fact that they were entertaining
a budding prima donna was both exciting and interest-
ing and had about the best time I ever had in my
life.
Looking back now, however, I can feel a shadow of

sadness lying over the memory of all that happy visit.
We were just on the eve of war, little as we young
people thought of it, and many of the merry, good-
looking boys I danced with that summer fell at the
front within the year. Some of them entered the
Union Army the following spring when war was de-
clared, and some went South to serve under the Stars
1 8 An .American Prime Donna
and Bars. Among the former was Alec McCook

"Fighting McCook," as he was called. Lieutenant
McCreary was Southern, and was killed early in the
war. was the son of General Huger the
So, also,
General Huger who was then Postmaster General
and later became a member of the Cabinet of the
Confederacy.
It is interesting to consider that West Point, at
the time of which I write, was a veritable hotbed of
conspiracy. The Southerners were preparing hard and

fast for action; the atmosphere teemed with plotting,
so that even I was vaguely conscious that something
exceedingly serious was going on. The Commandant
of the Post, General Delafield, was an officer of strong
Southern sympathies and later went to fight in Dixie
land. When the war did finally break out, nearly all
the ammunition was down South; and this had been
managed from West Point.
Of course, all was done with great circumspection.
Buchanan was a Democratic president and the Demo- ;
crats of the South sent a delegation to West Point to

try to get the commanding officers to use their influence
in reducing the military course from four to three
years. This at least was their ostensible mission, and

it made an
excellent excuse as well as offered great
opportunities for what we Federal sympathisers would
call treason, but which they probably considered was
justified by patriotism. Indeed, James Buchanan was
allotted a very difficult part in the political affairs of
the day and the censure he received for what is called
;
his "vacillation" was somewhat unjust. He held that

the question of slavery and its abolition was not a
national, but a local problem; and he never took any
firm stand about it. But the conditions were bewilder-
Girlhood 19
ingly new and complex, and statesmen often suffer

from their very ability to look on both sides of a
question.
was then at West Point; and, as for
Jefferson Davis
"Mrs. Jeff" always believed she was a spy. She
I
had her niece and son with her at the Point, the
latter, "Jeff, Jr.," then a child of five or six years
old. He had the worst temper I ever imagined in a
boy; and I am ashamed to relate that the officerstook
a wicked delight in arousing and exhibiting it. He
used to sit several steps up on the one narrow stairway
of the hotel and swear the most horrible, hot oaths ever
heard, getting red in the face with fury. Alec McCook,
assistant instructor and a charming fellow of about
thirty,would put him on a bucking donkey that was
there and say:
"Now then, lad, don't you let him put you off!"
And the "lad" would sit on the donkey, turning the
air blue with profanity. But one thing can be said for
him: he did stick on!
Lieutenant Horace Porter, who was among my
friends of that early summer, was destined to serve
with distinction on the Northern side. I met him not
long ago, a dignified, distinguished General and it was
;
difficult to see in him the high-spirited, young lieutenant

of the old Point days.
"Do you know," he said, "Mrs. Jeff Davis sent for
me to come and see her when she was in New York!
Of course I did n't go!"
He had not forgotten. One does not forget the
things that happened just before the war. The great
struggle burned them too deeply into our memories.
Nothing would satisfy the cadets, who were aware
that I was preparing to go on the stage as a profes-
2O .An American Prima Donna
sional singer, but that I should sing for them. I
was only too delighted to do so, but I did n't want to

sing in the hotel. So they turned their "hop-room"
into a concert-hall for the occasion and invited the
officers and their friends, in spite of Mrs. Jeff Davis,
who tried her best to prevent the ball-room from being
given to us for our musicale. She did not attend;
but the affair made her exceedingly uncomfortable,
for she disliked me and was jealous of the kindness
and attention I received from everyone. She always
referred to me as "that singing girl!"
As I have said, many of those attractive West Point
boys and were killed in the war so soon to break
officers
upon us. Others, like General Porter, have remained

my friends. A few I have kept in touch with only by
hearsay. But throughout the Civil War I always felt
a keener and more personal interest in the battles
because, for a brief space, I had come so close to the
men who were engaged in them; and the sentiment
never passed.
Ever and ever so many years after that visit to West
Point, a note came behind the scenes to me during one
of my performances, and with it was a mass of exquisite
flowers. "Please wear one of these flowers to-night!"
the note begged me. It was from one of the cadets to
whom I had sung so long before, but whom I had never
seen since.
wore the flower: and I put my whole soul into my
I
singing that night. For that little episode of my girl-

hood, the meeting with those eager and plucky young
our great national crisis, has always
spirits just before
been close to my heart. As for the three dark years
that followed ah, well, I never want to read about
the war now.
Clara Louise Kellogg as a Girl
GirlHood 21
was almost time for my debut, and there was still

It
something I had to do. To my sheltered, puritanically

brought up consciousness, there could be no two views
among conventional people as to the life I was about
to enter upon. I knew all about it. So, a few weeks
before I was to make my professional bow to the
public, I called my
girl friends together, the companions
of four years' study, and I said to them:
"Girls, I 've made up mind to go on the stage!
my
I know how your people feel about it, and I want
just
to tell you now that you need n't know me any more.
You need n't speak to me, nor bow to me if you meet
me in the street. I shall quite understand, and I
shan't feel a bit badly. Because I think the day will
come when you will be proud to know me!"
CHAPTER III
"LIKE A PICKED CHICKEN"
my debut in opera, Muzio took me out on

BEFORE
a concert tour for a few weeks. Colson was the
prima donna, Brignoli the tenor, Ferri the baritone,
and Susini the basso.
Susini had, I believe, distin-
guished himself in the Italian Revolution. His name
means plums in Italian, and his voice as well as his
name was rich and luscious.
I was a general utility member of the company, and
sang to fill in the chinks. We sang four times a week,
and I received twenty -five dollars each time that is,
one hundred dollars a week not bad for inexperienced
seventeen, although Muzio regarded the tour for me
as merely educational and part of my training.
Mymother travelled with me, for she never let me
out of her sight. Yet, even with her along, the expe-
rience was very strange and new and rather terrifying.
I had no knowledge of stage life, and that first tournee
was comprised of a series of shocks and surprises, most
of them disillusioning.
Weopened in Pittsburg, and it was there, at the
old Monongahela House, that I had my first exhibition
of Italian temperament, or, rather, temper!
When we arrived, we found that the dining-room
was officially closed. We were tired out after a long
hard trip of twenty-four hours, and, of course, almost
"
44
LiKe a Picked CKicKen 23
starved. We got as far as the door, where we could

look in hungrily, but it was empty and dark. There
were no waiters; there was nothing, indeed, except
the rows of neatly set tables for the next meal.
Brignoli demanded food. He was very fond of
eating, I recall. And, in those days, he was a sort of
little god in New York, where he lived in much luxury.
When affairs went well with him, he was not an un-
amiable man; but he was a selfish egotist, with the
devil's own temper on occasion.
The landlord approached and told us that the dinner
hour was past, and that we could not get anything to
eat until the next meal, which would be supper. And
oh! if you only knew what supper was like in the
provincial hotel of that day!
Brignoli was wild with wrath. He would start to
storm and shout in his rage, and would then suddenly
remember his voice and subside, only to begin again as
his anger rose in spite of himself. It was really amus-
ing, though I doubt if anyone appreciated the joke at
the moment.
At as the landlord remained quite unmoved,
last,
Brignoli dashed into the room, grabbed the cloth on

one of the tables near the door and pulled it off dishes,
silver, and all! The crash was terrific, and naturally
the china was smashed to bits.
"You '11 have to pay for that!" cried the landlord,
indignantly.
"Pay for it!" gasped Brignoli, waving his arms and
fairly dancing with rage, "of course I '11 pay for it
just as I '11 pay for the dinner, if
"What!" exclaimed the landlord, in a new tone,
"you will pay extra for the dinner, if we are willing to
serve it for you now?"
24 An .American Prima Donna
"Dio mio, yes!" cried Brignoli.

Thelandlord stood and gaped at him.
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" he
asked with a sort of contemptuous pity, and went off
to order the dinner.
When will the American and the Italian tempera-
ments begin to understand each other!
Brignoli was not only a fine singer but a really good
musician. He told me that he had given piano lessons
in Paris before he began to sing at all. But of his
absolute origin he would never speak. He was a
handsome man, with ears that had been pierced for
ear-rings. This led me to infer that he had at some
time been a sailor, although he would never let anyone
mention the subject. Anyhow, I always thought of
Naples when I looked at him.
Most
stage people have their pet superstitions.
There seems to be something in their make-up that
lends itself to an interest in signs. But Brignoli had a
greater number of singular ones thanany person I ever
met. He had, among other things, a mascot that he
carried all This was a stuffed deer's
over the country.
head, and was always installed in his dressing-room
it
wherever he might be singing. When he sang well,

he would come back to the room and pat the deer's
head approvingly. When he was not in voice, he
would pound it and swear at it in Italian.
Brignoli lived for his voice. He adored it as if it
were some phenomenon for which he was in no sense
responsible. And I am not at all sure that this is not
the right point of view for a singer. He always took
tremendous pains with his voice and the greatest
possible care of himself in every way, always eating
huge quantities of raw oysters each night before he
"
LiKe a PicKed ChicKen " 25
sang. The story ishim that one day he fell

told of
off a train. People rushed to pick him up, solicitous
lest the great tenor's bones were broken. But Brignoli
had only one fear. Without waiting even to rise to
his feet, he sat up, on the ground where he had fallen,
and solemnly sang a bar or two. Finding his voice
uninjured, he burst into heartfelt prayers of thanks-
giving, and climbed back into the car.
Brignoli only just missed being very great. But
he had the indolence of the Neapolitan sailor, and he
was, of course, sadly spoiled. Women were always
crazy about him, and he posed as an elegante. Years
afterward, when I heard of his death, I never felt the
loss of any beautiful thing as I did the loss of his voice.
The thought came to me: "and he has n't been able
"
to leave it to anyone as a legacy
But to return to our concert tour.
I remember that the concert room in Pittsburg was
over the town market. That was what we had to
contend with in those primitive days! Imagine our
company of devoted and ambitious artists trying
little
to create a musical atmosphere one flight up, while

they sold cabbages and fish downstairs !
The first evening was an important event for me,

my public appearance, and I recall quite dis-
initial
tinctly that I sang the Cavatina from Linda di Cha-

mounix which I was soon to sing operatically and
that I wore a green dress. Green was an unusual
colour in gowns then. Our young singers generally
chose white or blue or pink or something insipid;
but I had a very definite taste in clothes, and liked
were not only pretty but also individual
effects that
and becoming.
Speaking of clothes, I learned on that first experi-
mental tour the horrors of travel when it comes to

keeping one's gowns fresh. I speedily acquired the
habit, practised ever since, of carrying a big crash
cloth about with me to spread on stages where I was
to sing. This was not entirely to keep my clothes
clean, important as that was. It was also for the sake
of my voice and its effect. Few people know that the
floor-covering on which a singer stands makes a very
great difference. On carpets, for instance, one simply
cannot get a good tone.
Just before I went on for that first concert, Madame
Colson stopped me to put a rose in my hair, and said
to me:
"Smile much, and show your teeth!"
After the concert she supplemented this counsel
with the words:
"Alwaysdress your best, and always smile, and
always be gracious!"
I never forgot the advice.
The idea of pretty clothes and a pretty smile is
not merely a pose nor an artificiality. It is likewise
carrying out a spirit of courtesy. Just as a hostess
greets a guest cordially and tries to make her feel at
ease, so the tactful singer tries to show the people who
have come to hear her that she is glad to see them.
Pauline Colson was a charming artist, a French
soprano of distinction in her own country and always
delightful in her work. She had first come to America
to sing in the French Opera in New Orleans where, for
many years, there had been a splendid opera season
each winter. She had just finished her winter's work
there when some northern impresario engaged her
for a brief season of opera in New York; and it was at
the termination of this that Muzio engaged her for our
"
LiKe a Picked CKicKen " 27
concert tour. She was one of the few artists who

rebelled against the bad costuming then prevalent;
and it was said that for more than one of her roles she
made her gowns herself, to be sure that they were
correct. It was her example that fired me in the
revolutionary steps I was to take later with regard

to my own costumes.
Our next stop was Cincinnati Cincinnati,, as it was
called! I had there one of the shocks of my life.
The leading newspaper of the city, in commenting on
me that "this young girl's parents
our concert, said of
ought to remove her from public view, do her up in
cotton wool, nourish her well, and not allow her to
appear again until she looks less like a picked chicken" !
No one said anything about my voice! Indeed, I

got almost no encouragement before we reached Detroit,
and I recall that I cried a good part of the way between
the two cities over my failure in Cincinnati. But in
Detroit Colson was taken ill, so I had a chance to do
the prima donna work of the occasion. And I profited
by the chance, for it was in Detroit that an audience
first discovered that I had some nascent ability.
I must have been an odd, young creature just five

feet and four inches tall, and weighing only one hundred
and four pounds. I was frail and big-eyed, and
wrapped up in music (not cotton wool), and exceed-
ingly childlike for my age. I knew nothing of life, for
my puritanical surroundings and the way in which I

had been brought up were developing my personality
very slowly.
That was a hard tour. Indeed, all tours were hard
in those days.Travelling accommodations were limited
and uncomfortable, and most of the hotels were very
bad. Trains were slow, and connections uncertain,
and was no such thing as a Pullman or,
of course there
much less, a dining-car. Sometimes we had to sit up
all night and were not able to get anything to eat, not
infrequently arriving too late for the meal hour of the

hotel where we were to stop. The journeys were so
long and so difficult that they used to say Pauline
Lucca always travelled in her nightgown and a black
velvet wrapper.
All through that tour, as during every period of my
life, was working and studying and practising and
I
learning trying to improve my voice, trying to develop

:
my artistic consciousness, trying to fit myself in a

hundred ways for my career. Work never frightened
me there was always in me the desire to express myself
;
and to express that self as fully and as variously as

I might have opportunity for doing.
It sometimes seems to me that one of the strangest
things in this world is the realisation that there is

never time to perfect everything in us; that we carry
seeds in our souls that cannot flower in one short life.
Perhaps Paradise will be a place where we can develop
every possibility and become our complete selves.
In one's brain and one's soul lies the power to do
almost anything. I believe that the psychological
phenomena we hear so much about are nothing but un-
discovered forces in ourselves. I am not a spiritualist.
I do not care for so-called supernatural manifestations.
Many of my friends have been interested in such
matters, and I was taken to the celebrated "Stratford
Knockings" and other mediumistic demonstrations
when I was a mere child; but it has never seemed to
me that the marvels I encountered came from an
outside spiritual agency. I believe, profoundly, that,
one and all, they are the workings of forces in us that
Clara Louise Kellogg as a Young Lady
" "
LiKe a PicKed ChicKen 29
we have not yet learned to develop fully nor to use

wisely.
I never did anything in my life without study.
The ancient axiom that "what is worth doing at all is
worth doing well" is more of a truth than most people
understand. The thing that one has chosen for one's
life work in the world what labour could be too great
:
for it, or what too minute?

When I knew that I was to make my debut as Gilda,
in Verdi's opera of Rigoletto, I settled down to put
myself into that part. I studied for nine months,

until I was not certain whether I was really Gilda or
only myself!
I was taking lessons in acting with Scola then, in
addition to my musical study. And, besides Scola's
regular course, I closely observed the methods of
individuals, actors, and
singers. I remember seeing
" "
Brignoli in / Puritani, during that incubating period
before myfirst appearance in opera. I was studying
gesture then, the free, simple, inevitable gesture that

is so necessary to a natural effect in dramatic singing;
and during the beautiful melody, A te, o cara, which he

sang in the first act, Brignoli stood still in one spot
and thrust one arm out, and then the other, at
first
right angles from his body, twenty-three consecutive

times. I counted them, and I don't know how many
times he had done it before I began to count !
"Heavens!" I said, "that 's one thing not to do,

anyway!"
Languages were a very important part of my train-
ing. I had studied French when I was nine years old,
in the country, and as soon as I began taking singing
lessons I began Italian also. Much later, when I sang
in Les Noces de Jeannette, people would speak of my
3 .An .American Prima Donna
French and ask where I had studied. But it was all
learned at home.
never studied German. There was less demand
I
for it in music than there is now. America practically
had no "German opera;" and Italian was the accepted
tongue of dramatic and tragic music, as French was
the language of lighter and more popular operas.
Besides, German always confused me; and I never
liked it.
Many years later than the time of which I am now

writing, I was charmed to be confirmed in my anti-
German prejudices when I went to Paris. After the
Franco-Prussian War
the signs and warnings in that
city were put up in every language in the world except
German! The German way of putting things was
too long; and, furthermore, the French people didn't
care if Germans did break their legs or get run over.
Of course, all this is changed and in music most
of all. For example, there could be no greater convert
to Wagnerism than I !
My mother hated the atmosphere of the theatre

even though she had wished me to become a singer,
and always gloried in my successes. To her rigid and
delicate instinct there was something dreadful in the
free and easy artistic attitude, and she always stood
between me and any possible intimacy with my fellow-
singers. I believe this to have been a mistake. Many
traditions of the stage come to one naturally and easily
through others; but I had to wait and learn them all
by experience. I was always working as an outsider,
and, this attitude of ours antagonised
naturally,
singers with whom we appeared.
Not only that. My brain would have developed
much more rapidly if I had been allowed no, if I had
" "
LiKe a PicKed ChicKen 31
been obliged to be more self-reliant. To profit by one's

own mistakes; all the world's history goes to show
that is the onlyway to learn. By protecting me, my
mother really robbed me of much precious experience.
For how many years after I had made my debut would
she wait for me in the coulisses, ready to whisk me off
to my dressing-room before any horrible opera singer
had a chance to talk with me !
Yet she grieved for my forfeited youth did my

dear mother. She always felt that I was being sacri-
ficed to my work, and just at the time when I would
have most delighted in my girlhood. Of course, I was
obliged to live a life of labour and self-denial, but it was
not quite so difficult for me as she felt itto be, or as
other people sometimes thought it was. Not only did
I adore my music, and look forward to my work as an
artist, literally never had any other life.
but I I
knew nothing of what I had given up and so was happy
;
in what I had undertaken, as no girl could have been
happy who had lived a less restricted, hard-working

and yet dream -filled existence.
My mother was very strait-laced and puritanical,
as I have said, and, naturally, by reflection and asso-
ciation, I was the same. I lay stress on this because
I want one little act of mine to be appreciated as a
sign of my ineradicable girlishness and love of beauty.

When I earned my first money, I went to Mme. Perci-
val's, the smart lingerie shop of New York, and bought
the three most exquisite chemises I could find, imported
and trimmed with real lace!
I daresay this harmless ebullition of youthful dainti-
ness would have proved the last straw to some of my
Psalm-singing New England There was one
relatives.
uncle of mine who vastly disapproved of my going on
32 .A.n American Prima Donna
the stage at all, saying that it would have been much
better if I had been a good, honest milliner. He used
to sing :
x_ /*
CHAPTER IV
A YOUTHFUL REALIST
I have said, I studied Gilda for nine months.

AS At the end of that time I was so imbued with the
part as to be thoroughly at ease. Present-day actors
call this condition "getting inside the skin" of a role.
I simply could not make a mistake, and could do
everything connected with the characterisation with
entire unconsciousness. Yet I want to add that I had
little what the opera really meant.
idea of
My debut was in New York at the old Academy
of Music, and Rigoletto was the famous Ferri. He
was blind in one eye and I had always to be on his
seeing side, else he could n't act. Stigelli was the
tenor. Stiegel was his real name. He was a German
and a really fine artist. But I had then had no expe-
rience with stage heroes and thought they were all
going to be exactly as they appeared in my romantic
dreams, and poor man, he is dead now, so I can say
this! it was a dreadful blow to me to be obliged to
sing a love duet with a man smelling of lager beer and

cheese !
Charlotte Cushman who was a

great friend of
Miss Emma
Stebbins, the sister of Colonel Stebbins
had always been interested in me; so when she knew
that I was to make my debut on February 26 (1861),
3 33
34 j\n. .American Prima Donna
she put on Meg Merrilies for that night because she

could get through with it early enough for her to see
part of my first performance. She reached the Acad-
emy in time for the last act of Rigoletto; and I felt that
I had been highly praised when, as I came out and
began to sing, she cried:
"The girl doesn't seem to know that she has any
arms!"
My freedom of gesture and action came from nothing
but the most complete familiarity with the part and
with the detail of everything I had to do. In opera
one cannot be too temperamental in one's acting.
One cannot make pauses when one thinks it effective,
nor alter the stage business to fit one's mood, nor work
oneself up to an emotional crescendo one night and not
do it the next. Everything has to be timed to a second
and a fraction of a second. One cannot wait for un-
usual effects. The orchestra does not consider one's
temperament, and this fact cannot be lost sight of for
a moment. This is why I believe in rehearsing and
studying and working over a role so exhaustively
and exhaustingly. For it is only in that most rigidly
studied accuracy of action that any freedom can be
attained. When one becomes so trained that one
cannot conceivably retard a bar, and cannot undertime
a stage cross nor fail to come in promptly in an
ensemble, then, and only then, can one reach some
emotional liberty and inspiration.
If I had not worked so hard at Gilda I should
never have got through that first performance. I was
not consciously nervous, but my throat it is quite
impossible to tell in words how my throat felt. I have
heard singers describe the first-night sensation variously,
a tongue that felt stiff, a palate like a hot griddle,
A YoxitKfvil Realist 35
and so on.My throat and my tongue were dry and

thick and woolly, like an Oriental rug with a "pile"
so deep and heavy that, if water is spilled on it, the
water does not soak in, but lies about the surface in
globules, just a dry and unabsorbing carpet.
My mother was with me behind the scenes; and my
grandmother was in front to see me in all my stage
grandeur. I am
afraid I did not care particularly
where either of them were. Certainly I had no thought
foranyone who might be seated out in the Great
Beyond on the far side of the footlights. I sang the
second act in a dream, unconscious of any audience:
hardly conscious of the music or of myself going
through it all mechanically. But the sub-conscious mind
had been at work all the time. As I was changing my
costume after the second act, my mother said to me:
"
I cannot find your grandmother anywhere. I have
been looking and peeping through the hole in the
curtain and from the wings, but I cannot seem to
"
discover where she is sitting.
Hardly thinking of the words, I answered at once:
"She is over there to the left, about three rows back,
"
near a pillar.
The criticisms of the press next day said that my
most marked specialty was my ability to strike a tone
with energy. I liked better, however, one kindly
reviewer who observed that my voice was "cordial to
the heart!" The newspapers found my stage appear-
ance peculiar. There was about it "a marked develop-
ment of the intellectual at the expense of the physical
to which her New England birth may afford a key."
The man who wrote this was quite correct. He had
discovered the Puritan maid behind the stage trappings
of Gilda.
If omens count anything I ought to have had

for
a disastrous season, for everything went wrong
first
during that opening week. I lost a bracelet of which

I was particularly fond I fell over a stick in making an
;
entrance and nearly went on my head; and at the end

of the third act of the second performance of Rigoletto
the curtain failed to come down, and I was obliged to
stay in a crouching attitude until it could be put into
working order again. But these trying experiences
were not auguries of failure or of disaster. In fact my
public grew steadily kinder to me, although it hung
back a little until after Marguerite. Audiences were
not very cordial to new singers. They distrusted their
own judgment; and I don't altogether wonder that
they did.
The week after my debut we went
Boston to to
sing. Boston would not have was con-
Rigoletto. It
sidered objectionable, particularly the ending. For
some inexplicable reason Linda di Chamounix was
expected to be more acceptable to the Bostonian
public, and so I was to sing the part of Linda
instead of that of Gilda. I had been working on
Linda during a part of the year in which I studied
Gilda, and was quite equal to it. The others of the
company went to Boston ahead of me, and I played
Linda at a matinee in New York before following
them. This was the first time I sang in opera with
Brignoli. I went on in the part with only one rehearsal.
Opera-goers do not hear Linda any more, but it is a
graceful little opera with some pretty music and a
really charmingly poetic story. It was taken from the
French play, La Grace de Dieu, and Rigoletto was taken
from Victor Hugo's Le Roi S Amuse. The story of
1
Linda is that of a Swiss peasant girl of Chamounix who

A Youthful Realist 37
falls in love with a French noble whom she has met as

a strolling painter in her village. He returns to Paris
and she follows him there, walking all the way and
accompanied by a faithful rustic, Pierotto, who loves her
humbly. He plays a hurdy-gurdy and Linda sings, and
so the poor young vagrants pay their way. In Paris
the nobleman finds her and lavishes all manner of jewels
and luxuries upon little Linda, but at last abandons
her to make a
rich marriage. On the same day that
she hears the news of her lover's wedding her father
comes to her house in Paris and denounces her. She
goes mad, of course. Most
operatic heroines did go
mad in those days. And, in the last act, the peasant
lover with the hurdy-gurdy takes her back to Cha-
mounix among the hills. On the lengthy journey he
can lure her along only by playing a melody that she
knows and loves. It is a dear little story; but I never
could comprehend how Boston was induced to accept
the second act since they drew the line at Rigoletto!
I liked Linda and wanted to give a truthful and
appealing impersonation of her. But the handicaps

of those days of crude and primitive theatre conditions
were really almost insurmountable. Now, with every
assistance of wonderful staging, exquisite costuming,
and magical lighting, the artist may rest upon his or
her surroundings and accessories and know that every-
thing possible to art has been brought together to
enhance the convincing effect. In the old days at the
Academy, however, we had no system of lighting
except glaring footlights and perhaps a single, un-
imaginative calcium. We had no scenery worthy the
name; and as for costumes, there were just three sets
called by the theatre costumier "Paysannes" (peasant
dress); "Norma" (they did not know enough even to

" "
call it "classic ") ;
and Rich ! The last were more or
less of the Louis XIV period and could be slightly
modified for various operas. These three sets were
combined and altered as required. Yet, of course,
the audiences were correspondingly unexacting. They
were so accustomed to nothing but primitive effects
that the simplest touch of true realism surprised and
delighted them. Once during a performance of //
Barbiere the man who was playing the part of Don
Basilio sent his hat out of doors to be snowed on. It
was one of those Spanish shovel hats, long and square-
edged, like a plank. When he wore it in the next act,
all white with snowflakes from the blizzard outside,
the audience was so simple and childlike that it roared

"
with pleasure, Why, it 's real snow!"
It was also the time when hoop skirts were univer-
sally fashionable, so we all wore hoops, no matter what

the period we were supposed to be representing.
Scola first showed me how to fall gracefully in a hoop
skirt,not in the least an easy feat to accomplish; and
I shall always remember seeing Mme. de la Grange
go to bed in one, in her sleep-walking scene in Sonnam-
bula. Indeed, there was no illusion nor enchantment
to help one in those elementary days. One had to
conquer one's public alone and unaided.
I confided myself at first to the hands of the cos-
tumier with characteristic truthfulness. I had con-
sidered the musical and dramatic aspects of the part;
it did not occur to me that the clothes would become
my responsibility as well. That theatre costumier at
the Academy, I found, could not even cut a skirt.
Linda's was a strange affair, very long on the sides,
and startlingly short in front. But this was the least
of my troubles on the afternoon of that first matinee
A Ycmthfvil Realist 39
in NewYork. When it came to the last act there

having been no rehearsals, and my experience being next
to nothing I asked innocently for my costume, and
was told that I would have to wear the same dress I
had worn in the first act.
" "
"But, I can't gasped.
! IThat fresh new gown, after
months are supposed to have gone by when Linda has !
"
walked and slept in it during the whole journey !
"Noone will think of that," I was assured.

But / thought of it and simply could not put on
that clean dress for poor Linda's travel-worn last act.
I sent for an old shawl from the chorus and ripped my
costume into rags. By this time the orchestra was
almost at the opening bars of the third act and there
was not a moment to lose. Suddenly I looked at my
shoes and nearly collapsed with despair. One always
provided one's own foot-gear and the shoes I had on
were absolutely the only pair of the sort required that
I possessed neat little slippers, painfully new and clean.
;
We had not gone to any extra expense, in case I did

not happen to make a success that would justify it,
and that was the reason I had only the one pair.
Well there was a moment's struggle before I attacked
my pretty shoes but my passion for realism triumphed.
I sent a man out into Fourteenth Street at the stage
door of the Academy and had him rub those immacu-
late slippers in the gutter until they were thoroughly
dirty, so that when I wore them onto the stage three

minutes later they looked as if I had really walked
to Paris and back in them.
The next day the newspapers said that the part of
Linda had never before been sung with so much pathos.
"Aha " said I, " that 's my old clothes That 's
! !
my
dirt!"
had learned that the more you look your part the
I
lessyou have to act. The observance of this truth

was always Henry Irving's great strength. The more
completely you get inside a character the less, also,
areyou obliged to depend on brilliant vocalism. Mary
Garden is a case in point. She is not a great singer,
although she sings better than she is credited with
doing or her voice could not endure as much as it does,
but above all she is intelligent and an artistic realist,
taking care never to lose the spirit of her role. Renaud

is one of the few men I have ever seen in opera who
was willing to wear dirty clothes

if they chanced to be
in character. never forget Jean de Reszke in

I shall
UAfricaine. In the Madagascar scene, just after the

rescue from the foundered vessel, he appeared in the
most beautiful fresh tights imaginable and a pair of
superb light leather boots. Indeed, the most distin-
guished performance becomes weak and valueless if
the note of truth is lacking.
Theodore Thomas was the first violin in the Acad-
emy at the time of which I am writing, and not a very
good one either. The director was Maretzek "Mare-
tzek the Magnificent" as he was always called, for he
was very handsome and had a vivid and compelling
personality on whom be benisons, for it was he who,
later, suggested the giving of Faust, and me for the
leading role.
was not popular with my fellow-artists and did

I
not have a very pleasant time preparing and rehearsing

for my first parts. The chorus was made up of Italians
who never studied their music, merely learned it at
rehearsal, and the rehearsals themselves were often
farcical. The Italians of the chorus were always bitter
against me for, up to that time, Italians had had the
A YoutHfxil Realist 41
monopoly of music. It was not generally conceded

that Americans could appreciate, much less interpret
opera; and I, as the first American prima donna, was
my own country. The
in the position of a foreigner in
chorus, indeed, could sometimes hardly contain them-

selves.
' '
Who is she, ' '
they would demand indignantly,

"to come and take the bread out of our mouths?"
One other person in the company who never gave me
a kind word (although she was not an Italian) was
Adelaide Phillips, the contralto. She was a fine artist
and had been singing for many years, so, perhaps, it
galled her to have to "support" a younger country-
woman. When it came to dividing the honours she
was not at all pleased. As Maddalena in Rigoletto
she was very plain; but when she did Pierotto, the
boyish, rustic lover in Linda, she looked well. She had
the most perfectly formed pair of legs ankles, feet
and all that I ever saw on a woman.
In singing with Brignoli there developed a difficulty
to which Ferri's blindness was nothing. Brignoli seri-
ously objected to being touched during his scene!
Imagine playing love scenes with a tenor who did not
want to be touched, no matter what might be the
emotional exigencies of the moment or situation. The
bass part in Linda is that of the Baron, and when I
first sang the opera it was taken by Susini, who had
been with us on our preparatory tournee. His wife

was Isabella Hinckley, a good and sweet woman, also
a singer with an excellent soprano voice. I found that
the big basso (he was a very large man with a buoyant
sense of humour) was a fine actor and had a genuine
dramatic gift in singing. His sense of humour was
always bubbling up, in and out of performances. I
once lost a diamond from one of my rings during the
42 ,A.n American Prima Donna
first act. My dressing-room and the stage were
searched, but with no result. We went on for the last
act and, in the scene when I was supposed to be uncon-
scious, Susini caught sight of the stone glittering on the
floor and picked it up. As he needed his hands for
gesticulations, he popped the diamond into his mouth
and when I "came to" he stuck out his tongue at me
with the stone on the end of it !
While I was working on the part of Linda myself,

I heard Mme. Medori sing it. She gave a fine
emotional interpretation, getting great tragic effects
in the Paris act, but she did not catch the naive and
ingenuous quality of poor, young Linda. It could
hardly have been otherwise, for she was at the time a
mature woman. There are some parts, Marguerite
is one of them, also, that can be made too com-
plicated, too subtle, too dramatic. I was criticised
for my immaturity and lack of emotional power until
I was tired of hearing such criticism; and once had a
quaint little argument about my abilities and powers

with "Nym Crinkle," the musical critic of The World,
A. C. Wheeler. (Later he made a success in literature
under the name of "J. P. Mowbray. ")
"What do you expect," I demanded, in my old-
fashioned yet childish way, being at the time eighteen,
"what do you expect of a person of my age?"
Brignoli, 1865
From a photograph by C. Silvy
CHAPTER V
LITERARY BOSTON
friends in New York had given me letters to

MY people in Boston, so I went there with every
opportunity for an enjoyable visit. But, naturally,
I was much more absorbed in my own debut and in
what the public would think of me than I was in meet-
ing new acquaintances and receiving invitations. Now
I wish that I had then more clearly realised possibilities,
for Boston was at the height of its literary reputation.
All my impressions of that Boston season, however,
sink into insignificance compared to that of my first
public appearance. I sang Linda and there were only
;
three hundred people in the house!

If anything in the world could have discouraged me
that would have, but, as a matter of fact, I do not

believe anything could. At any rate, I worked all the
harder just because the conditions were so adverse;
and I won my public (such as it was) that night. I
may add that I kept it for the remainder of my stay
in Boston.
At that period of my life I was very fragile and
one big performance would wear me out. Literally, I
used myself up in singing, for I put into it every ounce
of my strength. I could not save myself when I was
actually working, but my way of economising my

vitality was to sing only twice a week.
43
It was after that first performance of Linda, some

time about midnight, and my mother and I had just
returned to our apartment in the Tremont House and
had hardly taken off our wraps, when a knock came
at the door. Our sitting-room was near a side entrance
for the sake of quietness and privacy, but we paid a
penalty in the ease with which we could be reached by

anyone who knew the way. My mother opened the
door; and there stood two ladies who overwhelmed us
with gracious speeches. "They had heard my Linda!
They had come because they simply could not help it;
because I had moved them so deeply Now, would we
!
both come the following evening to a little musicale;

and they would ask that delightful Signor Brignoli
too! It would be such a pleasure! etc."
Although I was not singing the following night, I

objected to going to the musicale because certain
experiences in New York had
already bred caution.
I said,however, with perfect frankness, that I would
go on one condition.
"On any condition, dear Miss Kellogg!"
"You would n't expect me to sing?"
"Oh no; no, no!"
Accordingly, the next night my mother and I pre-
sented ourselves at the house of the older of the two
ladies. The first words our hostess uttered when I
entered the room were :
"Why! where 's your music?"
"I thought it was understood that I was not to

"
sing, said I.
But, in spite of their previous earnest disclaimers

on this point, they became so insistent that, after
resisting their importunities for a few moments, I
finally consented to satisfy them. I asked Brignoli
Literary Boston 45
to play for me, and I sang the Cavatina from Linda.

Then I turned on my heel and went back to my hotel;
and I never again entered that woman's house. After
so many years there is no harm in saying that the
hostess who was guilty of this breach of tact, good
taste, and consideration, was Mrs. Paran Stevens, and
the other lady was her sister, Miss Fanny Reed, one
of the talented amateurs of the day. They were
struggling hard for social recognition in Boston and
every drawing card was of value, even a new, young
singer who might become famous. Later, of course,
Mrs. Stevens did "arrive" in New York; but she
travelled some difficult roads first.
This was by no means the first time that I had
contended with a lack of consideration in the American
hostess, especially toward artists. Her sisters across
the Atlantic have better taste and breeding, never
subjecting an artist who is their guest to the annoyance
"
and indignity of having to "sing for her supper. But
whenever I was invited anywhere by an American
woman, I always knew that I would be expected to
bring my music and to contribute toward the enter-
tainment of the other guests. An Englishwoman I
once met when travelling on the Continent hit the
nail on the head, although in quite another connection.
"You Americans are so queer," she remarked.
"I heard a woman from the States ask a perfectly
strange man recently to stop in at a shop and match
her some silk while he was out I imagine it is because
!
you don't mind putting yourselves under obligations,

is n't it?"
Literary Boston of that day revolved around Mr.

and Mrs. James T. Fields, at whose house often as-
sembled such distinguished men and women as Emer-
son, Longfellow, Wendell Holmes, Lowell,
Oliver
Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Julia
Ward Howe. Mr. Fields was the editor of The Atlantic
Monthly, and his sense of humour was always a delight.
"Alady came in from the suburbs to see me this
morning," he once remarked to me. '"Well, Mr.
Fields,' she said, with great impressiveness, 'what have
you new in literature to-day? I 'm just thusty for
knowledge!"
Your true New Englander always says "thust" and
"fust" and "wust," and Mr. Fields had just the
intonation which reminds me somehow in a round-
about fashion of a strange woman who battered on
my door once after I had appeared in Faust, in Boston,
to tell me that "that man Mephisto-fleas was just
great!"
It was a wonderfulprivilege to meet Longfellow.
He was never gay, never effusive, leaving these attri-
butes to his talkative brother-in-law, Tom Appleton,
who was a wit and a humourist. Indeed, Longfellow
was rather noted for his cold exterior, and it took a
little time and trouble to break the ice, but, though so
unexpressive outwardly, his nature was most winning

when one was once in touch with it. His first wife was
burned to death and the tragedy affected him per-
manently, although he made a second and a very-
successful marriage with Tom Appleton's sister. The
brothers-in-law were often together and formed the
oddest possible contrast to each other.
Longfellow and I became good friends. I saw him
many times and often went to his house to sing to him.
He greatly enjoyed my singing of his own Beware. It
was always one of my successful encore songs, although
it certainly is not Longfellow at his best. But he
James Russell Lowell in 1861

Literary Boston 47
liked me to sit at the piano and wander from one song

to another. The older the melodies, the sweeter he
found them. Longfellow's verses have much in com-
mon with simple, old-fashioned songs. They always
touched the common people, particularly the common
people of England. They were so simple and so true
that those folk who lived and laboured close to the
earth found much that moved them in the American
writer's unaffected and elemental poetry. Yet it seems
a bit strange that his poems are more loved and appre-
ciated in England than in America, much as Tennyson's
are more familiar to us than to his own people. Some
years later, when I was singing in London, I heard that
Longfellow was in town and sent him a box. He
and Tom Appleton, who was with him, came behind
the scenes between the acts to see me and,my mother
being with me, both were invited into my dressing-
room. In the London theatres there are women,
generally advanced in years, who assist the prima
donna or actress to dress. These do not exist in
American theatres. I had a maid, of course, but there
was this woman of the theatre, also, a particularly
ordinary creature who contributed nothing to the
gaiety of nations and who, indeed, rarely showed
feeling of any happened to say to her:
sort. I
"Perkins, I am going to see Mr. Longfellow."

Her face became absolutely transfigured.
"
"Oh, Miss, she cried in a tone of awe and curtseying
to his name, "you don't mean 'im that wrote Tell me
not in mournful numbers? Oh, Miss! 'im!"
Lowell I knew only slightly, yet his distinguished
and distinctive personality made a
great impression on
me. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a blond, curly-headed
young man, whose later prosperity greatly interfered
48 An -American Prima Donna
with his ability, I first met about this same time. He

was too successful too young, and it stultified his gifts,
as being successful too young usually does stultify the
natural gifts of anybody. On one occasion I met
Anthony Trollope at the Fields', the English novelist
whose works were then more or less in vogue. He had
just come from England and was filled with conceit.
English people of that time were incredibly insular
and uninformed about us, and Mr. Trollope knew
nothing of America, and did not seem to want to know
anything. Certainly, English people when they are
not thoroughbred can be very common Trollope was!
full ofhimself and wrote only for what he could get

out of it. I never, before or since, met a literary
person who was so frankly "on the make." The dis-
cussion that afternoon was about the recompense of
authors, and Trollope said that he had reduced his
literary efforts to a working basis and wrote so many

words to a page and so many pages to a chapter. He
refrained from using the actual word "money" the
English shrink from the word "money" but he
managed to convey to his hearers the fact that a
considerable consideration was the main incentive
to his literary labour, and put the matter more spe-
cifically later, to my mother, by telling her that he
always chose the words that would fill up the pages
quickest.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, though he was one of the
Fields' circle, I never met at all. He was tragically
shy, and more than once escaped from the house when
we went in rather than meet two strange women.
" "
Hawthorne has just gone out the other way, Mrs.
Fieldswould whisper, smiling. "He 's too frightened
to meet you!"
Literary Boston 49
I met his boy Julian, however, who was about

twelve years old. He was a nice lad and I kissed him
to his great annoyance, for he was shy too, although
not so much so as his father. Not so very long ago
Julian Hawthorne reminded me of this episode.
"Do you remember," he said, laughing, "how
embarrassed I was when you kissed me? 'Never you
mind' you said to me then, 'the time will come, my
boy, when you'll be glad to remember that I kissed
you!' And it certainly did come !"
Boston that winter was stirred by the approach-
All
ing agitations of war; and those two remarkable

women, Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Howe were using their
pens to excite the community into a species of splendid
rage. I first met them both at the Fields' and always
admired Julia Ward Howe as a representative type of
the highest Boston culture. Harriet Beecher Stowe
had just finished Uncle Tom's Cabin. Many people
believed that it and the disturbance it made were
partly responsible for the war itself. Mr. Fields told
me that her "copy" was the most remarkable "stuff"
that the publishers had ever encountered. It was
written quite roughly and disconnectedly on whatever
scraps of paper she had at hand. I suppose she wrote
it when thespirit moved her. At any rate, Mr. Fields

said was the most difficult task imaginable to fit it
it
into any form that the printers could understand.

Mrs. Stowe was a quiet, elderly woman, and talked
very little. I had an odd sort of feeling that she had
put so much of herself into her book that she had
nothing left to offer socially.
I did not realise until years afterwards what a
precious privilege it was to meet in such a charming

intime way the men and women who really "made"
50 -An American Prima Donna
American literature. The Fields literally kept open

house. They were the most hospitable of people,
and I loved them and spent some happy hours with
them. I cannot begin to enumerate or even to remem-
ber all the literary lights I met in their drawing-room.
Of that number there were James Freeman Clarke,
Harriet Prescott Spofford, whom I knew later in Wash-
ington, and Gail Hamilton who was just budding into
literary prominence; and Sidney Lanier. But, as I
look back on that first Boston engagement, I see
plainly that the most striking impression made upon
my youthful mind during the entire season was the
opening night of Linda di Chamounix and the three
hundred auditors!
It was long, long after that first season that I had
some of my pleasantest times in Boston with Sidney
Lanier. This may not be the right place to mention
them, but they certainly belong under the heading of
this chapter.
The evening that stands out most clearly in my
memory was one, in the 'seventies, that I spent at the
house of dear Charlotte Cushman who was then very
ill and who died almost immediately after. Sidney
Lanier was there with hisflute, which he played charm-
ingly. Indeed, he was as much musician as poet, as

anyone who knows his verse must realise. He was
poor then, and Miss Cushman was interested in him
and anxious to help him in every way she could.
There were two dried-up, little, Boston old maids there
too queer creatures who were much impressed with
High Art without knowing anything about it. One
composition that Lanier played somewhat puzzled me
my impertinent absolute pitch was, as usual, hard at
work and at the end I exclaimed:
Literary Boston 51
"That piece does n't end in the same key in which it
begins!"
Lanier looked surprised and said :
"
No, it does n't. It is one of my own compositions. "
Hethought it remarkable that I could catch the
change of key in such a long and intricately modulated
piece of music. The little old maids of Boston were
somewhat scandalised by my effrontery; but there was
even more to come. After another lovely thing which
he played for us, I was so impressed by the rare tone
of his instrument that I asked:
"Is that a Bohm flute?"
He, being a musician, was delighted with the im-
plied compliment but the old ladies saw in my question
;
only a shocking slight upon his execution. Turning

to one another they ejaculated with one voice, and
that one filled with scorn and pity:
1 '
"She thinks it 's the flute!
This difference between professionals and the laity
is odd. The more enchanted a professional is with
another artist's performance, the more technical inter-
est and curiosity he feels. The amateur only knows
how to rhapsodise. This seems to be so in every-
thing. When someone rides in an automobile for the
first time he only thinks how exciting it is and how
fast he is going. The experienced motorist immediately

wants to know what sort of engine the machine has,
and how many cylinders.
I have always loved a flute. It is a difficult instru-
ment to play with colour and variety. It is not like
the violin, on which one can get thirds, and sixths, and
sevenths, by using the arpeggio it is a single, thin tone
:
and can easily become monotonous if not played skil-

fully. Furthermore, there are only certain pieces of
music that ever ought to be played on it. Wagner
uses the flute wonderfully. He never lets it bore his
audience. The Orientals have brought flute playing
and flute music to a fine art, and it is one of the oldest
of instruments, but, unlike the violin and other instru-
ments, it is more
perfectly manufactured to-day than
it was in the past. The modern flutes have a far more
mellow and sympathetic tone than the old ones.
That whole evening at Miss Cushman's was com-
plete in its fulness of experience, as I recall it, looking
back across the years. How
many people know that
Miss Cushman had studied singing and had a very
fine baritone contralto voice? Two of her songs were
The Sands o Dee and Low I Breathe my Passion.
That night, the last time I ever heard her sing, I
recalled how often before I had seen her seating herself
at the piano to play her own accompaniments, always
a difficult thing to do. Again I can see her, at this late
day, turning on the stool to talk to us between songs,
emphasising her points with that odd, inevitable ges-
ture of the forefinger that was so characteristic of her,
and then wheeling back to the instrument to let that
deep voice of hers roll through the room in
"
Will she wake and say good night ?" . . .
During that first Boston season of mine, my mother

and I used to give breakfasts at the Parker House.
We were somewhat noted characters there as we were
the first women to stop at it, the Parker House being
originally a man's restaurant exclusively and breakfast
;
was a meal of ceremony. The chef of the Parker

House used to surpass himself at our breakfast enter-
tainments for he knew that such an epicure as Oliver
Charlotte Cushman, 1861
From a photograph by Silsbee, Case & Co.
Literary Boston 53
Wendell Holmes might be there at any time. This

chef, by the way, was the first man to put up soups
in cans and, after he left the Parker House kitchens,
he made name and money for himself in establishing
the canned goods trade.
Dear Dr. Holmes! What a delightful, warm spon-
taneous nature was his, and what a fine mind! We
were always good friends and I am proud of the fact.
Shall I ever forget the dignity and impressiveness of
his bearing as, after the fourth course of one of my
breakfasts, he glanced up, saw the waiter approaching,
arose solemnly as if he were about to make a speech,
went behind his chair, we allthought he was about
to give us one of his brilliant addresses shook out one
leg and then the other, all most seriously and without
a word, so as to make room for the next course!
Years later Dr. Holmes and I crossed from England
on the same steamer. He had been feted and made
much England and we discussed the relative
of in
brilliancy of American and English women. I con-

tended that Americans were the brighter and more
sparkling, while English women had twice as much
real education and mental training. Dr. Holmes
agreed, but with reservations. He professed himself
to be still dazzled with British feminine wit.
"I'm tired to death," he declared. "At every
dinner party I went to they had picked out the cleverest
women in London to sit on each side of me. I 'm
utterly exhausted trying to keep up with them!"
This was the voyage when the benefit for the sailors
was given for the English sailors, that is. It was
well arranged so that the American seamen could get
nothing out of it. Dr. Holmes was asked to speak
and I was asked to sing; but we declined to perform.
We did write our names on the programmes, however,
and as these sold for a considerable price, we added
to the fund in spite of our intentions.
My first season in Boston from which I have
strayed so far so many times was destined to be a
brief one, but also very strenuous, due to the fact that
in the beginning I had only two operas in my
repertoire,
one of which Boston did not approve. After Linda,
I was rushed on in Bellini's / Puritani and had to
"get up in it" in three days. It went very well, and

was followed with La Sonnambula by the same composer
and after only one week's rehearsal. I was a busy girl
in those weeks; and I should have been still busier if
opera in America had not received a sudden and tragic

blow.
The "vacillating" Buchanan's reign was over. On
March 4th Lincoln was inaugurated. A hush of sus-
pense was in the air: a hush broken on April I2th by
the shot fired by South Carolina upon Fort Sumter.
On April I4th Sumter capitulated and Abraham
Lincoln called for volunteers. The Civil War had
begun.
CHAPTER VI
WAR TIMES
first the tremendous crisis filled everyone with a

AT purely impersonal excitement and concern; but
one fine morning we awoke to the fact that our opera
season was paralysed.
The American people found the actual dramas of
Bull Run, Big Bethel and Harpers Ferry more absorb-
ing than any play or opera ever put upon the boards,
and the airs of Yankee Doodle and The Girl I Left Behind
Me more inspiring than the finest operatic arias in the
world. They did not want to go to the theatres in
the evening. They wanted to read the bulletin boards.
Every move in the big game of war that was being
played by the ruling powers of our country was of
thrilling interest, and as fast as things happened they
were "posted."
Maretzek "the Magnificent," so obstinate that he
simply did not know how to give up a project merely
because it was impossible, packed a few of us off to
Philadelphia to produce the Ballo in Maschera. We
hoped against hope that it would be light enough to
divert the public, at even that tragic moment. But
the public refused to be diverted. Why I ever sang
in it I cannot imagine. I weighed barely one hundred
and four pounds and was about as well suited to the
part of Amelia as a sparrow would have been. I
55
5t>
'
.A.n .American Prima Donna
never liked the role; it is heavy and uncongenial and

altogether out of my line. I should never have been
permitted to do it, and I have always suspected that

there might have been something of a plot against me
on the part of the Italians. But all this made no
difference, for we abandoned the idea of taking the
opera out on a short tour. We could plainly see that
opera was doomed for the time being in America.
Then Maretzek bethought himself of La Figlia del
Reggimento, a military opera, very light and infectious,
that might easily catch the wave of public sentiment
at the moment. We put it on in a rush. I played
the Daughter and we crowded into the performance
every bit of martial feeling we could muster. I learned
to play the drum, and we introduced all sorts of mili-
tary business and bugle calls, and altogether contrived
to create a warlike atmosphere. We were determined
to make a success of but we were also genuinely
it;
moved by the contagious glow that pervaded the
country and the times, and to this combined mood of
patriotism and expediency we sacrificed many artistic
details. For example, we were barbarous enough to
put in sundry American national airs and we had the
assistance of real Zouaves to lend colour; and this
reminds me that about the same period Isabella
Hinckley even sang The Star Spangled Banner in the
middle of a performance of II Barbiere.
Our attempt was a great success. We played Doni-
zetti's little opera to houses of frantic enthusiasm,
first in Baltimore, then in Washington on May the third,
where naturally the war fever was at its highest heat.

The audiences cheered and cried and let themselves
go in the hysterical manner of people
wrought up by
great national excitements. Even on the stage we
Clara Louise Kellogg as Figlia
"War Times 57
caught the feeling.sang the Figlia better than

I
I had ever sung anything yet, and I found myself

wondering, as I sang, how many of my cadet friends
of a few months earlier were already at the front.
I felt very proud of these friends when I read the
despatches from the front. They all distinguished

themselves, some on one side and some on the other.
Alec McCook was Colonel of the 1st Ohio Volunteers,
being an Ohio man by birth, and did splendid service
in the first big battle of the war, Bull Run. He was
made Major-General of Volunteers later, I believe,
and always held a prominent position in American
military affairs. From Fort Pulaski came word of
Lieutenant Horace Porter who, though only recently
graduated, was in command of the battlements there.
He was speedily brevetted Captain for "distinguished
gallantry under fire," and after Antietam he was sent
to join the Army of the Ohio. He was everywhere and
did everything imaginable during the war Chatta-
nooga, Chickamauga, the Battle of the Wilderness
and was General Grant's aide-de-camp in some of the
big conflicts. McCreary and young Huger I heard
less of because they were on the other side; but they
were both brave fellows and did finely according to
their convictions. It is odd to recall that Huger's
father, General Isaac Huger, had fought for the Union

in the early wars and yet turned against her in the civil
struggle between the blues and the greys. The Hugers

were South Carolinians though, and therefore rabid
Confederates.
With the war and its many memories, ghosts will
"
always rise up in my recollection of Custer, the Golden
"
Haired Laddie, as his friends called him. He was a
good friend of mine, and after the war was over he used
58 .A.n .American Prima Donna
to come frequently to see me and tell me the most

wonderful, thrilling stories about it, and of his earliest
fights with the Indians. He was a most vivid creature ;
one felt a sense of vigour and energy and eagerness

about him; and he was so brave and zealous as to
make one know that he would always come up to the
mark. I never saw more magnificent enthusiasm.
He was not thirty at that time and when on horse-
back, riding hard, with his long yellow hair blowing
back in the wind, he was a marvellously striking
figure. He was not really a tall man, but looked so,
being a soldier. Oh, if I could only remember those
stories of his stories of pluck and of danger and of
excitement !
has always been a matter of secret pride with me

It
that, in my small way, I did something for the Union

too. I heard that our patriotic and inartistic Daughter
of the Regiment caused several lads to enlist. I do not

know if this were true, but I hoped so at the time, and
it might well have been so.
I had a dresser, Ellen Conklin, who had some strange

and rather ghastly tales to tell of the slave trade in the
days before the war. She had been in other opera

companies, small troupes, that sang their way from the
far South, and the primitive and casual manner of
their travel had offered many opportunities for her to
visit any number of slave markets. She frequently
had been harrowed to the breaking point by the sight
of mothers separated from their children, and men and
women who loved each other being parted for life.
The worst horror of it all had been to her the examining
of the female slaves as to their physical equipment,

in which the buyers were more often brutal than not.
Ellen was Irish and emotional; and it tore her heart
General Horace Porter
From a photograph by Pach Bros.
"War Times 59
out to see such things; but she kept on going to the

slave sales just the same.
"They nearly killed me, Miss," she declared to me
with tears in her eyes, "but I could never resist one!"
Though I quite understood Ellen's emotions, I
found it a little difficult to understand why she invited
them so persistently. But I have learned that this is
a very common human weakness luckily for managers
who put on harrowing plays. Many people go to the
theatre to cry. When I sang Mignon the audience
always cried and wiped its eyes; and I felt convinced
thatmany had come for exactly that purpose. Two
women I know once went to see Helena Modjeska in
Adrienne Lecouvreur and, when the curtain fell, one of
them turned to the other with streaming eyes and
gasped between her choking sobs:
"
L 1 let 's come (sob) again (sob) t
t to-morrow night! (sob, sob)."

Personally, I think there are occasions enough for
tears in this life, bitter or consoling, without having
somebody on the stage draw them out over fictitious
joys and sorrows.
In the beginning of the war the feeling against the
negroes was really more bitter in the North than in the
South. The riots in New York were a scandal and a
disgrace, although very few people have any idea how
bad they actually were. The Irish Catholics were
particularly rabid and asserted openly, right and left,
that the freeing of the slaves would mean an influx of
cheap labour that would become a drug on the market.
It was an Irish mob that burned a coloured orphan
asylum, after which taste of blood the most innocent

black was not safe. Perfectly harmless coloured people
were hanged to lamp-posts with impunity. No one
ever seemed to be punished for such outrages. The
time was one of open lawlessness in New York City.
The Irish seem sometimes to be peculiarly possessed
by this unreasoning and hysterical mob spirit which,
as Ruskin once pointed out, they always manage to
justify to themselves by some high abstract principle
or sentiment. A story that has always seemed to me
Hibernian contingent
illustrative of this is that of the
that hanged an unfortunate Jew because his people had
killed Jesus Christ and, when reminded that it had all
happened some time before, replied that "that might

be, but they had only just heard of it!" It is a singu-
larly significant story, with much more truth than jest

in it. Years later, I recollect that those Irish riots in
New York over the negro question served as the basis
for some exceedingly heated arguments between an
English friend of mine at Aix-les-Bains and a Catholic

priest living there. The priest sought to justify them,
but his reasonings have escaped me.
At the time of these riots our New York home was
on Twenty-second Street where Stern's shop now
stands. We rented it from the Bryces, Southerners,
who had a coloured coachman, a fact that made our
residence a target for the animosity of our more ignor-
ant neighbours who lived in the rear. The house was
built with a foreign porte-cochere; and, time and again,
small mobs would throng under that porte-cochere,
battering on the door and trying to break in to get the
coachman. The hanging of a negro near St. John's
Chapel was an occasion for rejoicing and festivity, and
the lower class Irish considered it a time for their best
clothes. One hears of and bull-fights.
bear-baiting
But think of the barbarity of all this!
Once, when we went away for a day or two, we left
Times 61
Irish servants in the house and, on returning, I found

that the maids had been wearing my smartest gowns to
view the riots and lynchings. A
common lace collar
was pinned to one ofmy French dresses and I had little
difficulty in getting the waitress to admit that she had
worn it. She explained naively that the riots were
gala occasions, "a great time for the Irish." She
added that she had met my father on the stairs and had
been afraid that he would recognise the dress; but,
although she was penitent enough about "borrowing"
the finery, she did not in the least see anything odd in
her desire to dress up for the tormenting of an unfortu-
nate fellow-creature.
Everybody went about singing Mrs. Howe's Battle
Hymn of the Republic and it was then that I first
learned that the air the simple but rousing little
melody of John Brown's Body was in reality a melody
by Felix Mendelssohn. Martial songs of all kinds

were the order of the day and all more classic music
was relegated to the background for the time being.
It was not until the following winter that public senti-
ment subsided sufficiently for us to really consider
another musical season.
CHAPTER VII
STEPS OF THE LADDER
the three years between my debut and my appear-

IN ance in Faust I sang, in all, a dozen operas:
Rigoletto,Linda, I Puritani, Sonnambula, Ballo in
Maschera, Figlia del Reggimento, Les Noces de Jeannette,
Lucia, Don Giovanni, Poliuto, Marta, and Traviata.
Besides these, I sang a good deal in concert, but I
never cared for either concert or oratorio work as
much as for opera. My real
growth and development
came from big parts in which both musical and dra-
matic accomplishment were necessary.
Like all artists, I look back upon many fluctuations
in my artistic achievements. Sometimes I was good,
and often not so good; and, curiously enough, I was
usually best, according to my friends and critics,
when most dissatisfied with myself. But of one thing
I am fairly confident: I never really went backward,
never seriously retrograded artistically. Each role was

a step further and higher. To each I brought a clearer
vision, a surer touch, a more flexible method, a finer
(how shall I say it in English?) attaque is nearest what
I mean. This I say without vanity, for the artist who
does not grow and improve with each succeeding part
is deteriorating. There is no standing still in any life
work or, if there is, it is the standing still of successful
;
effort, the hard-won tenure of a difficult place from

62
Steps of tKe Ladder 63
which most people slip back. The Red Queen in

Through the Looking Glass expressed it rightly when
she told Alice that "you have to run just as hard as
"
you can to stay w here you are.
r
As Gilda I was laying only the groundwork. My

performance was, I believe, on the right lines. It rang
true. But it was far from what it became in later
years when the English critics found me "the most
beautiful and convincing of all Gildas!" As Linda
I do not think that I showed any great intellectual
improvement over Gilda, but I had acquired a

certain confidence and authority. I sang and acted
with more ease; and for the first time I had gained a
sense of personal responsibility toward, and for, an
audience. When I beheld only three hundred people
in my first-night Boston audience and determined to
win them, and did win them, I came into possession of
new and important factors in my work. This con-
sciousness and earnest will-power to move one's public
by the force of one's art is one of the first steps toward
being a true prima donna.
I Puritani never taught me very much, simply as
an opera. The part was too heavy as my voice was
then, and our production of it was so hurried that I
had not time to spend on it the study which I liked to
give a new role. But in this very fact lay its lesson for
me. The necessity for losing timidity and self-con-
power to fling oneself into a new part
sciousness, the
without time to coddle one's vanity or one's habits
of mind, the impersonal courage needed to attack
these points are of quite as much
fresh difficulties:
importance to a young opera singer as are fine breath

control and a gift for phrasing. Sonnambula, too,
had to be "jumped into" in the same fashion and was
even more of an undertaking, though the role suited
me better and is, in fact, a rarely grateful one. Yet
think of being Amina with only one week's rehears-
ing! Sonnambula was first given by us as a benefit
performance for Brignoli. It was generally understood
to be in the nature of a farewell. Indeed, I think
he said so himself. But, of course, he never had the
slightest idea of really leaving America. He stayed
here until he died. But to his credit be it said that
he never had any more "farewell" appearances. He
did not form the habit.
I have spoken of how hopeless it is for an opera
singer to try to work emotionally or purely on impulse ;
of how futile the merely temperamental artist becomes

on the operatic stage. Yet too much stress cannot
be laid on the importance of feeling what one does and
sings. It is in just this seeming paradox that the
truly professional artist's point of view may be found.
The amateur acts and sings temperamentally. The
trained student gives a finished and correct perform-
ance. It is only a genius or something very near it
who can do both. something balanced and

There is
restrained in a genuine prima donna's brain that keeps

her emotions from running away with her, just as
there is at the same time something equally warm and
inspired in her heart that animates the most clear-cut
of her intellectual work and makes it living and lovely.
Sometimes it is difficult for an experienced artist to
say just where instinct stops and art begins. When
I sang Amina was greatly complimented on
I my
walk and my intonation, both most characteristic of a
somnambulist. I made a point of keeping a strange,
rhythmical, dreamy step likethat of a sleep-walker
and sang as if I were talking in my sleep. I breathed
in a hard, laboured way, and walked with the headlong

yet dragging gait of someone who neither sees, knows,
nor cares where she is going. Now, this effect came
not entirely from calculation nor yet from intuition,
but from a combination of the two. I was in the
mood of somnambulism and acted accordingly. But I
deliberately placed myself in that mood. This only
partly expresses what I wish to say on the subject;
but it is the root of dramatic work as I know it.
The opera of Sonnanibula, incidentally, taught me

one or two things not generally included in stage
essentials. Among others, I had to learn not to be
afraid, physically afraid, or at any rate not to mind
being afraid. In the
sleep-walking scene
Amina,
carrying her candle and robed in white, glides across
the narrow bridge at a perilous height while the watchers
below momentarily expect her to be dashed to pieces
on the rocks underneath. Our bridge used to be set
very high indeed (it was especially lofty in the Philadel-
phia Opera House where we gave the opera a little
later), and I had quite a climb to get up to it at all.
There was a wire strung along the side of the bridge,
but it was not a bit of good to lean on merely a moral
support. I had to carry the candle in one hand and
could n't even hold the other outstretched to balance

myself, for sleep-walkers do not fall! This was the
point that I had
to keep in mind; I could not walk
carefully, but I had to walk with certainty. In a
sense it was suggestive of a hypnotic condition and I
had to get pretty nearly into one myself before I could
do it. At all events, I had to compose myself very
summarily first. Just in the middle of the crossing
the bridge is supposed to crack. Of course the edges
were only broken; but I had to give a sort of "jog"
to carry out the illusion and I used to wonder, the
while I jogged, if I were going over the side that time!
In the wings they used to be quite anxious about me
and would draw a general breath of relief when I was
safely across. Every night I would be asked if I were
sure I wanted to undertake it that night, and every
time I would answer:
"I don't know whether I can!"
But, of always did it. Somehow, one
course, I
always does do one's work on the stage, even if it is

trying to the nerves or a bit dangerous. I have heard
that when Maud Adams put on her big production of
Joan of Arc, her managers objected seriously to having
" "
her lead the mounted battle charge herself. A double
was costumed exactly like her and was ready to mount
Miss Adams's horse at the last moment. But did she
ever give a double a chance to lead her battle charge?
Not she: and no more would any true artist.
Sonnambula also helped fix in my mentality the
traditions of Italian opera; those traditions that my
teachers Muzio particularly had been striving so
hard to impress upon and make real to me. The
school of the older operas, while the greatest school for
singers in the world, is one in which tradition is, and
must be, pre-eminent. In the modern growths, spring-
ing up among us every year, the singer has a chance to
create, to tracenew paths, to take venturesome flights.
The new operas not only permit this, they require it.
But it is a pity to hear a young, imaginative artist try
to interpret some old and classic opera by the light of
his or her modern perceptions. They do not improve
on the material. They only make a combination that
is bizarre and inartistic. This struck me forcibly not
long ago when I heard a young, talented American sing
Muzio
A non giunge, the lovely old aria from the last act of
Sonnambula. The girl had a charming voice and she
sang with musical feeling and taste. But she had not
one "tradition" as we understood the term, and, in
consequence, almost any worn-out, old-school singer
could have rendered the aria more acceptably to trained
ears. Traditions are as necessary to the Bellini operas
as costumes are to Shakespeare's plays. To dispense
with them may be original, but it is bad art. And
yet, while I became duly impressed with the necessity
of the "traditions," during those early performances,
I always tried to avoid following them too servilely or
too artificially. I tried to interpret for myself, within
certain well-defined limits, according to my personal
conception of the characters was personating. The
I
traditions of Italian opera combined with my own

ideals of the lyric heroines, this became my object
and ambition.
The summer after my debut, I went on a concert
tour under Grau's management, but my throat was
tired after the strain and nervous effort of my first
season, and I finally went up to the country for a long
rest. In New Hartford, Connecticut, my mother,
father, and I renewed friendships, and it was
many old
a genuine pleasure to sing again in a small choir, to
attend sewing circles, and to live the every-day life
from which I had been so far removed during my
studies and professional work. People everywhere
were charming to me. Though only nineteen, I was
an acknowledged prima donna, and so received all sorts
of kindly attentions. This was the summer, I believe,
(although it may have been a later one) when Herbert
Witherspoon, then only a boy, determined to become
a professional singer. He has always insisted that
it was my presence and the glamour that surrounded

the stage because of me that finally decided him.
I did not sing again in New York until the January
of 1862. Before that we had a short season on the

road, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places. As
there were then but nine opera houses in America our
itinerary was necessarily somewhat limited. In Novem-
ber of that year I sang in Les Noces de Jeannette, in
Philadelphia, a charming part although not a very
important one. It is a simple little operetta in one act
by Victor Macci. The libretto was
French and I
in
sang it in that language. Pleasing speeches were made

about my French and people wanted to know where I
had studied it I, who had never studied it at all
except at home ! The opera was not long enough for a
fullevening's entertainment, so Miss Hinckley was
put on in the same bill in Donizetti's Betly. The two
went very well together.
The critics found Jeannette a great many surpris-
ing things, "broad," "risque," "typically French,"
and so on. In reality it was innocent enough; but it
must be remembered that this was a day and genera-
tion which found Faust frightfully daring, and Traviata,
so improper that a year's hard effort was required
before could be sung in Brooklyn. I sympathised
it
with one critic, however, who railed against the trans-

lated libretto as sold in the lobby. After stating that
itwas utter nonsense, he added with excellent reason:
"But this was to have been expected. That anyone
connected with an opera house should know enough
about English to make a decent translation into it is,
"
of course, quite out of the question.
It was really funny about Traviata. In 1861 Presi-
dent Chittenden, of the Board of Directors of the
Steps of tHe Ladder 69
Brooklyn Academy of Music, made a sensational speech

arraigning the plot of Traviata, and protesting against
I
its production in Brooklyn on the grounds of propriety,
or, rather, Meetings were held and it

impropriety.
was opera was objectionable.
finally resolved that the
The feeling against it grew into a series of almost
religious ceremonies of protest and, as I have said,
it took Grau a year of hard effort to overcome the
opposition. When, at last, in '62, the opera was given,

I took part; and the audience was all on edge with
excitement. There had been so much talk about it
that the whole town turned out to see why the Directors
had withstood it for a year. Every clergyman within
travelling distance was in the house.
Its dramatic sister Camille was also opposed violently
when Mme. Modjeska played it in Brooklyn in later
years. These facts are amusing in the light of present-
day productions and their morals, or dearth of them.
Salome is, I think, about the only grand opera of recent
times that has been suppressed by a Directors' Meeting.

But in my youth Directors were very tender of their
public's virtuous feelings. When The Black Crook
and the Lydia Thompson troupe first appeared in New
York, people spoke of those comparatively harmless
shows with bated breath and no one dared admit
having actually seen them. The "Lydia Thompson
Blonds" the troupe was called. They did a burlesque
song and dance affair, and wore yellow wigs. Mr.
Brander Matthew's married one of the most popular
and charming of them. I wonder what would have
happened to an audience of that time if a modern,
up-to-date, Broadway musical farce had been presented
to their consideration!
1
The book is founded upon Dumas's La Dame aux Camelias.
At any rate, the much-advertised Traviata was

finally given, being a huge and sensational success.
Probably I did not really understand the character of
Violetta down in the bottom of my heart. Mod-
jeska once said that a woman was only capable of
playing Juliet when she was old enough to be a
grandmother; and if that be true of the young Verona
girl, how much more must it be true of poor Camille.
My interpretation of the Lady of the Camellias must
have been a curiously impersonal one. I know that
when Emma Abbott appeared in it later, the critics
said that she was so afraid of allowing it to be suggestive
that she made it so, whereas I apparently never thought
of that side of it and consequently never forced my
audiences to think of it either.
There are some things accessible to genius that are

beyond the reach of character [wrote one reviewer]. Abbott
expects to make Traviata acceptable very much as she
would make a capon acceptable. She is always afraid of
the words. So she substitutes her own. Kellogg sang
this opera and nobody ever thought of the bad there is in
it. Why? Because Kellogg never thought of it. Abbott
reminds me of a girl of four who weeps for pantalettes on
account of the wickedness of the world !
Violetta's gowns greatly interested me. I liked

surprising the public with new and startling effects.
I argued that Violetta would probably love curious
and exotic combinations, so I dressed her first act in a
gown of rose pink and pale primrose yellow. Odd?
Yes; of course it was odd. But the colour scheme,
bizarre as it was, always looked to my mind and the
minds of other persons altogether enchanting.
A propos of the Violetta gowns, I sang the part

during one season with a tenor whose hands were
always dirty. I found the back of my pretty frocks
becoming grimier and grimier, and greasier and greasier,
and, as I provided my own gowns and had to be eco-
nomical, I finally came to the conclusion that I could
not and would not afford such wholesale and continual
ruin. So I sent my compliments to Monsieur and
asked him please to be extra careful and particular
about washing his hands before the performance as
my dress was very light and delicate, etc., quite a
polite message considering the subject. Politeness,
however, was entirely wasted on him. Back came the
cheery and nonchalant reply:
"All right! Tell her to send me some soap!"
I sent it: and I supplied him with soap for the rest
of the season. This was cheaper than buying new
clothes.
Tenors are queer creatures. Most of them have
their eccentricitiesand the soprano is lucky if these are
innocuous peculiarities. I used to find it in my heart,
for instance, to wish that they did not have such queer
theories as to what sort of food w as good for the voice.
r
Many of them affected garlic. Stigelli usually exhaled

an aroma of lager beer; while the good Mazzoleni
invariably ate from one to two pounds of cheese the
day he was to sing. He said it strengthened his voice.
Brignoli had been long enough in this country to
become partly Americanised, so he never smelled of
anything in particular.
Poliuto by Donizetti was never as brilliant a success
as other operas by the same composer. It is never
given now. The scene of it is laid in Rome, in the days
of the Christian martyrs, and it has some very effective
moments, but for some reason those classic days did
not appeal to the public of our presentation. I do not
believe Quo Vadis would ever have gone then as it did
later. The music of Poliuto was easy and showed off
the voice, like all of Donizetti's music: and the part of
Paulina was exceptionally fine, with splendid oppor-
tunities for dramatic work. The scene where she is
thrown into the Colosseum was particularly effective.
But the American audiences did not seem to be deeply
interested in the fate of Paulina nor in that of
Septimus Severus. The year before my debut in
Rigoletto had rehearsed Paulina and had made

I
something tragically near to a failure of it as I had

not then the physical nor vocal strength for the part.
Indeed, I should never then have been allowed to try
it, and I have always had a suspicion that I was put in
it for the express purpose of proving me a failure.
That was when Muzio decided to "try me out" in the
concert tournee as a sort of preliminary education.
Therefore, one of the most comforting elements of the
final Poliuto production to me was the realisation that
I was appearing, and appearing well, in a part in which
I had rehearsed so very discouragingly such a short
time before. It was a small triumph, perhaps, but it

combined with many other small matters to establish
that sure yet humble confidence which is so essential
to a singer. So far as personal success went, Brignoli
made the hit of Poliuto.
Lucia was never one of my favourite parts, but it
is a singularly grateful one. It has very few bad
moments, and one can attack it without the dread one

sometimes feels for a role containing difficult passages.
Of course Lucia, with her hopeless, weak-minded
love for Edgardo, and her spectacular mad scene,
Clara Louise Kellogg as Lucia
From a photograph by Elliott & Fry
reminded me of my beloved Linda, and there were

many points of similarity in the two operas. I found,
therefore, that Lucia involved much less original

and interpretive work than most of my new parts;
and it was never fatiguing. Being beautifully high,
I liked singing it. My voice, though flexible and of
wide range, always slipped most easily into the far
upper registers. I can recall the positive ache it was
to sing certain parts of Carmen that took me down far
too low for comfort. Sometimes too, I must admit, I
used to "cheat" it. We nearly always opened in
Lucia when we began an opera season. Its success
was never sensational, but invariably safe and sure.
Sometimes managers would be dubious and suggest
some production more startling as a commencement,
but I always had a deep and well-founded faith in
Lucia.
"It never draws a capacity house," I would be told.
"But it never fails to get a fair one. "
" "
never makes a sensation.
It
"But it never gets a bad notice." I would say.
Martha was a light and pleasing part to play.
Vocally it taught me very little little, that is to say,
that I can now recognise, although I am loath to make
such a statement of any role. There are so many
slight and obscure ways in which a part can help one,
almost unconsciously. The point that stands out most
strikingly in recollection of Martha is the rather
my
had in it with regard to realistic acting.
rueful triumph I
Everyone who knows the story of Flotow's opera will
recall that the heroine is horribly bored in the first act.
She is utterly uninterested, utterly blasee, utterly list-

less. Accordingly, so I played the first act. Later
in the opera, when she is in the midst of interesting
happenings and no longer bored, she becomes animated

and eager, quite a different person from the languid
great lady in the beginning. So, also, I played that
part. Here came my triumph, although it was a
left-handed compliment aimed with the intention only
to criticise and to criticise severely. One reviewer said,
the morning after I had first given my careful and
logical interpretation, that "it was a pity Miss Kellogg
had taken so little pains with the first act. She had
played it dully, stupidly, without interest or animation.
Later, however, she brightened up a little and some-
what redeemed our impression of her work as we had
seen in the early part of the evening."
it I felt angry
and hurt about this at the time, yet it pleased me too,
for it was a huge tribute even if the critic did not intend
it to be so.
Although I did sing in Don Giovanni under Grau
that year in Boston, I never really considered it as
belonging to that period. I did so much with this
opera in after years singing both Donna Anna
and Zerlina at various times and winning some of
the most notable praise of my career that I always
instinctively think of it as one of my later and more
mature achievements. I always loved the opera and
feel that an invaluable part of every singer's
it is
education to have appeared in it. The Magic Flute

never seemed to me to be half so genuinely big or so
inspired. In Don Giovanni Mozart gave us his richest
and most complete flower of operatic work. In our
cast were Amodio, whom I had heard with Piccolomini,
and Mme. Medori, my old rival in Linda, who had
recently joined the Grau Company.
All this time the war was going on and our opera
ventures, even at their best, were nothing to what they
Clara Louise Kellogg as Martha
From a photograph by Turner
Steps of tHe Ladder 75
had been in the seemed quite clear

days of peace. It
for a while that the old favourites would not draw
audiences from among the anxious and sorrowing
people. For a big success we needed something novel,
sensational, exceptional.
On the other side of the world people were all talking
of Gounod's new opera the one he had sold for only
twelve hundred dollars, but which had made a wonder-
ful hitboth in Paris and London. It was said to be
startlingly new; and Max Maretzek, in despair over
the many lukewarm successes we had all had, decided
to have a look at the The opera was Faust.
score.
With all my was terrified and appalled when
pride, I
"the Magnificent" came to me and abruptly told me
that I was to create the part of Marguerite in America.
This was a "large order" for a girl of twenty; but I
took my courage in both hands and resolved to make
America proud of me. I was a pioneer when I under-
took Gounod's music and I had no notion of what to do
with it, but my will and my ambition arose to meet
the situation.
Just here, because of its general bearing on the
point, I feel that it is desirable to quote a paragraph

which was written by was he enemy?
my old friend or
many years later when I had won my measure of
success, "Nym Crinkle" (A. C. Wheeler), and which
I have always highly valued :
There is n't a bit of snobbishness about Kellogg's opin-

ions [he wrote]. For a woman who has sung everywhere,
she retains a very wholesome opinion of her own country.
She always seems to me to be trying to win two imperishable
chaplets, one of which is for her country. So you see we
have got to take our little flags and wave them whether
it is the correct thing or not. And, so far as I am concerned,
I think it is the correct thing. . . . She has this tre-
mendous advantage that, when she declares in print that
America can produce its own singers, she is quite capable
of going afterwards upon the stage and proving it !
CHAPTER VIII
MARGUERITE
Miolan-Carvalho created Marguerite in Paris,

MME.
at the Theatre Lyrique. In London Patti and
Titjiens had both sung it before we put it on in
America, Adelina at Covent Garden and Titjiens
at Her Majesty's Opera House, where I was destined to
sing it later. Except for these productions of Faust
across the sea, that opera was still an unexplored field.
I had absolutely nothing to guide me, nothing to help
me, when I began work on it. I, who had been schooled
and trained in "traditions" and their observances
since I had first begun to study, found myself con-
fronted with conditions that had as yet no traditions.
I had to make them for myself.
Maretzek secured the score during the winter of
'62-'63 and then spoke to me about the music. I
worked at the part off and on for nine months, even

while I was singing other parts and taking my summer
vacation. But when the season opened in the autumn
of 1863, the performance was postponed because a
certain reaction had set in on the part of the public.
People were beginning to want some sort of distraction
and relaxation from the horrors and anxieties of war,
and now began to come again to hear the old favourites.
So Maretzek wanted to wait and put off his new
sensation until he really needed it as a drawing card.
77
Then came the news that Anschutz, the German

manager, was about to bring a German company to
the Terrace Garden in New York with a fine repertoire
of grand opera, including Faust. Of course this settled
the question. Maretzek hurried the new opera into
final rehearsal and it was produced at The Academy of
Music on November 25, 1863, when I was very little
more than twenty years old.
Before I myself say anything abouo Faust, in which
I was soon to appear, I want to quote the views of a
leading newspaper of New York after I had appeared.

A brilliant audience assembled last night. The opera
was Faust. Such an audience ought, in figurative lan-
guage, "to raise the roof off" with applause. But with the
clumsily written, uninspired melodies that the solo singers
have to declaim there was the least possible applause.
And this is not the fault of the vocalists, for they tried their
best We except to this charge of dullness the dramatic
love scene where the tolerably broad business concludes the
act. With these facts plain to everyone present we cannot
comprehend the announcement of the success of Faust !
Who was it round with revolu-

said "the world goes
tions"? It is a great truth, whoever said it. Every
new step in art, in progress along any line, has cost
something and has been fought for. Nothing fresh or
good has ever come into existence without a convulsion
of the old, dried-up forms. Beethoven was a revolu-
tionist when he threw aside established musical forms
with the Ninth Symphony; Wagner was a revolutionist
when he contrived impossible intervals of the eleventh
and the thirteenth, and called them for the first time
dissonant harmonies; so, also, was Gounod when he
departed from all accepted operatic forms and institu-
tions in Faust.
Marguerite 79
You who have heard Cari fior upon the hand-organs

in the street, and have whistled the Soldiers' Chorus
while you were in school; who have even grown to
regard the opera of Faust as old-fashioned and of light
weight, must re-focus your glass a bit and look at
Gounod's masterpiece from the point of view of nearly
fifty years ago It was just as startling, just as strange,
!
just as antagonistic to our established musical habit

as Strauss and Debussy and Dukas are to some persons
to-day. What is new must always be strange, and
what strange must, except to a few adventurous

is
souls, prove to be disturbing and, hence, disagreeable.

"
People say "it is different, therefore it must be wrong.
Even as battle, murder, and sudden death are upsetting
to our lives, so Gounod's bold harmonies, sweeping
airs, and curious orchestration were upsetting to the
public ears.
Not the public alone, either. Though from the
first I was attracted and fascinated by the "new
music," it puzzled me vastly. Also, I found it very

difficult to who had been accustomed to
sing. I,
Linda and Gilda and Martha, felt utterly at sea when

I tried to sing what at that time seemed to me the
remarkable intervals of this strange, new, operatic
heroine, Marguerite. In the simple Italian school
one knew approximately what was ahead. A recitative
was a fairly elementary affair. An aria had no un-
expected cadences, led to no striking nor unusual
effects. But in Faust the musical intelligence had an
entirely new task and was exercised quite differently
from in anything that had gone before. This sequence
of notes was a new and unlearned language to me,
which Ihad to master before I could find freedom or
ease. But when once mastered, how the music en-
8o y\n American Prima Donna
chanted me; how it satisfied a thirst that had never

been satisfied by Donizetti or Bellini!
Musically, I
loved the part of Marguerite and I still love it.
Dramatically, I confess to some impatience over the
imbecility of the girl. From the first I summarily
apostrophised her to myself as "a little fool!"
Stupidity is really the keynote of Marguerite's
character. She was not quite a peasant she and her
brother owned their house, showing that they belonged
to the stolid, sound, sheltered burgher class. On the
other hand, she explicitly states to Faust that she
is "not a lady and needs no escort." In short, she
was the ideal victim and was selected as such by
Mephistopheles who, whatever else he may have been,
was a judge of character. Marguerite was an easy
dupe. She was entirely without resisting power. She
was dull, and sweet, and open to flattery. She liked
pretty things, with no more discrimination or taste
than other girls. She was a well-brought-up but
uneducated young person of an ignorant age and of a
stupid class, and innocent to the verge of idiocy.
I used to try and suggest the peasant blood in
Marguerite by little shynesses and awkwardnesses.

After the first meeting with Faust I would slyly
stop and glance back at him with girlish curiosity to
"
see what he looked like. People found this "business
very pretty and convincing, but I understand that I
did not give the typically Teutonic bourgeois impression
as well as Federici, a German soprano who was heard
in America after me. She was of the class of Gretchen,
and doubtless found it easier to act like a peasant
unused to having fine gentlemen speak to her, than
I did.
There was very little general enthusiasm before the

Marguerite 81
production of Faust. There were so few American

musicians then that no one knew nor cared about the
music. Neither was the poem so well read as it was
later. The
public went to the opera houses to hear
popular singers and familiar airs. They had not the
slightest interest in a new opera from an artistic
standpoint.
I had never been allowed to read Goethe's poem
until I began to study Marguerite. But even my
careful mother was obliged to admit that I would have
to familiarise myself with the character before I
interpreted it. It is doubtful, even then, if I entered
fully into the emotional and psychological grasp of the

role. All that part of it was with me entirely mental.
I could seize the complete mental possibilities of a
character and work them out intelligently long before
I had any emotional comprehension of them. As a
case in point, when
sang Gilda I gave a perfectly
I
logical presentation of the character, but I am very

sure that I had not the least notion of what the latter
part of Rigoletto meant. Fear, grief, love, courage,
these were emotions that I could accept and with
which I could work; but I was still too immature to
have much conception of the great sex complications
that underlay the opera that I sang so peacefully.
And I dare say that one reason why I played Mar-
guerite so well was because I was so ridiculously
innocent myself.
Most of the Marguerites whom I have seen make
her too sophisticated, too complicated. The moment
they get off the beaten path, they go to extremes like
Calve and Farrar. very pleasant to be original
It is
and daring in a part, but anything original or daring
in connection with Marguerite is a little like mixing
red pepper with vanilla blanc mange. Nilsson, even,

was too shall I say, knowing? It seems the only
word that fits my meaning. Nilsson was much the
most attractive of all the Marguerites I have ever
seen, yet she was altogether too sophisticated for the
character and for the period, although to-day I suppose
she would be considered quite mild. Lucca was an
absolute little devil in the part. She was, also, one
of the Marguerites who wore black hair. As for
Patti I have' a picture of Adelina as Marguerite in
which she looks like Satan's own daughter, a young
and feminine Mephistopheles to the life. Once I heard
Faust in the Segundo Teatro of Naples with Alice
Neilson, and thought she gave a charming performance.
She was greatly helped by not having to wear a wig.
A wig, however becoming, and no matter how well put
on, does certainly do something strange to the expres-
sion of a woman's face. This was what I had to have
a wig and it was one of the most dreadful difficulties
in my preparations for the great new part.
A wig may sound like a simple requirement. But I
wonder anybody has any idea
if how difficult it was to
get a good wig in those days. Nobody in America
knew how to make one. There was no blond hair over
here and none could be procured, none being for sale.
The poor worn by Mme. Carvalho as Mar-

affair
guerite, illustrates what was then considered a suffi-

cient wig equipment. It is hardly necessary to add
that to my truth-loving soul no effort was too great
to obtain an effect that should be an improvement on
this sort of thing. My own hair was so dark as to
look almost black behind the footlights, and in my mind
there was no doubt that Marguerite must be a blond.
To-day prime donne besides Lucca justify the use of
Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1865
Marg'\ierite 83
their own darklocks notably Mme. Eames and Miss

Farrar but I cannot help suspecting that this comes
chiefly from a wish to be original, to be different at all
costs. There is no real question but that the young
German peasant was fair to the flaxen point. Yet,
though I knew how she should be, I found it was
simpler as a theory than as a fact. I tried powders
light brown powder, yellow powder, finally, gold powder.
The was little, I imagine, but brass filings, and
latter
it gave the best effect of all my early experiments,
looking, so long as itstayed on my hair, very burnished
and sunny. But it turned my scalp green! This
was probably the verdigris from the brass filings in the
stuff. I was frightened enough to dispense entirely
with the whole gold and green effect; after which I
experimented with all the available wigs, in spite of a
popular prejudice against them as immovable. They

were in general composed of hemp rope with about as
much look about them of real hair as Mme. Car-
valho's! I had, finally, to wait until I could get a
wig made in Europe and have it imported. When it
came at last, it was a beauty although my hair

troubles were not entirely over even then. I had so
much hair of my own that all the braiding and pinning
in the world would not eliminate it entirely, and it had
a tendency to stick out in lumps over my head even
under the wig, giving me some remarkable bumps of
phrenological development. I will say that we put
it on pretty well in spite of all difficulties, my mother at
last achieving a way of brushing the hair of the wig
into my own hair and combining the two in such a way
as to let the real hair act as a padding and lining to the
artificial braids. The result was very good, but it was,
I am inclined to believe, more trouble than it was
worth. Wigs were so rare and, as a rule, so ugly in

those days that my big, blond perruque, that cost
nearly $200 (the hair was sold by weight), caused
the greatest sensation. People not infrequently came
behind the scenes and begged to be allowed to examine
it. Artists were not nearly so sacred nor so safe from
the public then. Now, it would be impossible for a
stranger to penetrate to a prima donna's dressing-room
or hotel apartment; but we were constantly assailed
by the admiring, the critical and, above all, the curious.
Of course I did not know what to wear. My old
friend Ella Porter was in Paris at the time and went to
see Carvalho in Marguerite, especially on my account,
and sent me rough drawings of her costumes. I did
not like them very well. I next studied von Kaul-
bach's pictures and those of other German illustrators,
and finally decided on the dress. First, I chose for the
opening act a simple blue and brown frock, such as an
upper-class peasant might wear. Everyone said it
ought to be white, which struck me as singularly out
of place. German girls don't wear frocks that have to
be constantly washed. Not even now do they, and I
am certain they had even less laundry work in the
period of the story. It was said that a white gown in
the first act would symbolise innocence. In the face
of all comment and suggestion, however, I wore the
blue dress trimmed with brown and it looked very well.

Another one of my points was that I did not try to
make Marguerite angelically beautiful.There is no
reason tosuppose that was
she even particularly
pretty. "Henceforth," says Mephisto to the rejuven-
ated Faustus, "you will greet a Helen in every wench
you meet!"
In the church scene I wore grey and, at first, a
Marguerite 85
different shade of grey in the last act; but I changed

this eventually to white because white looked better
when the angels were carrying me up to heaven.
As for the cut of the dresses, I seem to have been
the first person to wear a bodice that fitted below the
waist line like a corset. No living mortal in America
had ever seen such a thing and it became almost as
much of a curiosity aswonderful golden wig. The
my
theatre costumier was horrified. She had never cared
for my innovations in the way of costuming, and her
tradition-loving Latin soul was shocked to the core by

the new and dreadful make-up I proposed to wear as
Marguerite.
"
"I make for Grisi, she declared indignantly, "and
I nevair see like dat!"
Well, I worked and struggled and slaved over every
detail. No
one else did. There was no great effort
made have good scenic
to effects. The lighting was
absurd, and I had to fight for my pot of daisies in the
garden scene. The jewel box I provided myself, and
the jewels. I felt O, how deeply I felt that every-
thing in my life, every note I had sung, every day I had
worked, had been merely preparation for this great and
lovely opera.
Colonel Stebbins, who was anxious, said to Maretzek :
"Don't you think she had better have a German
coach in the part?"
Maretzek, who had been watching me closely all
along, shook his head.
"Let her alone," he said. "Let her do it her own
way."
So the great night came around.
There was no public excitement before the produc-
tion. People knew nothing about the new opera. On
the night of Faust there was a good house because,
first
frankly, the public liked me Nevertheless, in spite of

!
"
"me, the house was a little inanimate. The audience
felt doubtful. was one thing to warm up an old and
It
popular piece but something untried was very different

; !
The public had none of the present-day chivalry toward

the first "try-out" of an opera.
Mazzoleni of the cheese addiction was Faust, and
on that first night he had eaten even more than usual.
In fact, he was still eating cheese when the curtain
went up and munched cheese at intervals all through
the laboratory scene. He was a big Italian with a
voice as big as himself and was, in a measure, one of
Max Maretzek's "finds." "The Magnificent" had
taken an opera company to Havana when first the war
slump came in operatic affairs, and had made with it a
huge success and a wide reputation. Mazzoleni was
one of the leading tenors of that company. He
sang Faust admirably, but dressed it in an atrocious
fashion, looking like a cross between a Jewish rabbi
and a Prussian gene d'arme. Of course, he gave no
idea of the true age of Faust the experienced,
mature point of view showing through the outward
bloom of his artificial youth. Very few Fausts do
give this; and Mazzoleni suggested it rather less than
most of them. But the public was not enlightened
enough to realise the lack.
Biachi was Mephistopheles. He was very good
and sang the Calf of Gold splendidly. Yet that solo,
oddly enough, never "caught on" with our houses.

Biachi was one of the few artists of my day who gave
real thought and attention to the question of costum-
ing. He took his general scheme of dress from Robert

le Diable and improved on it, and looked very well
Marguerite 87
indeed. The woman he afterwards married was our

contralto, a Miss Sulzer, an American, who made an
excellent Siebeland considered her work seriously.
At everyone was stunned by the new treatment.
first
In ordinary, accepted operatic form there were certain

things to be expected; recitatives, andantes, arias,
choruses all neatly laid out according to rule. In
this everything was new, startling, overthrowing all tra-
ditions. About the middle of the evening some of my
friends came behind the scenes to my dressing-room
with blank faces.
"Heavens, Louise," they exclaimed, "what do you

do in this opera anyway? Everyone in the front of
' ' '
the house is asking where 's the prima donna ?

Indeed, an opera in which the heroine has nothing
to do until the third act might well have startled a
public accustomed to the old Italian forms. However,
I assured everyone:
"
Don't worry. You '11 get more than enough of me
before the end of the evening!"
The house was not much stirred until the love
scene. That was breathless. We felt more and more
that we were beginning to "get them."
There were no modern effects of lighting; but a
calcium was thrown on me as I stood by the window,
and I sang my very, As Mazzoleni came up
very best.
to the window and the curtain went down there was a
dead silence.
Not a hand for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long
time when one is waiting on the stage. Time and the
clock itself seemed to stop as we stood there motionless
and breathless. Maretzek had time to get through
the little orchestra door and up on the stage before the
applause came. We were standing as though paralysed,
An American Prima Donna
waiting. We
saw Maretzek's pale, anxious face. The
a second longer then
silence held ;
The house came down. The thunders echoed and

beat about our wondering ears.
"Success!" gasped Maretzek, "success success
"
success!
Yet read what the critics said about it. The musi-
cians picked it to pieces, of course, and so did the
critics, much as the German reviewers did Wagner's
music dramas. The public came, however, packing
the houses to more than their capacity. People paid
seven and eight dollars a seat to hear that opera, an
unheard-of thing in those days when two and three
dollars were considered a very fair price for any enter-
tainment. Furthermore, only the women occupied the
seats on the Faust nights. I speak in a general way,
for there were exceptions. As a rule, however, this

was so, while the men stood up in regiments at the back
of the house. We gave twenty-seven performances of
Faust in one season; seven performances in Boston in
four weeks and I could not help the welcome knowledge
;
that, in addition to the success of the opera itself, I

had scored a big, personal triumph.
As I have mentioned, we took wicked liberties with
the operas, such as introducing the Star Spangled
Banner and similar patriotic songs into the middle of
Italian scores. I have even seen a highly tragic act of
Poliuto put in between the light and cheery scenes of
Martha; and I have myself sung the Venzano waltz at
the end of this same Martha, although the real quartette
that supposed to close the opera is much more
is
beautiful, and the Clara Louise Polka as a finish for

Linda di Chamounix! The Clara Louise Polka was
written for me by my old master, Muzio, and I never
Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1864
From a silhouette by Ida Waugh
Marguerite 89
thought much Nothing could give anyone so

of it.
clear an idea of the universal acceptance of this custom

of interpolation as the following criticism, printed
during our second season :
"The production of Faust last evening by the

Maretzek troupe was excellent indeed. But why, O
why, the eternal Soldiers' Chorus? Why this ever-
lasting, tedious march, when there are so many excellent
band pieces on the market that would fit the occasion
better?"
As a rule the public were quite satisfied with this
chorus. It was whistled and sung all over the country
and never failed to get eager applause. But no part
of the opera ever went so well as the Salve dimora
and the love scene. All the latter part of the gar-
den act went splendidly although nearly everyone was,
or professed to be, shocked by the frankness of the
window episode that closes it. It is a pity those simple-
souled audiences could not have lived to see Miss
Geraldine Farrar draw Faust with her into the house
at the fall of the curtain ! There is, indeed, a place for
all things. Faust is not the place for that sort of
suggestiveness. It is a question, incidentally, whether
any stage production is; but the argument of that is
outside our present point.

Dear Longfellow came to see the first performance
of Faust; and the next day he wrote a charming letter
about it to Mr. James T. Fields of Boston. Said he:
"The Margaret was beautiful. She reminded me of
Dryden's lines :
"
'So pois'd, so gently she descends from high,
"
It seems a soft dismission from the sky.
CHAPTER IX
OPERA COMIQUE
r
"PO most persons "opera comique" means simply
1 comic opera. Ifthey make any distinction at
"
all it is to call it "high-class comic opera. As a matter
of fact, tragedy and comedy are hardly farther apart
in spirit than are the rough and farcical stuff that we
look upon as comic opera nowadays and the charming
old pieces that formed the true "opera comique" some
fiftyyears ago. "Opera bouffe" even is many degrees
below "opera comique." Yet "opera bouffe" is, to
my mind, something infinitely superior and many
steps higher than modern comic opera. So we have
some delicate differentiations to make when we go
investigating in the fields of light dramatic music.
In Paris at the Comique they try to keep the older
distinction in mind when selecting their operas for
production. There are exceptions to this rule, as to
others, for play-houses that specialise; but for the most
part these Paris managers choose operas that are light.
I use the word advisedly. By light I mean, literally,
not heavy. Light music, light drama, does not neces-
sarily mean humorous. It may, on the contrary,
be highly pathetic and charged with sentiment. The
only restriction is that it shall not be expressed in
the stentorian orchestration of a Meyerbeer, nor in the
heart-rending tragedy of a Wagner. In theme and
90
Opera Comique 91
in treatment, in melodies and must be of

in text, it
delicate fibre, something easily seized and swiftly

assimilated, something intimate, perfumed, and agree-
able, with no more harshness of emotion than of
harmony.
Judged by this standard such operas as Martha, La
Boheme, even Carmen possibly, even Werther are not
entirely foreign to the requirements of "opera com-
"
ique. Le Donne Curiose may be considered as an
almost perfect revival and exemplification of the form.
A careful differentiation discovers that humour, a
happy ending, and many rollicking melodies do not at
all make an "opera comique. " These qualities all
belong abundantly to Die Meistersinger and to Verdi's

Falstaff, yet these great operas are no nearer being
examples of genuine "comique" than Les Huguenots
isor G otterdammerung.
It was my good fortune to sing in the space of a
year three delightful roles in "opera comique," each

of which I enjoyed hugely. They were Zerlina in
Fra Diavolo; Rosina in // Barbiere; and Annetta in
Crispino e la Comare. Fra Diavolo was first produced
in Italian in America during the autumn of 1864, the
year after I appeared in Marguerite, and it remained

one of our most popular operas throughout the
season of '65~'66. I loved it and always had a good
time the nights it was given. We put it on for my
"benefit" at the end of the regular winter season at
the Academy. The season closed with the old year
and the "benefit" took place on the 28th of December.
The "benefit" custom was very general in those days.
Everybody had one a year and so I had to have mine,
or, at least, Maretzek thought I had to have it. Fra
Diavolo was his choice for this occasion as I had made
92 .An -American Prima Donna
one of my best successes in the part of Zerlina, and

the opera had been the most liked in our whole reper-
toire with the exception of Faust. Faust had remained
from the beginning our most unconditional success,
our cheval de bataille, and never failed to pack the
house.
I don't know quite why that Fra Diavolo night
stands out so happily and vividly in my memory. I
have had other and more spectacular "benefits"; but
that evening there seemed to be the warmest and most
personal of atmospheres in the old Academy. The
audience was full of friends and, what with the glimpses
I had of these familiar faces and my loads of lovely
flowers and the kindly, intimate enthusiasm that
greeted my appearance, I felt as if I were at a party
and not playing a performance at all. I had to come
out again and again; and finally became so wrought up
that I was nearly in tears.
As a climax I was entirely overcome when I suddenly
turned to find Maretzek standing beside me in the
middle of the stage, smiling at me in a friendly and
encouraging manner. I had not the slightest idea
what his presence there at that moment meant. The
applause stopped instantly. Whereupon "Max the
Magnificent" made a little speech in the quick hush,
saying charming and overwhelming things about the
young girl whose musical beginning he had watched
and who in a few years had reached "a high pinnacle
in the world of art. The young girl" he went on to
say "who at twenty-one was the foremost prima
"
donna of America.
"And now, my dear Miss Kellogg," he wound up
"
with, holding out to me a velvet case, I am instructed
by the stockholders of the Opera Company to hand you
Opera Comiqvie 93
this, to remind you of their admiration and their pride

in you!"
I took the case; and the house cheered and cheered
as I lifted a wonderful flashing diamond brace-
out of it
let and diamond ring. Of course I could n't speak.

I could hardly say "thank you." I just ran off with
eyes and heart overflowing to the wings where my

mother was waiting for me.
The bracelet and the ring are among the dearest
things I possess. Their value to me is much greater
than any money could be, for they symbolise my young
girl's sudden comprehension of the fact that I had made
my countrymen proud of me! That seemed like the

high-water mark; the finest thing that could happen.
Annetta was my second creation. There could
hardly be imagined a greater contrast than she pre-
sented to the part of
Marguerite. Gretchen was
all the virtues in spite of her somewhat spectacular
career; gentleness and sweetness itself. Annetta, the

ballad singer, was quite the opposite. I must say
that I really enjoyed making myself shrewish, sparkling,

and audacious. Perhaps I thus took out in the lighter
roles I sang many of my own suppressed tendencies.
Although I lived such an essentially ungirlish life,
I was, nevertheless, full and

of youthful feeling
high spirits, so, when

was Annetta
I or Zerlina or
Rosina, I had a flying chance to "bubble" just a
little bit. Merriment is one of the finest and most
helpful emotions in the world and I dare say we all
have the possibilities of it in us, one way or another.
But it is a shy sprite and does not readily come to one's
call. I often think that the art, or the ability, on the
stage or off it which makes people truly and inno-
cently gay, is very high in the scale of human import-
ance. Personally, I have never been happier than

when I frolicking through some entirely light-
was
weight opera, full of whims and quirks and laughing
music. I used to feel intimately in touch with the
whole audience then, as though they and I were shar-
ing exquisite secret or delicious joke; and I would
some
reach a point of ease and spontaneity which I have
never achieved in more serious work.
Crispino had made a tremendous hit in Paris the
year before when Malibran had sung Annetta with
brilliant success. It has been sometimes said that
Grisi created the role of Annetta in America; but I
still cling to the claim of that distinction for myself.
The composers of the opera were the Rice brothers.

I do not know any other case where an opera has
of
been written fraternally and it was such a 'highly suc-
;
knew more about the

cessful little opera that I wish I
two men who were responsible for it. All that I
remember clearly is that they both of them knew music
thoroughly and that one of them taught it as a pro-
fession.
Our first Cobbler in Crispino e la Comare ("The
Cobbler and the Fairy") was Rovere, a good Italian
buffo baritone. He was one of those extraordinary
artists whose art grows and increases with time and,
by some law of compensation, comes more and more

to take the place of mere voice. Rovere was in his
prime in 1852 when he sang in America with Mme.
Alboni. Later, when he sang with me, a few of the
New York critics remembered him and knew his work
and agreed that he was "as good as ever." His voice
no. But his art, his method, his delightful manner
these did not deteriorate. On the contrary, they ma-
tured and ripened. Our second Cobbler, Ronconi,
Opera Comiqxie 95
was even more remarkable. He was, I believe, one

of the finest Italian baritones that ever lived, and he
succeeded in getting a degree of genuine high comedy
out of the part that I have never seen surpassed. He
used to tell of himself a story of the time when he was
singing in the Royal Opera of Petersburg. The Czar
father of the one who was murdered said to him once :
"Ronconi, I understand that you are so versatile

that you can express tragedy with one side of your
face when you are singing and comedy with the other.
How do you do it?"
"Your Majesty," rejoined Ronconi, "when I sing
Maria de Rohan to-morrow night I will do myself the
"
honour of showing you.
And, accordingly, the next evening he managed to
turn one side of his face, grim as the Tragic Mask, to
the audience, while the other, which could be seen
from only the Imperial Box, was excessively humorous
and cheerful. The Czar was greatly amused and
delighted with the exhibition.
Once in London, Santley was talking with me about
this great baritone and said :
"Ronconi did something with a phrase in the sex-

tette of Lucia that I have gone to hear many and
many a night. I never could manage to catch it or

comprehend how he gave so much power and expression
to
l'ho-tra-di - ta!
Ronconi was deliciously amusing, also, as the Lord

in Fra Diavolo. He sang it with me the first time it
was ever done here in Italian, when Theodor Habel-
96 .A.n j\merican Prima Donna
mann was our Diavolo. Though he was a round-

faced German, he was so dark of skin and so finely
built that he made up excellently as an Italian; and he
had been thoroughly trained in the splendid school of
German light opera. He was really picturesque, es-
pecially in a wonderful fall he made from one precipice
to another. We were not accustomed to falls on the
stage over here, and had never seen anything like it.
Ronconi sang with me some years later, as well, when
I gave English opera throughout the country, and I
came to know him quite well. He was a man of great
elegance and decorum.
"You know," he said to me once, "I 'm a sly dog
a very sly dog indeed When I sing off the key on the
!
stage or do anything like that, I always turn and look

in an astounded manner at the person singing with me
as if to say 'what on earth did you do that for?' and
the other artist, perfectly innocent, invariably looks
guilty! O, 'm a very sly dog!"
I
Don Pasquale was another of our "opera comique"
ventures, as well as La Dame Blanche and Masaniello.
It was a particularly advantageous choice at the time
because it required neither chorus nor orchestra. We
sang it with nothing but a piano by way of accompani-
ment; which possibly was a particularly useful arrange-
ment for us when we became short of cash, for we
editorially, or, rather, managerially speaking were
rather given in those early seasons to becoming sud-
denly "hard up," especially when to the poor operatic
conditions, engendered spasmodically by the war news,
was added the wet blanket of Lent which, in those
days, was observed most rigidly.
Of the three roles, Zerlina, Rosina, and Annetta,
I always preferred that of Rosina. It was one of
Opera Comiqvie 97
my best music being excellently placed

roles, the
for me. had led the school of "opera
77 Barbiere
comique" for years, but soon, one after the other, the
new operas notably Crispino were hailed as the
legitimate successor of // Barbiere, and their novelty
gave them a drawing power in advance of their rational
value. In addition to my personal liking for the role
of Rosina, I always felt that, although the other
operas were charming in every way, they musically
were not quite in the class with Rossini's masterpiece.
The light and delicate qualities of this form of operatic
art have never been given so perfectly as by him. I
wish // Barbiere were more frequently heard.
Yet I was fond of Fra Diavolo too. I was forever
working at the role of Zerlina or, rather, playing at
it, for the old "opera comique" was never really work
to me. It was all infectious and inspiring; the music
full of melody; the story light and pretty. Many of

the critics said that I ought to specialise in comedy,
cut out my tragic and romantic roles, and attempt
even lighter music and characterisation than Zerlina.
People seemed particularly to enjoy my "going to bed"
scene. They praised my "neatness and daintiness"
and found the whole picture very pretty and attractive.
I used to take off my skirt first, shake it well, hang it on
a nail, then discover a spot and carefully rub it out.
That little bit of "business" always got a laugh I do
not quite know why. Then I would take off my
bodice dreamily as I sang: "To-morrow yes, to-mor-
row I am to be married!"
Si, do-ma-ni, Si, do-ma-ni sa-rem ma-ri-to e moghi,

One night while I was carrying the candle in that
scene a gust of wind from the wings made the flame
gutter badly and a drop of hot grease fell on my hand.
Instinctively I jumped and shook my hand without
thinking what I was doing. There was a perfect gale
of laughter from the house. After that, I always pre-
tended to drop the grease on my hand, always gave the
little jump, and always got my laugh.
As I say, nearly everybody liked that scene. I was

myself so girlish that it never struck anybody as par-
ticularly suggestive or immodest until one night an old

couple from the country came to see the opera and
created a mild sensation by getting up and going out
in the middle ofit. The old man was heard to say, as
he hustled his meek spouse up the aisle of the opera
house :
"Mary, we 'd better get out of this! It may be all

right for city folks, but it 's no place for us. We may
be green; but, by cracky, we 're decent!"
CHAPTER X
ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE SUCCESS
of the affairs that came my way that

ONEyear was pleasant
Morton
Sir Peto's banquet in October.
Sir Morton was adistinguished Englishman who repre-
sented big railway interests in Great Britain and who
was then negotiating some new and important railroad-
ing schemes on this side of the water. There were two
hundred and fifty guests practically everybody present,
;
except my mother and myself, standing for some large

power of the United
financial States. I felt much
complimented at being invited, it was at a period
for
when very great developments were in the making.
America was literally teeming with new projects and
plans and embryonic interests.
The banquet was given at Delmonico's, then at Fifth
Avenue and Fourteenth Street, and the rooms were
gorgeous in their drapings of American and English
flags. The war was about drawing to its close and
patriotism was at white heat. The influential Ameri-
cans were in the mood to wave their banners and to
exchange amenities with foreign potentates. Sir Mor-
ton was a noted capitalist and his banquet was a sort of
"hands across the sea" festival. He used, I recall, to
stop at the Clarendon, now torn down and its site
occupied by a commercial "sky scraper," but then the
smart hostelry of the town.
99
loo .An American Prima Donna
I sang that night after dinner. My services had
not been engaged professionally, so, when Sir Morton
wanted to reward me lavishly, I of course did not care
to have him do so. We were still so new to prime
donne in New York that we had no social code or
precedent to refer to with regard to them; and I pre-
ferred, personally, to keep the episode on a purely
friendly and social basis. I was an invited guest only
who had tried to do her part for the entertainment of
the others. I was honoured, too. It was an expe-
rience to which anyone could look back with pride
and pleasure.
But, being English, Sir Morton Peto had a solution
and, within a day or two, sent me an exquisite pearl
and diamond bracelet. It is odd how much more
delicately and graciously than Americans all foreigners
ofwhatever nationality indeed can relieve a situa-
tion of awkwardness and do the really considerate and
appreciative thing which makes such a situation all
right. I later found the same tactful qualities in the
Duke of Newcastle who, with his family, were among

the closest friends I had in England. Indeed, I was
always much impressed with the good taste of English
men and women in this connection.
An instance of the American fashion befell me during
the winter of '63~'64 on the occasion of a big reception
that was given by the father of Brander Matthews.
I was invited to go and asked to sing, my host saying
that if I would not accept a stipulated price he would
be only too glad to make me a handsome present of

some kind. The occasion turned out to be very unfor-
tunate and unpleasant altogether, both at the time and
with regard to the feeling that grew out of it. I hap-
pened to wear a dress that was nearly new, a handsome
A. Little More Success 101
and expensive gown, and this was completely ruined

by a servant upsetting melted ice cream over it. My
host and hostess were all concern, saying that, as they
were about to go to Paris, they would buy me a new
one. I immediately felt that if they did this, they
would consider the dress as an equivalent for my sing-
ing and that I should never hear anything more of the
handsome present. Of course I said nothing of this,
however, to anyone. Well they went to Paris. Days
and weeks passed. I heard nothing from them about
either dress or present. I went to Europe. They
called on me in Paris. In the course of time we all
came home to America; and the night after my return
I received a long letter and a set of Castilian gold
jewelry, altogether inadequate as an equivalent. There

was nothing to do but to accept it, which I did, and
then proceeded to give away the ornaments as I saw
fit. The whole affair was uncomfortable and a dis-
credit to my entertainers. Not only had I lost a rich
dress through the carelessness of one of their servants,
but I received a very tardy and inadequate recompense
for my singing. I had refused payment in money
because it was the custom to do so. But I was a pro-

fessional singer, and I had been asked to the reception
as a professional entertainer. This, however, I must
add, is the most flagrant case that has ever come under
my personal notice of an American host or hostess
failing to "make good " at the expense of a professional.
Well from time to time after Sir Morton's banquet,
I sang in concert. On one occasion I replaced Euphros-
yne Parepa she had not then married Carl Rosa
at one of the Bateman concerts. The Meyerbeer
craze was then at its height. Good, sound music it
was too, if a little brazen and noisy. L'Etoile du Nord
(I don't understand why we always speak of it as

du Nord when we never once sang it in French)
L'Etoile
had been sung in America by my old idol, Mme. de
la Grange, nearly ten years before I essayed Catarina.
My premiere in the part was given in Philadelphia but;
almost immediately we came back to New York for the

spring opera season and I sang The Star as principal
attraction. Later on I sang it in Boston.
It was always good fun playing in Boston, for the
Harvard boys adored "suping" and we had our extra
men almost without the asking. They were such nice,
clean, enthusiastic chaps! The reason why I remember
them so clearly is that I never can forget how surprised
I was when, in the boat at the end of the first act of
The Star of the North, I chanced to look down and
caught sight of Peter Barlow (now Judge Barlow)
grinning up at me from a point almost underneath me
on the stage, and how I nearly fell out of the boat !
We had finding a satisfactory Pras-

difficulty in
covia. Prascovia is an important soprano part, and
had to be well taken. At last Albites suggested a
pupil of his. This was Minnie Hauck. Prascovia
was sung at our first performance by Mile. Bososio who
was not equal to the part. Minnie Hauck came into
the theatre and sang a song of Meyerbeer's, and we
knew that we had found our Prascovia. Her voice
was very light but pleasing and well-trained, for Albites
was a good teacher. She undoubtedly would add
value to our caste. So she made her debut as Pras-
covia, although she afterwards became better known
to the public as one of the most famous of the early
Carmens. Indeed, many people believed that she
created that role in America although, as a matter of
fact, I sang Carmen several months before she did.
A. Little More Success 103
As Prascovia she and I had a duet together, very

long and elaborate, which we introduced after the tent
scene and which made an immense hit. We always
received many flowers after it I, particularly, to be
quite candid. By this time I was called The Flower
Prima Donna because of the quantities of wonderful
blossoms that were sent to me night after night.
When singing The Star of the North there was one
bouquet that I was sure of getting regularly from a
young man who always sent the same kind of flowers.
I never needed a card on them or on the box to know
from whom they came. Miss Hauck used to help me

pick up my bouquets. The only trouble was that every
one she picked up she kept As a rule I did not object,
!
and, anyway, I might have had difficulty in proving

that she had appropriated my flowers after she had
taken the cards but one night she included in her
off:
general haul my own special, unmistakable bouquet!

I recognised it, saw her take it, but, as there was no
card, had the greatest difficulty in getting it away from
her. I did, though, in the end.
Minnie Hauck was very pushing and took advantage
of everything to forward and help herself. She never
had the least apprehension about the outcome of
anything in which she was engaged and, in this, she
was extremely fortunate, for most persons cursed with
the artistic temperament are too sensitive to feel
confident. She was clever, too. This is another excep-
tion, for very few big singers are clever. I think it is
Mme. Maeterlinck who has made use of the expression
"too clever to sing well." I am convinced that there
is quite a truth in it as well as a sarcasm. Wonderful
voices usually are given to people who are, intrinsically,
more or less nonentities. One cannot have every-
IO4 .A.n American Frima Donna
thing in this world, and people with brains are not

obliged to sing! But Minnie Hauck was a singer and
she was also clever. If I remember rightly, she mar-
ried some scientific foreign baron and lived afterwards
in Lucerne.
Once heard of a soldier who was asked to describe
I
Waterloo and who replied that his whole impression of

the battle consisted of a mental picture of the kind of
button that was on the coat of the man in front of him.
It is so curiously true that one's view of important
events is often a very small one, especially when it
comes to a matter of mere memory. Accordingly, I
find my amethysts are almost my most vivid recollec-
tion in connection with UEtoile du Nord. I wanted a
set of handsome stage jewelry for Catarina.
really
In fact, had been looking for such a set for some
I
time. There are many roles, Violetta for instance,
for which rich jewels are needed. My friends were on
the lookout for me, also, and it was while I was prepar-
ing for The Star of the North that a man I knew came
hurrying in with a wonderful tale of a set of imitation
amethysts that he had discovered, and that were, he

thought, precisely what I was looking for.
"The man who has them," he told me, "bought

them at a bankrupt sale for ninety-six dollars and they
are a regular white elephant to him. Of course, they
are suitable only for the stage and he has been hunting
;
for months for who would buy them.

some actress
You take a look at them, anyhow."
'd better
I had the set sent to me and, promptly, went wild
over it. The stones, that ranged from the size of a
bean to that of a large walnut, appeared to be as
perfect as genuine amethysts, and the setting genuine
soft, old, worked gold was really exquisite. There
.A Little More Success 105
were seventy stones in the whole set, which included a

necklace, a bracelet, a large brooch, ear-rings and a
most gorgeous tiara. The colour of the gems was very
deep and lovely, bordering on a claret tone rather than
violet. The crown was apparently symbolic or sug-
gestive of some great house. It was made of roses,
shamrocks, and thistles, and every piece in the set was

engraved with a small hare's head. I wish I knew
heraldry and could tell to whom the lovely ornaments
had first belonged. Of course I
bought them, paying
one hundred and fifty dollars for the set, which the
man was glad enough to get. I wore it in The Star
and in other operas, and one day I took it down to
Tiffany's to have it cleaned and repaired.
The man there, who knew me, examined it with
interest.
" "
It will cost you one hundred and seventy dollars,
he informed me.
"What!" I gasped. "That is more than the whole
set is worth!"
He looked at me as if he thought I must be a little
crazy.
"Miss Kellogg," he said, "if you think that, I don't
believe you know what you Ve really got. What do
you think this jewelry is really worth?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "What do you think
it is worth?"
" "
"Roughly speaking, he replied, I should say about
six thousand dollars. The workmanship is of great
"
value, and every one of the stones is genuine.
Through all these years, I have been
therefore,
fearful that some Rip Van Winkle claimant might
rise up and take my beloved amethysts away from me !
My general impressions of this period of my life

Io6 A.n American Prima Donna
include those of the two great pianists, Thalberg and
Gottschalk. They were both wonderful, although I
always admired Gottschalk more than the former.
Thalberg had the greater technique; Gottschalk the
greater charm. Sympathetically, the latter musician
was better equipped than the former. The very
simplest thing that Gottschalk played became full of
fascination. Thalberg was marvellously perfect as to
his method; but it was Gottschalk who could "play
the birds off the trees and the heart out of your
"
breast, as the Irish say. Thalberg's work was, if I
may put it so, mental Gottschalk's was temperamental.
;
Gottschalk was one of the first big pianists to come

to New York touring. He was from New Orleans,
having been born there in the French Quarter, and
spoke only French, like so many persons from that
city up to thirty years ago. But he had been educated
abroad and always ranked as a foreign artist. He
must have been a Jew, from his name. Certainly, he
looked like one. He had peculiarly drooping eyelids
and was considered to be very attractive. He wrote
enchanting Spanish-sounding songs; and gave the banjo
quite a little dignity by writing a piece imitating it,
much to my delight, because of my fondness for that
instrument. He was in no way a classical pianist.
Thalberg was. Indeed, they were altogether different
types. Thalberg was nothing like so interesting either
as a personality or as a musician, although he was
much more scholarly than his predecessor. I say pre-
decessor, because Thalberg followed Gottschalk in the

touring proposition. Gottschalk began his work before
I began mine, and I first sang with him in my second
season. He and I figured in the same concerts not
only in those early days but also much later.
Gottschalk
Photograph by Case & Getchell
j\ Little More Success 107
Gottschalk was a gay deceiver and women were

crazy about him. Needless to say, my mother never
let me have anything to do with him except profession-
ally. He was pursued by adoring females wherever

he went and inundated with letters from girls who had
lost their hearts to his exquisite music and magnetic
personality. I shall always remember Gottschalk and
Brignoli comparing their latest love letters from mati-
nee girls. Some poor, silly maiden had written to
Gottschalk asking for a meeting at any place he would
appoint. Said Gottschalk:
"It would be rather fun to make a date with her at
some absurd, impossible place, say a ferry-boat, for
instance."
"Nonsense," said Brignoli, "a ferry-boat is not
romantic enough. She would n't think of coming to a
ferry-boat to meet her ideal!"
"She would come anywhere," declared Gottschalk,
not at all vaingloriously, but as one stating a simple
truth. "I '11 make her come; and you shall come too
and see her do it!"
"Will you bet?" asked Brignoli.
"I certainly will," replied Gottschalk.
They promptly put up quite a large sum of money
and Gottschalk won. That dear, miserable goose of a
girl did go to the ferry-boat to meet the illustrious
pianist of her adoration, and Brignoli was there to see.
If only girls knew as much as I do about the way in
which their stage heroes take their innocent adulation,
and the wicked light-heartedness with which they make
fun of it But they do not and the only way to teach
!
;
them, I suppose, is to let them learn by themselves,

poor little idiots.
As I look back I feel a continual sense of outrage

io8 -A.n American Prima Donna
that I mixed so little with the people and affairs that
were all about me; interesting people and important
affairs. My dear mother adored me. It is strange
that we can never even be adored in the particular
fashion in which we would prefer to be adored! My
mother's way was to guard me eternally; she would
have called it protecting me. But, really, it was a good
deal like shutting me up in a glass case, and it was a
great pity. My mother was an extraordinarily fine
woman, upright as the day and of an unusual mentality.
Uncompromising she was, not unnaturally, according
to her heritage of race and creed and generation. Yet
I sometimes question if she were as uncompromising
as she used to seem to me, for was not the life she led
with me, as well as her acceptance of it in the beginning,
one long compromise between her nature and the
actualities? At any rate, where she seemed to draw
the line was in keeping me as much as possible aloof
from my inevitable associates. I led a deadly dull
and virtuous life, of necessity. To be sure, I might
have been just as virtuous or even more so had I been
left to my own devices and judgments; but I contend
that such a life is not up to much when it is compulsory.

Personal responsibility is necessary to development.
Perhaps I reaped certain benefits from my mother's
close chaperonage. Certainly, if there were benefits
about it, I
reaped them. But I very much question
its ultimate advantage to me, and I confess freely
that one of the things I most regret is the innocent,
normal coquetry which is the birthright of every happy
girl and which I entirely missed. It is all very well to
be carefully guarded and to be made the archetype of
American virtue on the stage, but there is a great deal
of entirely innocuous amusement that I might have
Jane Elizabeth Crosby
Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a tintype
.A Little More Success 109
had and did not have, which I should have been bet-
ter off for having. My mother could hardly let me
hold a friendly conversation with a man much less a
flirtation.
CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE WAR
Civil War was now coming to its close. Abra-

THEham Lincoln was the hero of the day, as he has
been of days since, in America. The White House
all
was besieged with people from all walks of life, persis-

tently anxious to shake hands with the War President,
and he used to have to stand, for incredible lengths of
time, smiling and hand-clasping. But he was ever a
fine economist of energy and he flatly refused to talk.
No one could get out of him more than a smile, a nod,
or possibly a brief word of greeting.
One man made a bet that he would have some sort of
conversation with the President while he was shaking
hands with him.
/'No, you won't," said the man to whom he was
speaking, "I '11 bet you that you won't get more than
two words out of him!"
"I bet I will," said the venturesome one; and he
set off to try his luck.
He went White House reception and, when
to the
his turn came and his hand was in the huge presidential
grasp, he began to talk hastily and volubly, hoping to

elicit some response. Lincoln listened a second, gazing
at him gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then he laid
an enormous hand in a loose, wrinkled white glove
across his back.
no
The End of tKe War in
"Don't dwell!" said he gently to his caller; and

shoved him along, amiably but relentlessly, with the
rest of the line. So the man got only his two words
after all.
One week before the President was murdered I was

in Washington and sat in the exact place in which he
sat when he was shot. It was the same box, the same
chair, and on Friday too, one week to the day and
hour before the tragedy. When I heard the terrible
news I was able to picture exactly what it had been
like. I could see just the jump that Booth must have
had to make to get away. I never knew Wilkes Booth

personally nor saw him act, but I have several times
seen him leaving his theatre after a performance, with
a raft of adoring matinee girls forming a more or less
surreptitous guard afar off. He was a tremendously
popular idol and strikingly handsome. Even after his
wicked crime there were many women who professed a
sort of hysterical sympathy and pity for him. Some-
body has said that there would always be at least one
woman at the death-bed of the worst criminal in the
world if and there were hundreds of
she could get to it ;
the sex who would have been charmed

to watch beside
Booth's, bad as he was and crazy into the bargain.
It isa mysterious thing, the fascination that criminals
have for some people, particularly women. Perhaps
it is fundamentally a respect for accomplishment;
admiration for the doing of something, good or evil,

that they would not dare to do themselves.
We had all gone to Chicago for our spring opera
season and were ready to open, when the tragic tidings
came and shut down summarily upon every prepara-
tion for amusement of any kind. Every city in the
Union went into mourning for the man whom the
1 12 An .American Prima Donna
country idolised of ;
whom so many people spoke as our
"Abraham Lincoln." Perhaps it was because of this
universal and almost personal affection that the authori-
ties did such an odd thing or, at least, it struck me as
odd, with his body. He was taken all over the
country and "lay-in-state," as it is called, in different
court houses in different states.
I was stopping in the Grand Pacific Hotel when the
body was brought to Chicago, and my windows over-

looked the grounds of the Court House of that city.
Business was entirely suspended, not simply for a few
memorial moments as was the case when President
McKinley was killed, but for many hours during the
"lying-in-state." This, however, was probably only
partly official. Everyone was so afraid that he would
not be able to see the dead hero's face that business
men all over the town suspended occupation, closed
shops and offices, and made a pilgrimage to the Court

House. All citizens were permitted to go into the
building and look upon the Martyr President, and
vast numbers availed themselves of the privilege
waited all night, indeed, to claim it. From sunset to
sunrise the grounds were packed with a silent multi-
tude. The only sound to be heard was the shuffling
echo of feet as one person after another went quietly
into the Court House, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, I can
hear it yet. There was not a word uttered. There

was no other sound than the sound of the passing feet.
One thing that must have been official was that, for
quite a long time, not a wheel in the city was allowed
to turn. This was an impressive tribute to a man
whom the whole American nation loved and counted a
friend.
The only diversion in the whole melancholy solem-
The End of tHe War 113
nity of it all was the picking

of pockets. The crowds
were enormous, the people in a mood of sentiment and
off their guard, and the army of crooks did a thriving
business. It is a sickening thing to realise that in all
hours of great national tragedy or terror there will

always be people degenerate enough to take advantage
of the suffering and ruin about them. Burning or
plague-stricken cities have to be put under military
law; and it is said that to the multiplied horrors of the
San Francisco earthquake the people look back with
a shudder to the ghastly system of looting which
prevailed afterwards in the stricken city.
Every imaginable kind of flowers were sent to the
dead President, splendid wreaths and bouquets from
distinguished personages, and many little cheap humble
nosegays from poor people who had loved him even
from afar and wanted to honour him in some simple
way. No man has ever been loved more in his death
than was Abraham Lincoln.
I sent a cross of white camellias. I do not like
camellias when they are sent to me, because they always

seem such heartless, soulless flowers for living people
to wear. But just for that reason, just because they
are the most perfect and the most impersonal of all
flowers that grow and blossom they seem right and
suitable for death. Ever since that time I have asso-
ciated white camellias with the thought of Abraham
Lincoln and with my strange, impressive memory of
those days in Chicago.
However, nations go on even after the beloved
rulers of them are laid in the ground. Our Chicago
season opened soon I in Lucia and everything went
along as though nothing had happened. The only
difference was that the end of the war had made
H4 A.n .American Prima Donna
the nation a little drunk with excitement and our

performances went with a whirl.
Finally the victorious generals, Lieutenant-General
Grant and Major-General Sherman, came to Chicago
as the guests of the city and we gave a gala performance
for them. As the Daughter of the Regiment had been
our choice to inaugurate the commencement of the
great conflict, so the Daughter of the Regiment was also
our choice to commemorate its close. The whole opera
house was gay with flags and flowers and decorations,
and the generals were given the two stage boxes, one
on each side of the house. The audience began to
come in very early; and it was a huge one. The
curtain had not yet risen indeed, I was in my dressing-
room still making-up when I heard the orchestra
break into See the Conquering Hero Comes, and then
the roof nearly came off with the uproar of the people
cheering. I sent to find out what was happening,
and was told that General Grant had just entered his
box. We were ridiculously excited behind the scenes,
all of us; even the foreigners. They were such emo-
tional creatures that they flung themselves into a
mood of general excitement even when it was based
on a patriotism to which they were aliens. The wild
and jubilant state of the audience infected us. I had
felt something of the same emotion in Washington
at the beginning of the war, when we had done Figlia

before, to the frantically enthusiastic houses there.
Yet that was different. Mingled with that feeling
there had been a grimness and pain and apprehen-
sion. Now everyone was triumphant and happy and
emotionally exultant.
General Sherman came into his box early in the
first act and the orchestra had to stop while the house
TKe End of the War 115
cheered him, and cheered again. Sherman was always

just a bit theatrical and loved applause, and he, with
his staff, stood bowing and smiling and bowing and
smiling. The whole proceeding took almost the form

of a great military reception. As I look back at it, I
think one of the moments of the evening was created
by our basso, Susini. Susini himself a soldier of
courage and experience, a veteran of the Italian
rebellion made walked forward, stood,
his entrance,
faced one General after the other and saluted each
with the most military exactness. They were
both plainly delighted while the house, in the mood
;
to be moved by little touches, broke into the heartiest

applause.
I had a moment of triumph also when we sang the
Rataplan, rataplan. Since the early hit I had made
with my drum I always played it as the Daughter of
the Regiment, and when we came to this scene I directed
the drum first toward one box and then toward the
other, as I gave the rolling salute. The audience went
mad again; and again the orchestra had to stop until
the clapping and the hurrahs had subsided. It may
not have been a great operatic performance but it was
a great evening! Such moments written about after-
wards in cold words lose their thrill. They bring up
no pictures except to those who have lived them.
But on a night such as that, one's heart seems like a
musical instrument, wonderfully played upon.
Between the acts the two distinguished officers
came behind the scenes and were introduced to the
artists, making pleasant speeches to us all. Immedi-
ately, I liked best the personality of General Grant.
There was nothing the least spectacular or egotistical
about him; he was absolutely simple and quiet and
u6 An .American Prima Donna
unaffected. He bewildered me by apologising cour-

teously for not being able to shake hands with me.
"You have had an accident to your hand!" I ex-
claimed.
"Not exactly an accident," he said, smiling. "I
think may
I call it
design!"
He explained that he had shaken hands with so
many people that he could not use his right hand for
a while. He held it out for me to see and, sure enough,
it was terribly swollen and inflamed and must have
been very painful.
The great evening came to an end at last. We were
not sorry on the whole for, thrilling as it had been, it
had been also very tiring. I wonder if such mad,
national excitement could come to people to-day? I
cannot quite imagine an opera performance being

conducted on similar lines in the Metropolitan Opera
House. Perhaps, however, it is not because we are
less enthusiastic but because our events are less
dramatic.
In recalling General Sherman I find myself thinking
of him chiefly in the later years of my acquaintance
with him. After that Chicago night, he never failed
to look me up when I sang in any city where he was
and we grew to be good friends. He was always quite
enthusiastic about operatic music; much more so than
General Grant. He confided to me once that above
all songs he especially disliked Marching through
Georgia, that, naturally, was the song he was con-
and
stantly obliged to listen to. People, of course, thought
it must be, or ought to be, his favourite melody. But
he hated the tune as well as the words. He was
desperately tired of the song and, above all, he detested
what it stood for, and what it forced him to recall.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1877
The End of the War 117
Like nearly all great soldiers, Sherman was naturally

a gentle person and saddened by war. Everything
connected with fighting brought to him chiefly the
recollection of its horrors and tragedies and always
filled him with pain. So it was that his real heart's
preference was for such simple, old-fashioned, planta-
tion-evoking, country-smelling airs as The Little Old
Log Cabin in the Lane. One day during his many
visits to our home he asked me to sing this and, when
I informed him that I could not because I did not know
and did not have the words, he said he would send
them to me. This he did; and I took pains after that
never to forget his preference.
de lit - - in de lane.
In tie old log cab in
One night when I was singing in a concert in Wash-

ington, I caught sight of him sitting quietly in the
audience. He did not even know that I had seen him.
Presently the audience wanted an encore and, as was
my custom in concerts, I went to the piano to play my
own accompaniment. I turned and, meeting the
General's eyes, smiled at him. Then I sang his
beloved Old Log Cabin. My

Little reward was his
beaming expression of appreciation. He was easily
touched by such little personal tributes.
"Why on earth did you sing that queer old song,
"
Louise, someone asked me when I was back behind
the scenes again.
"It was an official request," I replied mysteriously.
The end of the war was a strenuous time for the
Ii8 A.n American Prima Donna
nation; and for actors and singers among others. The
combination of work and excitement sent me up to
New Hartford in sore need of my summer's rest. But
I think, of all the many diverse impressions which that
spring made upon my memory, the one that I still

carry with me most unforgetably, is a sound: the
sound of those shuffling feet, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle,
in the Court House grounds in Chicago: a sound like
a great sea or forest in a wind as the people of the
nation went in to look at their President whom they
loved and who was dead.
CHAPTER XII
AND SO TO ENGLAND !
following season was one of concerts and not

THEremarkably enjoyable. In retrospect I see but a
hurried jumble of work until our decision, in the spring,
to go to England.
For two or three years I had wanted to try my wings
on the other side of the world. Several matters had
interfered and made it temporarily impossible, chiefly
an unfortunate business agreement into which I had
entered at the very outset of my professional career.
During the second season that I sang, an impresario, a
Jew named Ulman, had made me an offer to go abroad
and sing in Paris and elsewhere. Being very eager to
forge ahead, it seemed like a satisfactory arrangement,
and I signed a contract binding myself to sing under
Ulman's management if I went abroad any time in
three years. When I came to think it over, I regretted
this arrangement exceedingly. I felt that the impre-
sario was not the best one for me. To say the least,
I came to doubt his ability. At any rate, because of
this complication, I voluntarily tied myself up to Max
Maretzek for several years and felt it a release as now
I could not tour under Ulman even if I cared to. By
1867, however, Ulman contract had expired and I
my
was free to do as I pleased. I had no contract abroad
to be sure, nor any very definite prospects, but I deter-
119
I2O A.n American Prima Donna
mined to go to England on a chance and see what

developed. At any rate I should have the advantage
of being able to consult foreign teachers and to improve
my method. The uncertainties of my professional

outlook did not disturb me in the least. Indeed, what
I really wanted was, like any other girl, to go abroad,
as the gentleman in the old-fashioned ballad says :
... to go abroad;
To go strange countries for to see!
I greatly enjoyed the voyage as I have enjoyed every

voyage that I have made since, even including the
channel crossing when everyone else on board was
seasick, and also the one in which I was nearly ship-
wrecked off the Irish coast. I have crossed the Atlantic
between sixty and seventy times and every trip has
given me pleasure of one kind or another. I am never
nervous when travelling. Like poor Jack, I have a
vague but sure conviction that nothing will happen
to me; that I am protected by "a sweet little cherub
that sits up aloft!"
At Queenstown, where we touched before going on to

our regular port of Liverpool, a man came on board
asking for Miss Clara Louise Kellogg. He was from
Jarrett, the agent for Colonel Mapleson who was then
impresario of "Her Majesty's Opera" in London, and
he brought me word that Mapleson wanted me to call
on him as soon as I reached London and, until we could
definitely arrange matters, to please give him the refusal
of myself, if I may so express it. Perhaps I was n't a
proud and happy girl! Mapleson, I heard later, was
then believed to be on the verge of failure and it was
hoped that my appearance in his company would
revive his fortunes. I grew afterwards cordially to
And So To England 121
detest and to distrust him, and we had more troubles

than I can or care to keep track of: and, as for Jarrett,
he was a most unpleasant creature with a positive
genius for making trouble. But on that day in Queens-
town harbour, with the sun shining and the little
Irish fisher boats their patched sails streaming into
the blue off-shore distance, the man Jarrett had sent
to meet me on behalf of Colonel Mapleson seemed like
a herald of great good cheer.
When we reached London we went to Miss Edward's
Hotel in Hanover Square. It was a curious institution,
distinctive of its day and generation, a real old-fash-
ioned English hotel, behind streets that were "chained-
up" after nightfall. It was called a "private hotel"
and unquestionably was one; deadly dull, but main-
tained in the most aristocratic way imaginable, like a
formal, pluperfect, private house where one might
chance to be invited to visit. Everyone dined in his
own sitting-room, which was usually separated from
the bedroom, and never a soul but the servants was
seen. The Langham was the first London hotel to
introduce the American style of hotel and it, with its
successors, have had such an influence upon the other
hostelries of London as gradually to undermine the
quaint, old, truly English places we used to know, until
there are no more "private hotels" like Miss Edward's
in existence.
We had friends in London and quickly made others.
Commodore McVickar, of the New York Yacht Club,
had given me a letter to a friend of his, the Dowager
Duchess of Somerset. Her cards, by the way, were
engraved in just the opposite fashion "Duchess Dow-
ager." McVickar told me that, if she liked, she
could make things very pleasant for me in London.
It appeared that she was something of a lion hunter
and was always on the lookout for celebrities either
arriving or arrived. She went in for everything
foreign to her own immediate circle art, intellect, and
Americans chiefly Americans, in fact, because they
were more or less of a novelty, and she had the thirst
for change in her so strongly developed that she ought
to have lived at the present time. Every night of her
lifeshe gave dinners to hosts of friends and acquaint-
ances. Indeed, it is a fact that her sole interest in
life consisted of giving dinner parties and making
collections of lions, great and small. I have been told
that after dinner she sometimes danced the Spanish

fandango toward the end of the evening. I never
happened to see her do it, but I quite believe her to
have been capable of that or of anything else vivacious
and eccentric, although she was seventy or eighty in
the shade and not entirely built for dancing.
I was somewhat impressed by the prospect of meet-
ing a real live Duchess, and had to be coached before-

hand. In the early part of the eighteenth century
the mode of address "Your Grace" was used exclu-
sively, and very pretty and courtly it must have
sounded. Nowadays it is only servants or inferiors
who think of using it. Plain "Duke" or "Duchess"
is the later form. At the period of which Iam writing
the custom was just betwixt and between, in transition,
and I was duly instructed to say "Your Grace," but
cautioned to say it very seldom !
On the nineteenth of November, Colonel Stebbins

and I went to call. Maria, Dowager Duchess of
Somerset lived in Park Lane in a house of indifferent
aspect. Its distinctive feature was the formidable
number of flunkeys ranged on the steps and standing
Henry G. Stebbins
From a photograph by Grillet & Co.
in front, all inpowdered wigs and white silk stockings

and wearing waistcoats of a shade carrying out the
dominant colour of the ducal coat of arms. It was
raining hard when we got there, but not one of these
gorgeous functionaries would demean himself suffi-
ciently to carry an umbrella down to our carriage. In
the drawing-room we had to wait a long time before a
sort of gilt-edged Groom of the Chambers came to
the door and announced,
"Her Grace, the Duchess!"
My youthful American soul was prepared
for some-
one quite dazzling, a magnificent presence. What is
the use of diadems and coronets if the owner does not
wear them? Of course I knew, theoretically, that
duchesses did not wear their coronets in the middle of
the day, but I did nevertheless hope for something
brilliant or impressive.
Then in walked Maria, Dowager Duchess of Somer-
set. I cannot adequately describe her. She was a
little, dumpy, old woman with no corsets, and dressed
in a black alpaca gown and prunella shoes those
awful things that the present generation are lucky
enough never to have even seen. She furthermore
wore a fichu of a style which had been entirely extinct
for fifty years at least. I really do not know how
there happened to be anyone living even then who could
or would make such things for her. No modern
modiste could have achieved them and survived. Her
whole appearance was certainly beyond words. But
she had very beautiful hands, and when she spoke,
the great lady was heard instantly. It was all there,
of course, only curiously costumed, not to say disguised.
After Colonel Stebbins had presented me and she
had greeted me kindly, he said :
"
I am sure Miss Kellogg will be glad to sing for you. "
"
"O, said Her Grace, carelessly, "I haven't a
piano. I don't play or sing and so I don't need one.
"
But I get one in.
'11
I was amazed at the idea of a Duchess not owning a
piano and having to hire one when, in America, most

middle-class homes possess one at whatever sacrifice,
and every little girl is expected to take music lessons
whether she has any ability or not. Even yet I do not
quite understand how she managed without a piano
for her musical lions to play on.
She did get one in without delay and
was speedily I
invited to come and sing. I thought I would pay a
particular compliment to my English hostess on that

occasion by choosing a song the words of which were
written by England's Poet Laureate,
so I provided
myself with the lovely setting of Tears, Idle Tears;
music written by an American, W. H. Cook by name,
who besides being a composer of music possessed a
charming tenor voice. In my innocence I thought
this choice would make a hit. Imagine my surprise
therefore when my hostess's comment on the text was :
"Very pretty words. Who wrote them?"

"Why," I stammered, "Tennyson."
"Indeed? And, my dear Miss Kellogg, who was
Tennyson?"
Almost immediately after Colonel Stebbins bought
her a handsome set of the Poet Laureate's works with
which she expressed herself as hugely pleased, although
I am personally doubtful if she ever opened a single
volume.
She did not forget the Tears, Idle Tears episode,
however, and had the wit and good humour often to
refer to it afterwards and, usually, quite aptly. One
of her most charming notes to me touches on it grace-

fully. She was a great letter- writer and her epistles,
couched in flowery terms and embellished with huge
capitals of the olden style, are treasures in their way:
"... I know all I feel; and the Tears (not idle
Tears) that overflow when I read about that Charming
and Illustrious 'glorious Queen' . . . who is winning
allhearts and delighting everyone ..."
Another letter, one which I think is a particularly
interesting specimen of the Victorian style of letter-
writing, runs:
...I read with great delight the "critique" of you

in The London Review, which your Mamma was good
enough to send me. The Writer is evidently a man of
highly Cultivated Mind, capable of appreciating Excellency
and Genius, and like the experienced Lapidary knows a
pearl and a Diamond when he has the good fortune to fall
in the way of one of high, pure first Water, and great
brilliancy. Even you must now feel you have captivated
the "elite" of the British Public, and taken root in the
country, deep, deep, deep. . . .
My mother and I used often to go to see the Duchess

and, through her met many pleasant English people;
the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Susan
Vane-Tempest who was Newcastle's sister, Lord Dud-
ley, Lord Stanley, Lord Derby, Viscountess Comber-
mere, Prince de la Tour D'Auvergne, the French Am-
bassador, I cannot begin to remember them all
and I came really to like the quaint little old Duchess,

who was always most charming to me. One small
incident struck me as pathetic, at least, it was half
pathetic and half amusing. One day she told me with
impressive pride that she was going to show me one
126 .An .American Prixna Donna
of her dearest possessions, "a wonderful tablemade

from a great American treasure presented to her by
"
her dear friend, Commodore McVickar. She led me
over to it and tenderly withdrew the cover, revealing
to my amazement a piece of rough, cheap, Indian
beadwork, such as all who crossed from Niagara to
Canada in those days were familiar with. It was about
as much like the genuine and beautiful beadwork of
the older tribes as the tawdry American imitations are
like true Japanese textures and curios. This poor speci-
men the Duchess had had made into a table-top and
covered it with glass mounted in a gilt frame, and had
given it a place of honour in her reception room. I
suppose Mr. McVickar had sent it to her to give her a
rough general idea of what Indian work looked like.
I cannot believe that he intended to play a joke on her.
She was certainly very proud of it and, so far as I
know, nobody ever had the heart to disillusion her.
More than once I encountered in England this
incongruous and inappropriate valuation of American
things. I do not put it down to a general admiration
for us but, on the contrary, to the fact that the English
were so utterly and incredibly ignorant with regard to
us. The beadwork of the Duchess reminds me of
another somewhat similar incident.
At that time there were only two really rich bachelors
in New York society, Wright Sandford and William
Douglass. Willie Douglass was of Scotch descent and

sang very pleasingly. Women went wild over him.
He had a yacht that won everything in sight. While
we were in London, he and his yacht put in an appear-
ance at Cowes and he asked us down to pay him a visit.
It was a delightful experience. The Earl of Harring-
ton's country seat was not far away and the Earl with
came on board to ask the yacht's party to

his daughters
luncheon the day following. Of course we all went
and, equally of course, we had a wonderful time.
Lunch was a deliciously informal affair. At one stage
of the proceedings, somebody wanted more soda
water, when young Lord Petersham, Harrington's
eldest son, jumped up to fetch it himself. He rushed
across the room and flung open, with an air of triumph,
the door of a common, wooden ice-box, the sort kept
in the pantry or outside the kitchen door by Americans.
"Look!" he cried, "did you ever see anything so
splendid? It 's our American refrigerator and the joy
of our lives ! I suppose you Ve seen one before, Miss
Kellogg?"
I explained rather feebly that I had, although not
in a dining-room. But the family assured me that
a dining-room was the proper place for it. I have
seldom seen anything so heart-rendingly incongruous
as that plain ugly article of furniture in that dining-
room all carved woodwork, family silver, and armorial
bearings !
They were dear people and my heart went out to

them more completely than to any of my London
friends. soon discovered why.
I
"You are the most cordial English people I 've met

yet," I said to Lady Philippa Stanhope, the Earl's
charming daughter. Her eyes twinkled.

"Oh, we're not English," she explained, "we're
Irish!"
Yet even if I did not find the Londoners quite so
congenial, I did like them. I could not have helped it,
they were so courteous to my mother and me. Probably

they supposed us to have Indians in our back-yards
at home; nevertheless they were always courteous, at
times cordial. One of the most charming of. the

Englishwomen I met was the Viscountess Comber-
mere. She was one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, a
very vivacious woman, and used to keep dinner tables

in gales of laughter. Just then when anyone in London
wanted to introduce or excuse an innovation, he or she
would exclaim, "the Queen does it!" and there would
be nothing more for anyone to say. This became a
sort of catch- word. I recall one afternoon at the Dow-
ager Duchess of Somerset's, a cup of hot tea was handed

to the Viscountess who, pouring the liquid from the
cup into the saucer and then sipping it from the saucer,
said:
"Now ladies, do not think this is rude, for I have
just come from the Queen and saw her do the same.
Let us emulate the Queen!" Then, seeing us hesitate,
"the Queen does it, ladies! the Queen does it!"
Whereupon everyone present drank tea from their
saucers.
It was the Viscountess, also, who so greatly amused
my mother at a luncheon party by saying to her with
the most polite interest :
"You speak English remarkably well, Mrs. Kellogg!

Do they speak English in America?"
"Yes, a little," replied mother, quietly.
CHAPTER XIII
AT HER MAJESTY'S
A DELINA PATTI came to see us at once. I had

** known her in America when she was singing
with her sister and when, if the truth must be told,
many people found Carlotta the more satisfactory
singer of the two. I was glad to see her again even
though we were prime donne of rival opera organisa-

tions. Adelina headed the list of artists at Covent
Garden under Mr. Gye, among whom were some of the
biggest names in Europe. Indeed, I found myself
confronted with the competition of several favourites
of the English people. At my own theatre, Her
Majesty's, was Mme. Titjiens, always much beloved
in England and still a fine artist. Christine Nilsson
was also a member of the company; had sung there
earlier in that year and was to sing there again later
in the season.
A
tour de force of Adelina's was old friend Linda
my
di Chamounix. She was supposed to be very brilliant
in the part, especially in the Cavatina of the first act.
As for Margueriteit was considered her private and
particular property at Covent Garden, and Nilsson's
private and particular property at Her Majesty's.

I have been often asked my opinion of Patti's voice.
She had a beautiful voice that, in her early days, was

very high, and she is, on the whole, quite the most
9 129
130 ,A.n American Prima Donna
remarkable singer that I ever heard. But her voice
has not been a high one for many years. It has
changed, changed in pitch and register. It is no
longer a soprano; it is a mezzo and must be judged by
quite different standards. I heard her when she sang
over here in America thirteen years ago. She gave her

old Cavatina from Linda and sang the whole of it a
tone and a half lower than formerly. While the public
did not know what the trouble was, they could not help
perceiving the lack of brilliancy. Ah, those who have
heard her in only the last fifteen years or so know
nothing at all about Patti's voice! Yet it was always
a light voice, although I doubt if the world realised the
fact. She was always desperately afraid of overstrain-
ing it, and so was Maurice Strakosch for her. She
never could sing more than three times in a week and,
of those three, one role at least had to be very light.
A great deal is heard about the wonderful preservation
of Patti's voice. It was wonderfully preserved thir-
teen years ago. How could it have been otherwise,
considering the care she has always taken of herself?
Such a life !
Everything divided off carefully according
to regime: so much to eat, so far to walk, so long to
sleep, justsuch and such things to do and no others!
And, above all, she has allowed herself few emotions.
Every singer knows that emotions are what exhaust

and injure the voice. She never acted; and she never,
never felt. As Violetta she did express some slight
emotion, to be sure. Her Gran Dio in the last act
was sung with something like passion, at least with
more passion than she ever sang anything else. Yes:
in La Traviaia, after she had run away with Nicolini,
she did succeed in putting an unusual amount of
warmth into the role of Violetta.
Adelina Patti
From a photograph by Fredericks
At Her Majesty's 131
But her great success was always due to her wonder-

ful voice. Her acting was essentially mechanical. As
an intelligent actress, a creator of parts, or even as an
interesting personality, she could never approach Chris-
tine Nilsson. Nilsson had both originality and mag-
netism, a combination irresistibly captivating. Her
singing was the embodiment of dramatic expression.
In September of that year we went down to Edin-
burgh to see the ruins of Melrose Abbey. To confess
the truth, Iremember just two things clearly about
Scotland. One was that, at the ruins, Colonel Stebbins
picked up a piece of crumbling stone, spoke of the
strange effect of age upon it, and let it drop. Around
turned the showman, or guide, or whatever the person
was called who crammed the sights down our throats.
"You Americans are the curse of the country!" he
exclaimed sharply.
My other distinct memory with associations off
much discomfort and annoyance is that I left one

rubber overshoe in Loch Lomond.
So much for Scotland. We did not stay long; and
were soon back in London ready for work.
Our rehearsals were rather fun. It seemed strange
to be able to walk across a stage without getting the
hem of one's skirt dirty. English theatres are incredi-
bly cleanwhen one considers what a dirty, sooty,
grimy town London is. Our opera was at the old
Drury Lane, although we always called it Her Ma-
jesty's because that was the name of the opera
company. I was amused to find that a member of the
company, a big young basso named "Signer Foli,"
turned out to be none other than Walter Foley, a boy
from my old home in the Hartford region. I always
called him "the Irish Italian from Connecticut."
132 v\n American Prima Donna
We opened on November 2d in Faust. There was

rather a flurry of indignation that a young American
Prima donna should dare to plunge into Marguerite
the very first thing. The fact
that the young American
had sung it before other artists had, with the exception
of Patti and Titjiens, and that she was generally
believed to know something about it, mattered not at
all. English people are acknowledged idolaters and
notoriously cold to newcomers. They cling to some
imperishable memory of a poor soul whose voice
has been dead for years: and it was undoubtedly an
inversion of this same loyalty to their favourites that
made them so dislike the idea of Marguerite being
selected for the new young woman's debut. But,
really, though on a slightly different scale, it was not so
unlike the early days of Linda over again when the
Italians accused me with so much animosity of taking
the bread out of their mouths. It can easily be believed
that, with Nilsson holding all records of Marguerite
at Her Majesty's, and with Adelina waiting at Covent
Garden with murderous sweetness to see what I
was going to do with her favourite role, I was wretch-
edly nervous. When the first night came around no
one had a good word for me; everybody was indiffer-
ent; and I honestly do not know what I should have
done if it had not been for Santley dear, big-hearted
Santley. He was our Valentine, that one, great,
incomparable Valentine for whom Gounod wrote
the Dio possente. I was walking rather shakily
across the stage for my first entrance, feeling utterly
frightened and lonely, and looking, I dare say, nearly
as miserable as I felt, when a warm, strong hand was
laid gently on my shoulder.
"Courage, little one, courage," said Santley, smiling

at me and patting me as if I had been a very small,

unhappy, frightened child.
I smiled back at him and, suddenly, I felt strong
and hopeful and brave again. Onto the stage I went
with a curiously sure feeling that I was going to do well
after all.
suppose I must have done well. There was a

I
packed house and very soon I felt it with me. I was

called out many times, once in the middle of the act
after the church scene, an occurrence that was so far
as I know unprecedented. Colonel Keppel, the Prince
of Wales's aide (I did not dream then how well-known
the name Keppel was destined to be in connection with
that of his royal master), came behind during the
entr'acte to congratulate me on behalf of the Prince.
In later performances his Highness did me the honour
of coming himself. The London newspapers of
which, frankly, had stood
I in great dread had
delightful things to say. This is the way in which one
of them welcomed me: "... She has only one fault:
if she were but English, she would be simply perfect!"
The editorial comments in The Athen&um of Chorley,
that gorgon of English criticism, included the following
paragraph :
Miss Kellogg has a voice, indeed, that leaves little to

wish for, and proves by her use of it that her studies have
been both assiduous and in the right path. She is, in fact,
though so young, a thoroughly accomplished singer in
the school, at any rate, toward which the music of M.
Gounod consistently leans, and which essential!}' differs
from the florid school of Rossini and the Italians before
Verdi. One of the great charms of her singing is her
perfect enunciation of the words she has to utter. She
never sacrifices sense to sound; but fits the verbal text to
134 -An .American Prima Donna
the music, as if she attached equal importance to each.

Of the Italian language she seems to be a thorough mistress,
and we may well believe that she speaks it both fluently
and These manifest advantages, added to a
correctly.
graceful figure,a countenance full of intelligence, and
undoubted dramatic ability, make up a sum of attractions
to be envied, and easily explain the interest excited by
Miss Kellogg at the outset and maintained by her to the
end.
But, oh, how grateful I was to that good Santley for

giving the little boost to my courage at just the right
moment! He wasalways a fine friend, as well as a
fine singer. I admired him from the bottom of my
heart, both as an artist and a man, and not only for

what he was but also for what he had grown from.
He was only a ship-chandler's clerk in the beginning.
Indeed, he was in the office of a friend of mine in
Liverpool. From that he rose to the foremost rank of
musical art. Yet that friend of mine never took
the least interest in Santley, nor was he ever will-
ing to recognise Santley's standing. Merely be-
cause he had once held so inferior a position this man
I knew and he was not a bad sort of man otherwise
was always intolerant and incredulous of Santley's
and would never even go to hear him sing. It
success
is true that Santley never did entirely shake off the
influences of his early environment, a characteristic to
be remarked in many men of his nationality. In
addition to this, some men are so sincere and simple-
hearted and earnest that they do not take kindly to
artificial environment and I think Santley was one
of these. And he was a dear man, and kind. His
wife, a relative of Fanny Kemble, I never knew very
well as she was a good deal of an invalid.
Clara Louise Kellogg as Linda, 1868
From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co.
On the Qth we repeated Faust and on the nth we

gave Traviata. This also, I feel sure, must have
irritated Adelina. a curious little fact that, while
It is
the opera of Traviata was not only allowed but also
greatly liked in London, the play La Dame aux Ca-
millas which as we all know is practically the Traviata
libretto had been rigorously banned by the English
censor! Traviata brought me more curtain calls than
ever. The British public was really growing to like
me!
Martha followed on the I5th. This was another
role in which I had to challenge comparison with
Nilsson, who was fond of it, although I never liked her

classic style in the part. It was given in Italian; but
I sang TJie Last Rose of Summer in English, like a
ballad, and the people loved it. I wore a blue satin
gown as Martha which, alas! I lost in the theatre

fire not long after.
Then came Linda di Chamounix, the second role that
I had ever sung. I was glad to sing it again, and in
England, and the newspapers spoke of it as "a great
and crowning success" for me. As soon as we had
given this opera, Gye, the impresario at Covent Gar-
den, decided it was time to show off Patti in that
role. So he promptly hastily, even revived Linda
for her. I have always felt, however, that Linda
was tacitly given to me by the public. Arditi, our
conductor at Her Majesty's, wrote a waltz for me
to sing at the close of the opera, The Kellogg Waltz,
and I wore a charming new costume in the part, a
simple little yellow gown, with a blue moire silk apron
and tiny pale pink roses. The combination of pink
and yellow was always a favourite one with me. I wore
it in my early appearance as Violetta and, later,
also in Tmviata, I wore a variant of the same colour

scheme that was called by my friends in London my
"rainbow frock." It was composed of a grosgrain
silk petticoat of the hue known as apricot, trimmed
with mauve and pale turquoise shades; the overskirt
was caught back at either side with a turquoise bow
and the train was of plain turquoise. I took a serious
interest in my costumes in those days and, indeed,
in all days! This latter gown was one of Worth's
creations and met with much admiration. More than
once have I received letters asking where itwas made.
The English public was most cordial and kindly
toward me and unfailingly appreciative of my work.
But Ibelieve from the bottom of my heart that,
inherently and permanently, the English are an un-
musical people. They do not like fire, nor passion,
nor great moments in either life nor art. Mozart's
music, that runs peacefully and simply along, pre- is
cisely what suits them best. They adore it. They

likewise adore Rossini and Handel. They think that
the crashing emotional climaxes of the more advanced
composers are extravagant; and, both by instinct and
principle, they dislike the immoderate and the extreme
in all things. They are in fact a simple and primitive
people, temperamentally, actually, and artistically. I
remember that the first year I was in London all the
women were singing:
My mother bids me bind my hair

And lace my bodice blue!
It wandered along so sweetly and mildly, not to say

insipidly, that of course it was popular with Victorian
England.
.At Her Majesty's 137
Finally, came Don Giovanni on December 3d. I
played Zerlina as I had done in America. Later

I came prefer Donna Anna.
to But in London
Titjiens did Donna Anna. Santley was the Alma-
viva and Mme. Sinico was the Donna Elvira.
The following spring when we gave our "all star cast"
Nilsson was the Elvira. I had no Zerlina cos-
tume with me and the decision to put on the opera

was made in a hurry, so I got out my old Rosina
dress and wore it and it answered the purpose every
bit as well as if I had had a new one.
The opera went splendidly, so splendidly that, two
days later, on the 5th, we gave it again at a matinee,
or, as it was the fashion to say then, a "morning
performance." The success was repeated. I caught

a most terrible cold, however, and returned in a bad
temper to Miss Edward's Hotel to nurse myself for a
few days and get in condition for the next performance.
But there was destined to be no next performance at
the old Drury Lane.
The following evening at about half-past ten, my
mother, Colonel Stebbins, and I were talking in our
sitting-room with the window-shades up. Suddenly
I saw a red glow over the roofs of the houses and pointed
it out.
"It 's a fire!" I exclaimed.
"And it 's in the direction of the theatre!" said
Colonel Stebbins.
"Oh, I -hope that Her Majesty's is in no danger!"
cried my mother.
We first that it could be the theatre
did not think at
itself, but Colonel Stebbins sent his valet off in a hurry
to make enquiries. While he was gone a messenger
arrived in great haste from the Duchess of Somerset
asking for assurances of my safety. Then came other

messages from friends all over London and soon the
man servant returned to confirm the reports that

were reaching us. Her Majesty's had caught fire from
the carpenter's shop underneath the stage and, before
morning, had burned to the ground.
Arditi had been holding an orchestra rehearsal there
at the time and the last piece of music ever played in
the old theatre was The Kellogg Waltz.
Mr. McHenry
CHAPTER XIV
ACROSS THE CHANNEL
had smelled smoke and she had been told

TITJIENS
that it was nothingbut shavings that were being
burned. Luckily, nobody was hurt and, although
some of our costumes were lost, we artists did not
suffer so very much after all. But of course our
season was summarily put an end to and we all scat-
tered for work and play until the spring season when
Mapleson would want us back.
My mother and I went across to Paris without
delay. I had wanted to see "the Continent" since
I was a child and I must say that, in my heart of
hearts, I almost welcomed the fire that set me free to go

sightseeing and adventuring after the slavery of dress-
ing-rooms and rehearsals. Crossing the Channel I
was the heroine of the boat because, while I was just a
little seasick, I was not enough so to give in to it. I
can remember forcing myself to sit up and walk about
and even talk with a grim and savage feeling that I
would die rather than admit myself beaten by a silly
and disgusting malaise like that; and after crossing the
ocean with impunity too. Everyone else on board was
abjectly ill and I expect it was partly pride that kept
me well.
In Paris we went first to the Louvre Hotel where we
were nearly frozen to death. As soon as we could, we
139
moved rooms where we might thaw out and

into
become almost warm, although we never found the
temperature really comfortable the whole time we
lived in French houses. We saw any number of plays,
visited cathedrals and picture galleries, and bought
clothes. In fact we did all the regulation things, for
we were determined to make the most of every minute
of our holiday. Rather oddly, one of the entertain-
ments I remember most
distinctly was a production
of Gulliver's Travels at the Theatre Chatelet. It was
the dullest play in the world but the scenery and effects
;
were splendid.
I was not particularly enthusiastic over the French
theatres. Indeed, I found them very limited and
disappointing. I had gone to France expecting every
theatrical performance in Paris to be a revelation.
Probably I respect French art as much as any one but;
I believe it is looked up to a great deal more than is
justified. Consider Mme. Carvalho's wig for example,

and, as for that, her costume as well. Yet we all
turned to the Parisians as authority for the theatre.
The pictures of the first distinguished Marguerite
give a fine idea of the French stage effects in the
sixties. A few years ago
I heard Tannhduser in Paris.
The manner which the pilgrims wandered in con-

in
vinced me in my opinion. The whole management
was inefficient and Wagner's injunctions were disre-
garded at every few bars. The French Gallicise every-
thing. They simply cannot get inside the mental
point of view of any other country. Though they are
popularly considered to be so facile and adaptable,
they are in truth the most obstinate, one-idead, single-
sided race on earth barring none except, possibly, the
Italians. Gounod's Faust is a good example a Ger-
.Across tHe Channel 141
man by Frenchmen. Remarkably little

story treated
that Teutonic has been left in it. Goethe has been
is
eliminated so far as possible. The French were held

by the drama, but the poetry and the symbolism meant
nothing at all to them. Being German, they had no
use for its poetry and its symbolism. The French
colour and alter foreign thought just as they colour
and alter foreign phraseology. They do it in a way
more subtle than any usual difficulties of translation
from one tongue to another. The process is more a
form of transmuting than of translating words,
thoughts, actions into another element entirely. How
idiotic it sounds when Hamlet sings:
Eire ou n'etre pas!
Perhaps this, not entirely the fault of the

however, is
French. Shakespeare should never be set to music.

There is also the question of traditions. I may
seem to be contradicting myself when I find fault with
a certain French school for its blind and bigoted
adherence to traditions; but there should be modera-
tion in all things and a hidebound rigidity in stupid
old forms is just as inartistic as a free-and-easy elas-
ticity in flighty new ones. It is possible to put some
old wine in new bottles, but it must be poured in very
gently. French artists learn most when once they get
away from France. Maurel is a good example. Look
at the way he grew and developed when he went to
England and America and was allowed to work problems
and ideas out by himself.
Once when in Paris I wanted to vary and freshen my
costume of Marguerite, give it a new yet consistent
touch here and there. I was not planning to renovate
the role, only the girl's clothes. Having always felt
142 An American Frixna Donna
that the Grand Opera was a Mecca to us artists from
afar, I hastened there and climbed up the huge stair-
way to pay my respects to the Director. Monsieur
had never heard of me. Frenchmen make a point
never to have heard of any one outside of France. The
fact that I was merely the first and the most famous
Marguerite across the sea did not count. He was,
however, very polite. He brought out his wonderful
costume books that were full of new ideas to me and
delighted me with numberless fresh possibilities. I
saw unexplored fields in the direction of correct cos-
tuming and exclaimed over the designs, Monsieur
watching my enthusiasm with bored civility. There
was one particularly enchanting design for a silver
chatelaine, heavy and mediaeval in character. I could
see with my mind's eye hanging from Marguerite's
it
bodice. This I said to M. le Directeur: but he shook

his dignified head with a frown.
"Too rich. Marguerite was too poor, " he said with
weary brevity.
"Oh, no!" I explained volubly and eagerly, "she
was of the well-to-do class the burghers don't you
remember? Marguerite and Valentine owned their
house and, though they were of course of peasant blood,
this sort of chatelaine seems to me just the thing that
"
any German might possess.
girl
"Too rich," Monsieur put in imperturbably.
"But," I protested, "it might be an heirloom, you
know, and
"Too rich," he repeated politely; and he added in a
calm, dreamy voice as he shut up the book, "I think
that Mademoiselle will make a mistake if she ever tries
anything new!"
As for sightseeing in France, my mother and I did
Across tHe Channel 143
any amount of it on that first visit. Sometimes I was

charmed but more often I was disillusioned. There
"
have been few "sights in my life that have come up to
my "great expectations" or been half as wonderful as
my dreams. This is the penalty of a too vivid imagina-
tion; nothing can ever be as perfect as one's fancy
paints it. The view of Mont Blanc from the terrace
of Voltaire's house near the borderland of France and
Switzerland is one of the few in my experience that I
have found more lovely than I could have dreamed it to
be. Of all the palaces that I have been in and they
have numbered several the only one that ever seemed
to me like a real palace was Fontainebleau. Small
but exquisite, it looked like a haven of rest and loveli-
ness, as though its motto might well be: "How to be
happy though a crowned head!"
Speaking of crowned heads reminds me that while
we were in Paris Mr. McHenry, our English friend
from Holland Park, made an appointment for me to be
presented to the ex-Queen of Spain, the Bourbon prin-
cess, Christina, so beloved by many Spaniards. I was
delighted because I had never been presented to royalty

and a Spanish queen seemed a very splendid sort of
personage even if she did not happen to be ruling at
the moment. Christina had withdrawn from Spain
and had married the Duke de Rienzares. They lived
in a beautiful palace on the Champs Elysees. There
are nothing but shops on the site now but it used to
be very imposing, especially the formal entrance which,
if I remember correctly, was off the Rue St. Honore.
Mrs. and Mr. McHenry went with me and, after
being admitted, we were shown up a marble staircase
into what was called the Cameo Room, a small, austere
apartment filled with cameos of the Bourbons. Queen
144 -A.n American Prima Donna
Christina liked to live in small and unpretentious
rooms; they seemed less suggestive of a palace.
I found that "royalty at home" was about as simple
as anything could conceivably be; not quite as plain
as the old Dowager Duchess of Somerset to be sure
but quite plain enough. The Queen and the Duke de
Rienzares entered without ceremony. The Queen wore
a severe and simple black gown that cleared the floor
by an inch or two. It was a perfectly practical and
useful dress,admirably suited for housekeeping or
tidying up a room. Around the royal lady's shoulders
hung a little red plaid shawl such as no American
would wear. She was Spanishly dark and her black
hair was pulled into a knot about the size of a silver
dollar in the middle of the back of her head. I have
never seen her en grande toilette and so do not know
whether or not she ever looked any less like a respectable
housekeeper. She had a delightful manner and was
most gracious. She had, with all the Bourbon pride,
also the Bourbon gift of making herself pleasant
and of putting people at their ease. Of course she
was immensely accomplished and spoke Italian as
perfectly as she did Spanish. The Duke seemed
harmless and amiable. He had little to say, was
thoroughly subordinate, and seemed entirely acclimated
to his position in life as the ordinarily born husband
of a Queen.
Our visit was not much of an ordeal after all. It
was really quite instinctively that I courtesied and
backed out of the room and observed the other points
of etiquette that are correct when one is introduced to
royalty. As it was a private presentation, it had not

been thought necessary to coach me, and as I backed
myself out of the august presence, keeping myself as
Across tKe CKannel 145
nearly as possible in a courtesying attitude, I caught

Mr. McHenry looking at me with amused approval.
"Well," said he, when we were safe in the hall and I
had straightened up, "I should say that you had been
accustomed to courts and crowned heads all your life!
You acted as if you had been brought up on it!"
"Ah," I replied, "that comes from my opera train-
ing. We learn on the stage how to treat kings and
"
queens.
Not more than a fortnight after this I had an offer
for an engagement at the Madrid Opera for $400.00 a
night, very good for Spain in those days. I suppose
that it came indirectly through the influence of Queen

Christina. I wanted to go to Spain, but my mother
would not let me
accept. We were almost pioneers of
travel in the modern sense and had no one to give us
authoritative ideas of other countries. People alarmed
us about the climate, declaring it unhealthy; and
about the public, which they said was capricious and
rude. The warning about the public particularly
frightened me. I should never object to my efforts
being received in silence in case of disapproval, but I

felt that I could not survive what I had been told was
the Spanish custom of hissing. I was also told that
Spanish audiences were very mercurial and difficult to

win. So we refused the Madrid Opera offer, and
I have never sung in either Spain or Italy principally
because of my dread of the hissing habit.
That same year I heard Christine Nilsson for the
first time, in Martha at the Theatre Lyrique and, later,
in Hamlet at the same theatre with Faure. Shortly

after both Nilsson and Faure were taken over by the
Grand Opera. Ophelie had been written for Nilsson
and composed entirely around her voice. She created
146 -An .American Prima Donna
the part, singing it exquisitely, and Ambrose Thomas

paid her the compliment of taking his two principal
soprano melodies from old Swedish folk-songs. Nilsson
could sing Swedish melodies in a way to drive one
crazy or break one's heart. I have been quite carried
away with them again and again. There was one
delicious song that she called Le Bal in which a young
fellow asks a girl to dance and she is very shy. It was
slight, but ever so pretty, and it had a minor melody

that was typically northern. These were the good
days before her voice became impaired. In this con-
nection I may mention that it was Christine Nilsson who,
having heard the Goodwin girls sing Way Down upon the
Swanee River, first introduced it on the stage as an encore.
While speaking of Nilsson, I want to record that
I was present on the night, much later, when she
practically murdered the high register of her voice.

She had five upper notes the quality of which was
unlike any other I ever heard and that possessed a
peculiar charm. The tragedy happened during a
performance of The Magic Flute in London and I was
in the Newcastles' box, which was near the stage.
Nilsson was the Queen of the Night, one of her most
successful early roles. The second aria in The Magic
Flute is more famous and less difficult than the first
aria and, also, more effective. Nilsson knew well the
ineffectiveness of the ending of the first aria in the two
weakest notes of a soprano's voice, Anatural and B
fiat. I never could understand why a master like
Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did.
There is no climax to the song. One has to climb up
hard and fast and then stop short in the middle. It is
an appalling thing to do and that night Nilsson took
:
those two notes at the last in chest tones.

Christine Nilsson as Queen of the Night
From a photograph by Pierre Petit
.Across tKe CHanrxel 147
"Great heavens!" I gasped, "what is she doing?
What is the woman thinking of!"

Of course I knew she was doing it to get volume and
vibration and to give that trying climax some character.
But to say that it was a fatal attempt is to put it
mildly. She absolutely killed a certain quality in her
voice there and then and she never recovered it. Even
that night she had to cut out the second great aria.
Her beautiful high notes were gone for ever. Probably
the fatality was the result of the last stroke to a con-
tinued strain which she had put upon her voice. After
that she, like Mario, began to be dramatic to make up
for what she had lost. She, the classical and cold
artist, became full of expression and animation. But
the later Nilsson was very different from the Nilsson
whom heard in Paris during the winter of 1868,
I first
when, besides singing the music perfectly, she was,

with her blond hair and broad brow, a living Ophelie.
As I have said, Faure, the baritone, was her Hamlet
in that early performance. He was
a great artist, a
great actor in whatever role His voice was
he took.
not wonderful, but he was saved, and more than saved,
by his style and his art. He was a particularly culti-
vated, musicianly man whose dignity of carriage and
elegance of manner could easily make people forget a
certain ungrateful quality in his voice. It was Faure
who had the brains and perseverance to learn how to
sing a particular note from a really bad singer. The
bad singer had only one good note in his voice and
that happened to be the worst one in Faure's. So,
night after night, the great artist went to hear and to
study the inferior one to try and learn how he got
that note. And he succeeded, too. This is a fair
sample of his careful and finished way of doing any-
thing. He was a big artist, and to big artists, espe-

cially in singing, music is almost mathematical in its
exactness.
Adelina Patti, who had also left London for the
winter, was singing at the Italiens in Paris. I went
to hear her give an indifferent performance of Ernani.
It was never one of her advantageous roles. Adelina
had a most extraordinary charm and a great power
over men of very diverse sorts. De Caux, Nicolini,
Maurice Strakosch, who married Adelina's sister
Amelia, all adored her and felt that whatever she did
must be right because she did it. Nicolini, who had
been a star tenor singing all over Italy before she
captured him, was willing to forget that he ever had a
wife or children. Maurice was for years her "manager
and representative, " and as such put up with incredible
complexities in the situation. There is a long and lurid
tale about Nicolini's wife appearing in Italy when
Nicolini, Maurice, and Adelina were all there. The
story ended with Nicolini being kicked downstairs
and the press commented upon the episode with an
apt couplet from Schiller to the effect that "life is
hard, but merry is art!"
The names of Paris and of Maurice Strakosch in
conjunction conjure up the thought of Napoleon III,
who, in his young days of exile, used to be very intimate
with Maurice. Louis Napoleon, after he had escaped
from the fortress of Ham, spent some time in London,
and he and Maurice frequently lunched or dined
together. By the way, some years later, at a dinner
at the McHenrys' in Holland Park, I was told by
Chevalier Wyckoff that it was he who rescued Napoleon
from the prison of Ham by smuggling clothes in to him
and by having a boat waiting for him. Maurice used
Across tHe CHannel 149
to tell of one rather amusing incident that occurred

during the London period. Louis Napoleon's dress
clothes were usually in pawn, and one night when he
wanted to go to some party, he presented himself at
Maurice's rooms to borrow his. Maurice was out;
but nevertheless Louis Napoleon took the dress clothes
anyway, adding all of Maurice's orders and decorations.
When he was decked out to his satisfaction he went to
the party. Shortly after, in came Maurice, to dress
for the same party, and called to his valet to bring him
his evening clothes.
"Mr. Bonaparte's got 'em on, sir," said the man:
and Maurice stayed at home!
Napoleon III was a man of many weaknesses. Yet
he kept his promises and remembered his friends
when he could. As soon as he became Emperor he
sent for Maurice Strakosch and offered him the manage-
ment of the Italiens; but Maurice declined the honour.
He was too busy "representing" Patti in those days
to care any other engagement. He did give
for
singing to the Empress Eugenie however,

lessons
and was always on good terms with her and with the
Emperor.
When I was in Paris in '68 Napoleon and Eugenie
were in power at the Tuileries and day after day I saw
them driving behind their splendid horses. Paris was
extremely gay and yet somewhat ominous, for there
was a wide-spread feeling that clouds were gathering
about the throne. When thinking of that period I
sometimes quote to myself Owen Meredith's poem,
Aux Italiens,
At Paris it was at the opera there . . .

The Emperor there in his box of state
Looked grave, as if he had just then seen
The red flag wave from the city gate,
Where his eagles in bronze had been.
Tuileries court was a very brilliant one and we

The
were accustomed to splendid costumes and gorgeous
turnouts in the Bois, but one day I came home with
a particularly excited description of the "foreign prin-
cess" I had seen. Her clothes, her horses (she drove
postilion), her carriage, her liveries, her servants, all,
to my innocent and still ignorant mind, proclaimed her

some distinguished visiting royalty. How chagrined
I was and how I was laughed at when my "princess"
turned out to be one of the best known demi-mondaines
in Paris! Even then it was difficult to tell the two
mondes apart.
A
unique character in Paris was Dr. Evans, dentist
to the Emperor and Empress. He was an American
and a witty, talented man. I remember hearing him
laughingly boast :
"I have looked down the mouth of every crowned

head of Europe!"
When
disaster overtook the Bonapartes, he proved
that he could serve crowned heads in other ways
besides It was he who helped the
filling their teeth.
Empress to escape, and the fact made him an exile

from Paris. He came to see me in London years after-
wards and told me something of that dark and dramatic
time of flight. He felt very homesick for Paris, which
had been his home for so long, but the dear man was
as merry and charming as ever.
We spent in all only a short time in Paris. Two
months were taken out of the middle of that winter
Across tKe GHannel 151
for travelling on the Continent, after which we returned

to the French city for March. When we first started
from Paris on our trip we were headed for Nice. It
was Christmas Day, and cold as charity. Why did
we choose that day of all others on which to begin a
journey? Our Christmas dinner consisted of cold soup
swallowed at a station. Christmas! I could have
wept !
CHAPTER XV
MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT
seemed very odd to be really idle. From the

IT time I was thirteen I had been working and study-
ing so systematically that to get the habit of leisure

was like learning a new and a difficult lesson. It
took time, for one thing, to find out how to relax;
nervous persons never acquire this art naturally nor
possess it instinctively. It is with them the artificial
product of painful experience. All my life I had been

expending energy at top pressure and building it up
again as fast as I could instead of sometimes letting it
lie fallow for a bit. When I became exhausted my
mother would speedily make strong broths with rice
and meat and vegetables and anything else that she
considered nourishing to stimulate my jaded vitality;
then I would go at my work again harder than ever.
When I had finished one thing I plunged, nerves,
body, and brain, into another. To be an artist is bad

enough; but to be an American artist To the
!
temperamental excitability and intensity is added the

racial nervousness; and lucky are such if they do not
go up in a final smoke of over-energised effort. When

I was singing I was always in a fever before the curtain
rose. day before I was restless to the point of
All the
desperation. Instead of letting myself go and becom-
ing comfortably limp so that I might conserve my

152
First Holiday on tKe Continent 153
strength for the performance itself, I would cast about

for a hundred secondary ways in which to waste my
nervous force. I was nearly as bad as the Viennese
prima donna, Marie Willt. The story is told of her
that a reporter from a Vienna newspaper went to inter-
view her the afternoon before she was to sing in II
Travatore at the Royal Opera and enquired of the
scrubwoman in the hall where he could find Frau
Willt.
"Here," responded the scrubwoman, sitting up to
eye him calmly.
When the young man expressed surprise and in-
credulity she explained, as she continued to mop the

soapy water, that she invariably scrubbed the floor
the day she was going to sing. "It keeps me busy,"
she concluded sententiously.
Think of the force that went into that scrubbing-
brush which might have gone into the part of Leo-
nora! But it is not for me to find fault with such a
course of action because I followed a very similar one.
If I did not exactly scrub floors, I did, somehow,
contrive to find other equally adequate ways of dissi-
pating strength before I sang. Yet here I was,
my
actually taking a holiday, with no chance at all to work
even if I wanted to!
When we arrived in Nice the lemons and oranges on
the trees and a sky as blue as painted china made the
place seem to me somewhat unnatural, like a stage
setting. Not yet having learned my lesson of relaxa-
tion, Isoon became restless and wanted to be again on
the move. Nevertheless we stayed there for nearly a
month. My mother seemed to like it. She made
many friends and spent hours every day painting little
pictures quite dear little pictures they were of the
bright coloured wild flowers that grew roundabout.

But possibly a few extracts from the diary kept by
my mother of this visit will not be out of place here.
The capital letters and italics are hers.
Dec. 25 Christmas morning. Sun shone for two hours.

Left for Nice. Arrived at 5 P.M. A very cold night.
Cars warmed by zink hollow planks [boxes] filled with
Boiling water which are replaced every three hours at the
different stations. Notwithstanding shawls and wraps
suffered with the cold. Nothing to eat until we arrived
at twelve at Marseilles, where [we] got a poor, cold soup
and miserable cup of tea. Arrived at the Hotel Luxem-
bourg in Nice at 6.30 P.M. The city and hotels crowded
with people from all parts of the world. Rheumatic people
rush here to get into the sunshine a thing seldom seen in
Paris or London in winter. Nice is simply a watering-
place without the water, unless one means the Sea Mediter-
ranean which almost rushes into the Halls of the Hotels.
All languages are here spoken therefore
;
no trouble for any
nation to obtain what it desires. The streets are pulver-
ised magnesia. Everybody looks after walking as though
they had been to mill "turning hopper."
In our promenade [to-day, Dec. 27] we meet in less than
twenty minutes as many different nationalities, or repre-
sentatives of each. Poor in soil, poor in colour, poor in
taste is The Hotels compose the City. Roses
Nice.
bloom by the roadsides in abundance. The gardens of the
Hotels are yellow with Oranges. Palm trees line the streets,
none of which have shade trees that ever grow enough to
shade but one person at a time no soil no vigour sun
does all the maturing. Things ripen from necessity, not
from the soil.
Saturday 28 Clear beautiful morning. Beach covered
with promenaders. At twelve Louise and I took a long
walk towards Villa Franca sun very hot met Richard
Palmer who had just arrived. Enjoyed the morning;
were refreshed by our walk. Mr. Stebbins and Charlie

called. Drive at 5. Evening had a light wood fire upon
the hearth, making rooms and hearts cheerful in direct
opposition to the roaring of the wild sea at our very feet.
Proprietor of Hotel sent up his Piano for Louise. Basket
Phaetons 2 ponies are hired here for one franc an hour
fine woods but dusty.
sgth. Sunday Magnificent morning. The sea smooth

as glass. Women line the beach spreading clothes to bleach.
There is a short diluted Season of Italian Opera here.
Ernani was announced for last evening. There is no odor
from the Mediterranean, no sea weeds, no shells, a perfectly
clean barren beach. I don't believe it is even salt. Shall
go and sip to satisfy Yankee curiosity. There are two
Irish heiresses here whose combined weight in gold is 9000
Ibs., and the way the nobs and snobs tiptoe, bow, and
scrape something to behold. They are always dressed

is
alike. We
are cold enough to have a small wood fire
morning and evening in a very primitive style fireplace 18
inches square. Handirons made of 2 cast iron virgins'
heads and busts. Bellows thrown in.
One P.M. Took a double Pony Basket Phaeton, Louise
and I on the front seat, she driving a grey and bay pony.
Drove to Villa Franca where the American fleet is anchored.
Saw the old flag once more, which brought home most
vividly to my heart and roused the old longing for the dear
old spot.
joth. No letters. No news of trunks. The Monoto-
nous sea singing Hush at measured intervals, not one wave
even an inch higher than another. This cannot be a real
sea,the Mediterranean, or it -would sometime change its tone.
Yesterday rode through the old Italian part of the City.
Houses 6 or 7 stories high. Streets just wide enough for a
donkey cart to get through. Never can pass each other.
One has to back out.
Tuesday ji. Took our usual walk. Listened to the
band in the Public Gardens. This is a poor, barren country.
I believe the plates are licked by the inhabitants instead of
the dogs. This place is too poor for them. The only good
conditioned looking people here are the priests. They are
bursting with inward satisfaction and joy. When in Paris
lastOctober we heard of a most wonderful pair of earrings
that had been presented to Adelina Patti by a Gent who
glided under the name of Khalil Bey, worth Millions!
When in Paris again in December there was a great stir
about the Private Picture Gallery of a very wealthy man
who had met with severe and great losses at the gaming
table. Our friends tried to obtain admission for us to see
them, but through some slip we failed. Upon our arrival
in Nice, one day there was great confusion and agitation
among the Eager. Servants were standing in corners and
evidence of something was very vivid. Finally the mystery
was solved. And we learned that a great Prince had
arrived from St. Petersburg. A Turk! Who was sharing
our fate (the order of things is all reversed in Nice. You
commence life there by beginning at the top and working
your way down) and taken rooms on the 6th floor, accom-
panied by 2 servants, one especially to take care of the Pipe.
His name is Khalil Bey about 50 years old a hard,
Chinese, cast-iron face run when the iron was very hot
sinking well into the mould one eye almost blind short
small feet he seemed to commence to grow at the feet
and grew bigger and wider as he went up.
jrd. He moves in the best "society" over here has
his Box
at the Opera tells frankly his losses at cards so
many million francs is a man of influence even among a cer-
tain class and that far above mediocre. Met him at an even-
ing entertainment. Found him a great admirer of Patti in
certain roles very good judgment upon musical matters
in general and a professed Gambler.
4th. Rained all day. A lost day to comfort outside
and in.
$th. Another day of the same sort. Weary with looking

at the sea.
6th. Clearing. Sunshine at intervals.

?th. Mr. Kinney called in afternoon. Conversation
related to Americans in Europe. Came to the conclusion
that as a general rule none but the class denominated
" "
fast come to Europe and like it. Mr. said he would
give any American young gentleman or lady just 18 months
in European society to lose all refinement and all moral
principle, young ladies in particular. The moral principle
cannot be strong when one is laughed at for blushing!
8th. Mr. and Mrs. L came over in the evening. Sat
two hours. Discussed Europe generally and decided*
America was the only place for decent people to live in.
Death is all over Europe, an epidemic that has no cure,
Death of all moral responsibility. Death of ambition in
the way of virtue. Death of all comforts of life. The last
man that dies will be carried from the card table.
In my own recollection of Nice the two men princi-

pally mentioned in mymother's diary, Khalil Bey and
Admiral Farragut, stand out strikingly. Khalil Bey
was a fabulously rich Turk who spent his life wandering
luxuriously over the face of the earth with a huge
retinue of retainers nearly as picturesque as he was.
He was a big, dark, murderous looking creature, not
unattractive in a sinister, strange, and piratical way.
He had a wild and lurid record and was especially
notorious for his reckless gambling, at which his luck
was said to be miraculous. He was an opera enthu-
siast, having heard it in every city in Europe, and was
one of Adelina's admirers. My mother disliked him
exceedingly, declaring he was like a big snake. But
my mother never had any tolerance for foreign noble-
men. There were many of them at Nice and her
comments were caustic and often apt. I remember her
casual summing up of the Marquis de Talleyrand (the
158 An American Prime Donna
particular friend of Mrs. Stevens, an American woman

from Hoboken whom he afterwards married) as "a
young man belonging to some goose pond or other!"
Admiral Farragut, who was in the harbour with his
flagship the Hartford and several other American battle-
ships, was greatly feted, being just then a great hero
of the war. The United
States Consul gave a reception
for him which he explained in advance was to be
"characteristically American." The only noticeable
thing about the entertainment seemed to be the quan-
tity and variety of drinkables that were unceasingly
served by swift and persuasive waiters. The Conti-
nentals must have had a startling impression of Ameri-
can thirst !The Admiral himself, however, was hardly
given time to swallow anything at all, people were so
anxious to ask him questions and to shake hands.
The Stebbinses and McHenrys joined us when we
had been in Nice only a short time, and, after a little
stay there together, we went on by way of Genoa and
the Corniche Road to Pisa, and thence to Florence.
At Florence we met the Admiral again and found him
more charming the better we knew him. In Florence,
too, we had several glimpses of the Grisi family,
Madame and her three daughters. Grisi was, I think,
a striking example of a singer being born and not
made. When she sang Adalgisa in Norma in Milan,
she made a sudden and overwhelming hit. Next day
everyone was rushing about demanding, "Who was her
teacher? Who gave her this wonderful style and
tone?" Grisi herself was asked about it and she
gave the names of several teachers under whom she
had worked. But, needless to say, another Grisi was
never made. In her case it did n't happen to be the
teacher. Often the credit is given to the master when
First Holiday on tHe Continent 159
it really belongs to the pupil, or, rather, to le bon Dieu

who made the vocal chords in the first place. For,
however we may agree or disagree about fundamental
requirements for an artist breath control, voice plac-
ing, tone colour, interpretation, the simple fact re-
mains that the one great essential for a singer is a
voice One little story that I recall of Grisi interested
!
me. It was saidwhen she was growing old and

that,
severe exertion told on her, she always, after her fall as
Lucretia Borgia, had a glass of beer come up through
the floor to her and would drink it as she lay there with
her back half turned to the audience. This is what
was said; and it seemed to me like a very good scheme.
The director of the railway between Rome and
Naples, M. De
la Haute, put his private car at our
disposal. In the present era of cars equipped with

baths and barber shops, libraries and writing rooms,
it would seem primitive, but it was quite the last
word in the railroad luxury of that period. I was
charmed with the Italian scenery as we steamed
through it and, above all, with the highly pictorial
peasants that we Their clothes, of quaint cut
passed.
and vivid hues, were exactlylike stage costumes.
"Why," I exclaimed excitedly, peering from the car

window, "they are all just out of scenes from Fra
Diavolo!"
We were, indeed, going through the mountains of the
Fra Diavolo country, where the inhabitants lived in
continual fear of the bands of brigands that infested
the mountains. Zerlina and Fra Diavolo were literally
in their midst.
M. Dela Haute gave a delightful breakfast for us
on one of the terraces outside Naples with the turquoise
blue bay beneath, the marvellous Italian sky overhead,
and Vesuvius before us. Albert Bierstadt, the Ameri-

can artist, was of the company, and afterwards turned
up in Rome, whither we went next. When we made
the ascent of Vesuvius, my mother recounts in her
diary: "There must have been at least a hundred
Italian devils jumping about and screaming to take us
up. It seemed as if they must have just jumped out
"
of the burning brimstone.
In Rome we dined with Charlotte Cushman. This
was, of course, some years before her death and she
was not yet ravaged by her tragic illness. She was
very full of anecdotes of her friends, the Carlyles,
Tennyson, and others, whom she had just left in Eng-
land. To our little party was added Emma Stebbins,
who had been doing famously in sculpture, and, also,
Harriet Hosmer, the artist, as well as one or two clever
men. It was Carnival Week, and so I had my first
glimpse of a true Continental festa. I had never
before seen any real Latin merriment. The Anglo-
Saxon variety is apt to be heavy, rough, or vulgar.
But those fascinating people had the wonderful power
of being genuinely and innocently gay. They became
like happy children at play. They threw confetti,
sang and laughed, and tossed flowers about. It was a
veritable lesson in joy to us more sober and common-
place Americans who looked on.
While I was in Rome I was presented to the Pope,
Pius IX, a most lovely and genial personality with a
delightful atmosphere about him. I was told that he
had very much wanted to be made Pope and had
played the invalid so that the Cardinals would not
think it was very important whether they elected him
or not; so that they could say (as they did say), "Let
us elect him: he'll die anyhow!" He was duly
First Holiday on tHe Continent 161
elected and, just as soon as he was in the Pontifical

Chair, his health became miraculously restored When !
we were presented I could not help being amused at the

extraordinary articles brought by people for the good
man to bless. One woman had a pair of marble hands.
Another offered the Pontiff a photograph of himself;
and his Holiness had evident difficulty in keeping a
straight face as he explained to her that really he
could not bless a likeness of himself. Etiquette at
these Vatican receptions is very what one
strict as to
must wear, what one must do, and where one must
stand. Sebasti, of Sebasti e Reali, the famous Roman
bankers, has the tale to tell of a Hebrew millionaire
from America who contrived to secure an invitation
to one of these select audiences and, not being able to
see the Pope clearly on account of the crowd, climbed
upon a chair to get a better view. In the twinkling of
an eye a dozen attendants were after him, whispering
harshly, "Giu! Giu! Giu!" ("Get down! Get down! Get
down!") and the Israelite climbed down exclaiming in
crestfallen accents: "How did you know it?"
I have never been presented to the present Pope, but
I gather from my friends in Rome that his administra-
tion is, as usual, a rather complicated affair. The
ruling power is Cardinal Rampolla, the Mephisto of the
Church, for whom a distinguished Marchesa has a

salonand entertains, so that, in this way, he can meet
people on neutral ground.

On our return trip we crossed Mont Cenis by
diligence. From Lombardy, with the smell of orange
flowers all about us, we mounted up and up until the
green growing things became fewer and frailer, and the
air chillier and more ratified. Between six and seven
thousand feet up we struck snow and changed to a
sleigh. We made the whole trip in eleven hours

a record in those days. Think of it, you modern
tourists who cross Mont Cenis in three! But you
willdo well to envy us our diligence and sleigh just the
same, for you oh, horrors! have to do it through a
tunnel instead of over a mountain pass! We felt
quite adventurous, for it was generally considered a
rather hazardous undertaking. By March first we
were back again in Paris and, before the end of the
month, Mr. Jarrett and Arditi joined us with my
renewed contract with Colonel Mapleson.
It seemed to me a very short period before it was
time for me to go back to Drury Lane for the real
London season. Spring had come and Mapleson was
ready to make a record opera season; so we said good-
bye to our friends in Paris and turned once more
toward England.
CHAPTER XVI
FELLOW-ARTISTS
M Y mother's diary reads as follows:
March 25. Left Paris for London accompanied by

Arditi and Mr. Jarrett. Came by Dover and Calais.
Very sick. Had a band on the boat to entice the passengers
into the idea that everything was lovely and there is no
such thing as seasickness. Arrived in London at ten
minutes before six.
28. Went out house-hunting. Rooms too small.
29. Dirty houses.
House-hunting. A vast difference
between American and English housekeeping. Could n't
stand it. Visited ten. Col. Chandler came in the evening.
Miss Jarrett went with us.
jo. Went again. Saw a highfalutin Lady who said
she wanted to get a fancy price for her house. Could n't
see it.
April 1st. Miss Jarrett, Lou and I started again and

had about given up the ship when Louise discovered a
house with "to let" on it. So we ventured in without
cards. Lovely! Neat and nice. Beautiful large garden,
lawn, etc. We were taken to see the Agent who had it in
charge. When we got outside we 3 embraced each other
and I screamed with joy. She (the Landlady) was the first
"
to have a house "to let that was not painted and powdered
an inch thick.
2. Three hours
Rehearsal of Traviata for the 4th. long.
Bettini, Santley, Foley and "Miss Kellogg."
j. Stage rehearsal.
163
4. First appearance in the regular season of Miss
Kellogg in Traviata. Prince of Wales came down end of

2nd act and congratulated her warmly. Also brought
the warmest congratulations from the Princess splendid
called out three times received 8 bouquets. Forgot pow-
der sent Annie home too late hurried, daubed, nervous,
out of breath. Could n't get champagne opened quick
enough rushed and tore delayed orchestra 5 minutes
got on all right at last went off splendidly. Miss
Jarrett, Mr. Jarrett, Arditi, Mr. Bennett of the Press
[critic of The Daily Telegraph] came and congratulated
Louise. The Prince of Wales was very kind said he
remembered the hospitality of the Americans to him years
agone. [Louise] Had a new ball room dress all white
with red camilias.
This somewhat incoherent record as jotted down by

my mother is sketchy but true in spirit. Never in my
life, before or since, was I ever so nervous as at our
opening performance in London of Traviata; no, not

even had my American debut tried me so sorely. Every-
thing in the world went wrong that could go wrong on
this occasion. I forgot my powder and the skirt of my
dress, and Annie, mymaid, had to rush home in a
cab to get them. my costume while making my
I tore
first entrance and had to play the entire act with a
streamer of silk dangling at my feet. went on half
I
made up, daubed, nervous, out of breath. Never was

such a state of nerves. But to my astonishment I
I in
made a very big success. There was a burst of applause
after the first actand I could hardly believe my ears.
It struck me as most extraordinary that what I con-
sidered so unsatisfactory should please the house.
Several of the artists singing with me came to me
during the evening much upset.
Fellow-Artists 165
"Don't you know why everything on the stage has

been going so badly to-night?" they said. "We Ve a
jettatura in front!"
Madame ErminieRudersdorf the mother of Richard
,
Mansfield, was one of the boxes; and she was gener-

in
ally believed to have the Evil Eye. The Italian

singers took it very seriously indeed and made horns
all through the opera (that is, kept their fingers crossed)
to ward off the satanic influence! Madame Ruders-
dorf was a tall, heavy, and swarthy Russian with
ominously brilliant eyes and one of the most command-
;
ing personalities I ever came in contact with. Although

she had a dangerously bad temper, I never saw any
evidences of it, nor of the jettatura either. She came
that and congratulated me:
night and it meant
something from her.
My professional vocation has brought me up against
almost every conceivable superstition, from Brignoli's
stuffed deer's head to the more commonplace fetish
against thirteen as a number. But I never saw any
one more obsessed by an idea of this sort than Christine
Nilsson. She actually would not sing unless some one
"held her thumbs" first. "Holding thumbs" is quite
an ancient way of inviting good luck. One promises to
"hold one's thumbs" for a friend who is going through
some ordeal, like a first night or an operation for
appendicitis or a wedding or anything else desperate.
Nilsson was the first person I ever knew who practised
the charm the other way about. Before she would
even go on the stage somebody, if only the stage
carpenter, had to take hold of her two thumbs and
press them. She was convinced that the mystic rite
brought her good fortune. Many of the Italian artists
that I knew believed in the efficacy of coral as a talis-
i66 An American Prima Donna
man and always kept a bit of it about them to rub
"for luck" just before they went on for their part of
the performance. Somebody has told me that Emma
Trentmi had a queer individual superstition: when
she was singing for Hammerstein she would never go
on the stage until he had given her a quarter of a
dollar Ridiculous as all these idees fixes appear when
!
writing them down, I am convinced that they do help

some people. A sense of confidence is a great, an
invaluable thing, and whatever can bring that about
must necessarily, however foolish in itself, make for a
measure of success. I caught Nilsson's "holding
thumbs" trick myself without ever believing in it,
and often have done it to people since in a sort of
general luck- wishing, friendly spirit. The last time I
was in Algiers I entered an antique shop that I always
visit there and found the little woman who kept it
in a somewhat indisposed and depressed state of mind :
so much so in fact that when I left I pinched her

thumbs for luck. Not long afterwards I had the sweet-
est letter from her. "I cannot thank you enough,"
she wrote; "you did something whatever it was
that has brought me luck. I feel sure it is all through
you!"
To return to my mother's diary after our first
performance of Traviata in London :
Sunday. Sat around. Afternoon drove through Hyde

Park.
Monday 6th. Rehearsal of Gazza Ladra. I went all over
to find dress for Linda failed.
Tuesday. Moved out to 48 Grove End Road 8 guineas

a week. Received check on County Bank from Mapleson
for 100. Drew the money.
Fellow-Artists 167
Wednesday 8th. Heard rehearsal of Gazza Ladra. Re-

mained in theatre till 5.25 P.M. fitting costume. Rode
home in 22 minutes.
Thursday gth. Saw Linda. Magnificent. Best thing.
Called out three times. Bouquet dress yellow. Moire
blue satin apron pink roses gay!
Friday Good Friday. Regulated house. In the evening
Don Giovanni was performed. Louise wore her Barber
dress pink satin one made by Madame Vinfolet in New
York splendid! Foli told me that in the height of the
Messiah Season he often made 75 guineas a week. He
looked at his operatic engagement as secondary.
Sunday 12. Louise received basket of Easter eggs with
a beautiful bluebird over them from Mrs. McHenry
Paris beautiful shall take it to America. Mrs. G
dined with us at 5.
ijth. Rehearsal of G. Ladra 3 hours. I took cold
waiting in cold room. No letters.
Tuesday 14. Letters from Mary Gray, Nell and
Leonard and Carter. Pay day at Theatre but it did n't
come. 3 hours rehearsal. At 4 P.M. Louise, Mr. S and
I called by appointment upon the Duchess of Somerset.
Met her 3 nieces and the Belgian Minister a splendid
affair tea was served at 5 went home dined at 6 went
to Covent Garden to hear Mario & Fionetti, the latter said
to be the best type of Italian school. Louise thought little
of it. Did n't know whether to think less of Davidson's
judgment or more of her own.
2 1 st. Green room rehearsal of Gazza Ladra. Don Gio-

vanni in the evening fine house.
22nd. Rehearsed one act of Gazza Ladra. Louise tired
and nervous. Rained. Santley rode part way home with
us.
2jrd. Rigoletto full house Duke of Newcastle brought

Lord Duppelin for introduction. Opera went off splendidly.
Check for 100. Saw the Godwins Bryant's son-in-law.

24th. Friday. Drew the money. Reception at the
Langs.
2^th. Louise went to new Philharmonic to rehearsal.
In the evening went to Queen's Theatre to see Toole in
Oliver Twist splendid. Mr. Santley went to Paris.
26th. Sunday. Dr. Quinn, Mr. Fechter and Arditi called.
Louise and Miss Jarrett washed the dog! [This pet was
one of the puppies of Titjiens's tiny and beautiful Pomeran-
ian and I had it for a long time and adored it.] The 3
Miss Edwards called. Letter from Sarah.
27. Louise and I go to Rehearsal of Gazza Ladra and
to hear Mr. Fechter in No Thoroughfare. He thinks more
of himself than of the thoroughfare good performance
though. Letter from George Farnsworth.
28. Clear and cold. Rehearsed Gazza Ladra.
29. [Louise] sang at Philharmonic duet Nozze di
Figaro with Foli.
30th. Long rehearsal of Gazza. Dined at Duchess of

Somerset's at 8 P.M. Met many best men of London.
Duke of Newcastle took Louise in to dinner. Col. Williams
took me. Duchess is an old tyrant sang Louise to death
unmerciful I despise her for her selfishness.
Indeed, every minute of those spring weeks was

occupied and more than occupied. I never was so
busy before and never had such a good time. The
"season" was a delightful one; and certainly no one
had a more varied part in it than I. Thanks to the
Dowager Duchess and our friends we went out fre-
quently; and I was singing four and five times a week
counting concerts. Private concerts were a great fad
that season and I have often sung at two or three
different ones in the same evening.
Colonel Mapleson was in great feather, having three
prime donne at his disposal at once, for Christine
Fellow-Artists 169
Nilsson had soon joined us, that curious mixture of

"Scandinavian calm and Parisian elegance" as I have
heard her described. No twosingers were ever less
alike, either physically ortemperamentally, than she
and I; yet, oddly enough, we over and over again fol-
lowed each other in the same roles. Titjiens, Nilsson,
and I sang together a great deal that season, not only
in opera but also in concert. Our voices went well
together and we always got on pleasantly. Madame
Titjiens was no longer at the zenith of her great power,
but she was very fine for all that. I admired Titjiens
greatly as an artist in spite of her perfunctory acting.
Cold and stately, she was especially effective in purely
classic music, having at her command all its tradi-
tions: Donna Anna for instance, and Fidelio and the
Contessa. I sang with her in the Mozart operas.
Particularly do I recall one night when the orchestra
was under the direction of Sir Michael Costa. Both
Titjiensand Nilsson were singing with me, and the
former had to follow me in the recitative. Where
Susanna gives the attacking note to the Contessa
Sir Michael's 'cello gave me the wrong chord. I per-
ceived instantly, my absolute pitch serving me well,
it
but I hardly knew what to do. I was singing in Italian,

which made the problem even more difficult; but, as I
sang, my sixth sense was working subconsciously. I
was saying over and over in my brain: "I've got to give
Titjiens the right note or the whole thing will be a mess.
How am I going to do it?" I sang around in circles until
I was able to give the Contessa the correct note. Tit-
jiens gratefully caught it up and all came out well.

When the number was over, both Titjiens and Nilsson
came and congratulated me for what they recognised as a
good piece of musicianship. But Sir Michael was in a rage.
"What do you mean," he demanded, "by taking

liberties with the music like that?"
One cannot afford to antagonise a conductor and he
was, besides, so irascible a man that I did not care to
mention to him that his 'cello had been at fault. He
was a most indifferent musician as well as a narrow,
obstinate man, although London considered him a very
great leader. He only infuriated me the more by
remarking indulgently, one night not long after, as if
overlooking my various artistic shortcomings: "Well,

well, you're a very pretty woman anyway!" It
was "anyway" that irrevocably settled matters
his
between us. He disliked Nilsson too. He declared
both in public and in private that her use of her voice was
mere "charlatanry and trickery" and not worthy to be
called musical. Nilsson was not, in fact, a good musician ;
few prime donne are. On one occasion she did actually

sing one bar in advance of the accompaniment for ten
consecutive measures. This is almost inconceivable,
but she did it, and Sir Michael never forgave her.
Mapleson was planning as a tour de force with which
to stun London a series of operas in which he could
present all of us. "All-star casts" were rare in those
days. Most managers saved their singers and doled
them out judiciously, one at a time, in a very conserva-
tive fashion. But Mapleson had other notions. Our
"all-star" Mozart casts were the wonder of all London.
Think of Don Giovanni with Santley as the Don and
Titjiens as Donna Anna; Nilsson as Donna Elvira,
Rockitanski of Vienna the Leporello, and myself as
Zerlina! Think of Le Nozze di Figaro with Titjiens as
the Countess, Nilsson Cherubino, Santley the Count,
and me as Susanna! These were casts unequalled in
all Europe almost, I believe, in all time!
Fell ow- Artists 171
Gye, of Covent Garden, declared that we were killing

the goose that laid the golden egg by putting all our
prime donne into one opera. He said that this made it
not only impossible for rival houses to draw any
audiences, but that it also cut off our own noses.
Nobody wanted to go on ordinary nights to hear operas
that had only one prima donna in them when they could
go on star nights and hear three at once. However,
Colonel Mapleson found that the scheme paid and our
"triple-cast" performances brought us most sensa-
tional houses. Personally, as I have already said, I
never liked Mapleson, and I had many causes for
resentment in a business way. I remember one battle
I had with him and the stage manager about a dress I
was to wear in Le Nozze di Figaro. I do not recall

what it was they wanted me to wear; but I know that,
whatever it was, I would not wear it. I left in the

middle of rehearsal, drove home in an excited state of
indignation, and seized upon poor Colonel Stebbins,
always my steady help in time of trouble. He went,
saw, fought, and conquered, after which the rehearsals
went on more or less peaceably.
Undoubtedly we had some fine artists at Her
Majesty's, but occasionally Mapleson missed a big
chance of securing others. One day we were putting
on our wraps after rehearsal when my mother and I
heard a lovely contralto voice. On inquiry, we learned
that Colonel Mapleson and Arditi were trying the
voice of a young Italian woman who had come to
London in search of an engagement. The Colonel and
the Director sat in the orchestra while the young
woman sang an aria from Semiramide. When the trial
was over the girl went away at once and I rushed out to
speak to Mapleson.
"Surely you engaged that enchanting singer!" I

exclaimed.
"Indeed I did n't," he replied.
She went directly to Gye at Covent Garden, who
engaged her promptly and, when she appeared two
weeks later, she made a sensation. Her name was
Sofia Scalchi.
Besides the private concerts of that season there
were also plenty of public concerts, a particularly
notable one being a Handel Festival at the Crystal
Palace on May 1st, when I sang Oh, had I Jabot's
Lyre! Everything connected with that occasion was
on a large scale. There were seven thousand people
in the house, the largest audience by far that I had
ever sung to before. The place was so crowded that
people hung about the doors trying to get in even after
every seat was filled; and not one person left the hall
until after I had finished a remarkable record in its
way! Some time later, when I was on my way home

to America and wanted to buy some antiques, I wan-
dered into a little, odd Dickens-like shop in Wardour
Street. I wanted to have some articles sent on approval
to meet me at Liverpool, but hesitated to ask the old
man in theshop to take such a risk without knowing
me. To my surprise he smiled at me a kindly,
wrinkled
smile and said, with the prettiest old-fashioned bow:
"
Madame, you are welcome to take any liberties you
'
will with my entire stock. I heard you sing Jubal's
Lyre.' I shall never forget it, nor be able to repay

you for the pleasure you gave me!"
I always felt this to be one of my sincerest tributes.
Perhaps that is partly why the night of my first Crystal

Hall Concert remains so clearly defined in my memory.
My mother's diary of this period continues:
Tell ow- Artists 173
May 4. Mr. Santley dined with us. Played Besique

in the evening. / beat.
Louise and I went to St. James Hall rehearsal.
5.
After went to Theatre. Learned Nilsson did not have as
good a house 2nd night as Louise's first one in La Gazza
Ladra. Mr. Arditi came to rehearse the waltz.
6th. La Gazza Ladra. Full house enthusiasm Duke
of Newcastle came in.
7. Arditi's rehearsal for his concert at his house at
5 P.M. went house full hot and funny. Mr. S
came in the evening played one game Besique.
8. Intended to go to Haymarket Theatre out Miss
J had headache. Santley came in the afternoon to
practise Susanna.
g. Santley called. McHenry and Stebbins, with another
Budget of disagreeables from Mapleson who, not satisfied
with cheating her [Louise] out of $500., deliberately asked
her to give him 3 nights more! Shall have his money if
we have to go to law about it.
Monday. [Louise] Sang at Old Philharmonic flute song
from The Star. Mr. Stebbins went to Jarrett and told him
Miss Kellogg would sing no longer than the I5th her
engagement closes then but that Mapleson must pay her
what he owed her that he would have the checks that
day or sue him.
Tuesday. Just got the second check of 150, showing
that a little hell fire and brimstone administered in large
doses is a good thing. The Englishman has not outwitted
the Yankee yet !
12. Louise sang Don

Giovanni Titjiens "Donna
Anna," Santley "Don
Giovanni," Nilsson "Elvira."
Crowded house seats sold at a premium Louise received
all the honours everything encored 4 bouquets. Nilsson
and Titjiens were encored only for the grand trio. The
applause on Batti Batti was something unequalled.
jj. Went to photographers. Miss Jarrett, Santley
and ourselves dined at Mr. Stebbins' went to hear Lucca
in Fra Diavolo was delighted
she was not pretty but
intelligent not remarkable, but showed great
sang well
cleverness full of talent acted it well filled out the
scenes kept the thing going. The Tenor was good. I
remained through the second act. Dropped my fan onto a
bald head. Went over to Drury Lane heard one act of
The Hugenots.
14. Mr. S dined with us played Besique in the
evening Louise beat of course.
15. [Louise] Sang Don Giovanni to a full house. Ben-
nett came and Smith and Mapleson and Duke of Newcastle.
16. Santley sang in rehearsal Le Nozze di Figaro. Mr.
Stebbins dined with us. Played solitaire in the evening
with the new Besique box.
I sang several times at the Crystal Palace Concerts

with Sims Reeves, the idolised English tenor. Never
have I heard of or imagined an artist so spoiled as
Reeves. The spring was a very hot one for London,
although to us who were accustomed to the summer
heat of America, it seemed nothing. But poor Sims
Reeves evidently expected to have heat prostration or
a sunstroke, for he always wore a big cork helmet to
rehearsals, the kind that officers wear on the plains of
India. The picture he made sitting under his huge
helmet with a white puggaree around it, fanning him-
was one never to be forgotten. He had a
self feebly,
somewhat frumpy wife who waited on him like a slave.

I had little patience with him, especially with his
trick of disappointing his audiences at the eleventh
hour. But he could sing! He was a real artist, and,
when he was not troubling about the temperature, or
his diet, he was an artist with whom
it was a privilege
to sing. I remember
singing with him and Mme.
Patey at a concert at Albert Hall. Mme. Patey was
Fellow- Artists 175
an admirable contralto and gifted with a superb

technique. We three sang a trio without a rehearsal
and, when it was over, Reeves declared that it was
really wonderful way the which we all three had
in
"taken breath" at exactly the same points, showing
that we were all
well trained and could phrase a song
in the only onecorrect way. This was also noticed
and remarked upon by several professionals who were
present.
I also sang with Alboni. At an Albert Hall concert
on my second visit to England a year or two later, I
said to her:
"Madame, I cannot tell you how honoured I feel in
"
singing on the same programme with you.
She bowed and smiled. She was a very, very large
woman, heavily built, but she carried her size with
remarkable dignity. I was considerably amused when
she replied :
"Ah, Mademoiselle, I am only a shadow of what I

have been!"
My most successful song that season was my old
song Beware. It was unusual to see a prima donna
play her own accompaniment, which I always did to
this song and to most encores. The simple, rather
insipid melody was written by Moulton, the first
husband of the present Baronne de Hegeman, and it
was not long before it was the rage in the sentimental
younger set of London. How tired I became of that
ridiculous sign-post cover and the "As Sung by Miss
Clara Louise Kellogg" staring up at me! And how
much more tired of the foolish tune:
4-
-73-
I know a maid-en fair to see, Take care! Take care!

One of the greatest honours paid me was the com-

mand to sing in one of the two concerts at Buckingham
Palace given each season by the reigning sovereign.
I have always kept the letter that told me I had been
chosen for this great privilege. Cusins, from whom it
came, was the Director of the Queen's music at the
Palace.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ROYAL CONCERTS AT BUCKINGHAM
Royal Private Concerts at Buckingham Palace

THEformed in those days, and I believe still form, the
last word in exclusiveness. Many persons who have
been presented at court, in company with a great
crowd of other social aspirants, never come close
enough to the inner circle of royalty to get within even
"speaking distance" of these concerts. In them the
court etiquette is almost mediaeval in its brilliant
formality; and yet a certain intimacy prevails which
could not be possible in a less carefully chosen gather-
ing. So sacred an institution is the Royal Concert
that they have a fixed price twenty-five guineas for
all the solo singers, whatever their customary salaries,
the discrepancies between the greater and the lesser

being supposedly filled in with the colossal honour done
the artists by being asked to appear.
Queen Victoria seldom presided at these or similar
functions. The Prince of Wales usually represented
the Crown and did the honours, always exceedingly
well. I have been told by people who professed to
know that his good nature was rather taken advantage
of by his august mother, who not only worked him
half to death in his official capacity, but never allowed
him enough income for the purpose. Personally, I
always liked the Prince. He was a tactful, courteous
12
I77
man with real artistic feeling and cultivation. He

filled a with much graciousness and
difficult position
good sense. More than once has he come behind the

scenes during an operatic performance to congratulate
and encourage me. The Princess was good looking,
but was said to be both dull and inflexible. The
former impression might easily have been the result of
her deafness that so handicapped her where social
graces were concerned. She could not hear herself
speak and, therefore, used a voice so low as to be
almost inaudible. When she spoke to me I could not
hear a word of what she said. I hope it was agreeable.
My mother's entries in her diary at this point are:
Monday. 17. 3 P.M. Rehearsal at Anderson's for Buck-
ingham Palace Concert. Met Lucca there. A perfect
original. Private concert in the evening at No. 7 Grafton
Street. Pinsuti conducted. Louise encored with Beware.
Concert commenced at eleven. Closed at 2 A.M. Saw
about five bushels of diamonds.
i8th. Tuesday. Went to Buckingham Palace. Re-
hearsed at eleven. Very good palace, but dirty.
19. Rehearsal of Somnambula. Got home at 4. Mr.
S came in the evening.
20. Buckingham Palace Concert.
The rehearsal at Buckingham Palace was held in

the great ballroom with the Queen's orchestra, under
Cusins, and the artists were Titjiens, Lucca, Faure,
and myself. These concerts were composed of picked
singers from both Covent Garden and Her Majesty's
and were supposed to represent the best of each. As
my mother notes, I first met Pauline Lucca there
such an odd little creature. She amused me immensely.
She was always doing absurd things and making quaint,
Royal Concerts at BvicKmgHam 179
entertaining speeches. She was not pretty, but her

eyes were beautiful. On
this occasion, I remember,
Titjiens was rehearsing one of her great, classic arias.

When she had finished we all, the orchestra included,
applauded. Lucca was sitting between Faure and
myself, her feet nowhere near touching the floor, and
she applauded rhythmically and quite indifferently,
slap-bang! slap-bang! slinging her arms out so as to
hit both of us and then slapping them together, the
while she kicked up her small feet like a child of six.
She was regardless of appearances and was applauding
to please herself.
Lucca used to warn me not to abuse my upper notes.
We knew her as almost a mezzo. She told me, how-
ever, that she had once had an exceedingly high voice,
and that one of her best parts was Leonora in Trovatore.
She had abused her gift but she always had a delight-
;
ful quality of voice and put a great deal of personality

into her work.
The approach to the Palace on concert nights was
very impressive, for the Grenadier Guards were drawn
up outside, and inside were other guards even more
gorgeously arrayed than the cavalry. In the concert
room itself was stationed a royal bodyguard of the
Yeomen of the Guards. The commanding officer was
called the Exon-in- Waiting. The proportions of the
room were magnificent and there were some fine frescoes
and an effective way of lighting up the stained glass
windows from the outside; but the general impression
was not particularly regal. The decorations were
plain and dull for a palace. The stage was arranged
with chairs, rising tier above tier, very much like a
stage for oratorio singers. Before royalty appears, the
singers seat themselves on the stage and remain there
i8o .An American Prima Donna
until their turn comes to sing. This is always a trial

to a singer, who really needs to get into the mood and
to warm up to her appearance. To stand up in cold
blood and just sing is discouraging. The prospect of
this dreary deliberateness did not tend to raise our
spirits as we sat and waited.
At last, after we had become utterly depressed and
out of spirits, there was a little stir and the great doors
at the side of the ballroom were thrown open. First
of all entered the Silver-Sticks in Waiting, a dozen or
so of them, backing in, two by two. All were, of
course, distinguished men of title and position; and
they were dressed in costumes in which silver was the
dominant note and carried long wands of silver. They
were followed by the Gold-Sticks in Waiting men of
even more exalted rank and, finally, by the Royal
Party. We all arose and curtesied, remaining standing
until their Highnesses were seated.
The concerts were called informal and therefore long
trains and court veils were not insisted on but the men
;
had to appear in ceremonial dress knee breeches and

silk stockings and the women invariably wore gor-
geous costumes and family jewels, so that the scene
was one full of colour and glitter. The uniforms of the
Ambassadors of different countries made brilliant spots
of colour. The Prince of Wales and his Princess
simply sparkled with orders and decorations. I hap-
pened to hear the names of a few of her Royal High-
ness's. They were the Orders of Victoria and Albert,
the Star of India, St. Catherine of Russia, and the
Danish Family Order. She also wore many of the
crown jewels, and with excellent taste on every occasion
I have seen her. With a black satin gown and court
train of crimson, for example, she wore only diamonds;
Royal Concerts at BxicKingHam 181
while another time I remember she wore pearls and

sapphires with a velvet gown of cream and pansy
colour. Such good sense and discretion in the choice
of gems is rare. So many women seem to think that
any jewels are appropriate to any toilet.
Tremendously august personages used to be in the
audiences of those Buckingham Palace concerts at
w hich I sang then and later, such as the Duke and
r
Duchess of Teck, the Prince and Princess Christian of

Schleswig-Holstein, the Duke and Duchess of Cam-
bridge, the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, the
Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Indeed, royalty,
peers of the realm and ambassadors or representatives,
and members of the court were the only auditors. In
spite of this the concerts were deadly dull, partly, no
doubt, because everybody was so enormously impressed
by the ceremony of the occasion and by the rigours of
court etiquette that they did not dare move or hardly
breathe. There was one woman present at my first
Buckingham Palace concert, a lady-in-waiting (she
looked as if she had become accustomed to waiting)
who was even more stiff than any one else and about
whose decollete there seemed to be no termination.
Never once, to my certain knowledge, did she move
either head or body an inch to the right or to the left
throughout the performance.
A breach of etiquette was committed on one occasion
by a friend of mine, a compatriot, who had accompanied
me to one of these gilt-edged affairs. She stood up
behind the very last row of the chorus and used her
opera-glasses Not unnaturally, she wanted for once,
!
poor girl, to a
get good look at royalty; but it is needless
to say that she was hastily and summarily suppressed.
When the Prince and Princess were seated the
1 82 .An American Prima Donna
concert could begin. There were two customs that

made those functions particularly oppressive. One
was that all applause was forbidden. An artist, par-
ticularly a singer or stage person of any kind, lives and
breathes through approbation: and for a singer to sing
her best and then sit down in a dead and stony silence
without any sort of demonstration, is a very chilling
experience. The only
indication that a performance
had been acceptable was when the Prince of Wales
wriggled his programme in an approving manner. A
hand-clap would have been a terrific breach of etiquette.
The and the one that affected the
other drawback
guests even more than the artists was that, when
once the Prince and Princess were seated, no one could
rise on any pretext or provocation whatever. I think
it was at my second appearance at the Royal Concerts
that an amusing incident occurred which impressed

the inconvenience of this regulation upon my memory.
The Duchess of Edinburgh, daughter of the Czar,
entered in the Prince of Wales's party. She looked an
irritable, dissatisfied, bilious person; and I was told
that she was always talking about being "the daughter
of the Czar of all the Russias" and that it galled her
that even the Princess of Wales took precedence over

her. Those were the good old days of tie-backs, made
of elasticand steel, a sort of modified hoop-skirt with
all of the hoop in the back. The tie-back was the
passing of the hoop and its management was an edu-
cation in itself. I remember mine came from Paris
and I bit of difficulty in learning to sit down
had had a
in it
gracefully. Well the Duchess of Edinburgh had
not mastered the art. She was all right until she sat
down and looked very regal in a gown of thick, heavy
white silk and the most gorgeous of jewels encrusted
Royal Concerts at BucKing'Ham 183
diamonds and Russian rubies, the latter nearly the

size ofa pigeon's eggs. Her tiara and stomacher were
so magnificent that they appalled me. The Prince
and Princess sat down and every one else followed suit,
the daughter of the Czar of all the Russias among the
others in the front row. And she sat down wrong.
Her tie-back tilted up as she went down her skirt rose
;
high in front, revealing a pair of large feet, clad in

white shoes, and large ankles, nearly up to her knees.
There was a footstool under the large feet and they
were very much in evidence the whole evening, posing,
entirely against their owner's will, on a temporary
monument. The awful part of it was that the Duchess
knew all about it and was so furious that she could hardly
contain herself. It was a study to watch the daughter
of the Czar of all the Russias in these circumstances.
Her face showed how much she wanted to get up and pull
down her dress and hide her robust pedal extremities,
but court etiquette forbade, and the Duchess suffered.
The end of everything, as a matter of course, was
God Save the Queen and, as there were nearly al-
ways two prime donne present, each of us sang one
verse. All the artists and the chorus sang the third,
which constituted "Good-night" and was the official
closing of the performance. I usually sang the first

verse. When the concert was over, the Prince and
Princess with the lesser royalties filed out. They
passed by the front of the stage and always had some
agreeable thing to say. I recall with much pleasure
Prince Arthur the present Duke of Connaught
stopping to compliment me on a song I had just sung
the Polonaise from Mignon and to remind me that
Ihad sung it at Admiral Dahlgren's reception at the
Navy Yard in Washington during his American visit.
"Yousang that for me in Washington, did n't you,

Miss Kellogg?" he said; and I was greatly pleased by
the slight courteous remembrance.
After royalty had departed every one drew a long
breath of partial relaxation. The guests could then
move about with more or less freedom, talk with each
other, and speak with the artists if they felt so inclined.
I was impressed by the stiffness, the shyness and awk-
wardness of the English people of even these very
great English people, the women especially. One would
suppose that authority and ease and graciousness would
be in the very blood of those who are, as the saying
is,"to the manner born," but they did not seem to
have that "manner." Finally I came to the con-
clusion that they really liked to appear shy and
gauche, and deliberately affected the stiffness and the
awkwardness.
So much has been said about the Victorian prejudice
against divorce and against scandal of all sorts that no
one be surprised when I say that, on one occasion
will
when I sang at the Palace, I was the only woman
singer whom the ladies present spoke to, although the
gentlemen paid much attention to the others. The
Duchess of Newcastle was particularly cordial to me,
as were also the wife of our American Ambassador and
Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester. My fellow-artists
on that occasion were Adelina Patti and Trebelli
Bettina and, as each of them had been associated
with scandal, they were left icily alone. At that time
Patti and Nicolini were not married and the papers had
much to say about the tenor's desertion of his family.
I have sung with Nilsson and Patti and Lucca at these
concerts. I have sung with Faure and Santley and
Capoul (nice little Capoul, known in America as "the

IVoyal Concerts at BucKing'Ham 185
ladies' man") and I have sung with Scalchi and
Titjiens. have
I sung there with even the great Mario.
There was a supper at the palace after the Royal
Concerts two supper tables in fact one for the
royal family and one for the artists. I caught a
glimpse on my first appearance there of the table set

for the former with the historic gold plate, with which
English crowned heads entertain their guests. It was

splendid, of course, although very heavy and ponderous,
and the food must needs have been something superla-
tive to have fitted it. I doubt if it was, however, as
British cooks are apt to be mediocre, even those in

palaces. Cooking is a matter of the Epicurean tem-
perament or, rather, with the British, the lack of it.
Our supper was not at all bad in spite of this, although
little Lucca did turn up her nose at it and at the
arrangements.
"What!" she exclaimed tempestuously, "stay here
' '
to second supper Never These English prigs want
! !
to make us eat with the servants! You may stay for

their horrid supper if you choose. But Iwould rather
"
starve and off she went, all rustling and fluttering
with childish indignation.
It was at one of these after-concert "receptions"
at the palace that I had quite a long chat with Adelina
Patti about her coming to America. I urged it, for I
knew that a fine welcome was awaiting her here. But
Nicolini, her husband for the moment, who was
"
sitting near, exclaimed: Vous voidez la tuer !" ("Do
you want to kill her!") It seems that they were both
terribly afraid ofcrossing the ocean, although they
apparently recovered from their dread in later years.
There was one Royal Concert which will always
remain in my memory as the most marvellous and
1 86 7\n A.merican Prixna Donna
brilliant spectacle, socially speaking, of my whole life.
It was the one given in honour of the Queen's being

made Empress of India and the guests were
among
not only the aristocracy of Great Britain, but all the
Eastern princes and rajahs representing her Majesty's
new empire. At that time hardly any one had been
in India. Nowadays people make trips around the
world and run across to take a look at the Orient
whenever they feel inclined. But then India sounded
to us like a fairy-tale place, impossibly rich and mys-
terious, a country out of The Arabian Nights at the
very least.
My mother and I were then living in Belgrave

Mansions, not far from the palace nor from the Victoria
Hotel where the Indian princes put up, and we used to
see them passing back and forth, their attendants
bearing exquisitely carved and ornamented boxes con-
taining choice jewels and decorations and offerings to
"The Great White Queen across the Seas," offerings
as earnest of good faith and pledges of loyalty. I was
glad to be "commanded" for the Royal Concert at

which they were to be entertained, for I knew that it
would be a splendid pageant. And it turned out to be,
as I have said, the richest display I ever saw. The
rich stuffs of the costumes lent themselves most fittingly
to a lavish exhibition of jewels. The ornaments of the
royal princesses and peeresses that I had been admir-
ing up to that occasion seemed as nothing compared to

this array. Every Eastern potentate appeared to be
trying to vie with all the others as to the gems he wore
in his turban.
It would be impossible for me to say how interesting
I found all this sort of thing. It was like a play to me
a delicious play, in which I, too, had my part. I
Royal Concerts at BucKingHam 187
am an imperialist by nature. I love pomp and cere-

mony and circumstance and titles. The few times that
I have ever been dissatisfied with my experiences in
the lands of crowned heads, it was merely because
there was n't quite grandeur enough to suit my taste!
CHAPTER XVIII
.THE LONDON SEASON
house in St.John's Wood that we rented for

OURour first London season was small, but it had
a front door and a back garden and, on the whole, we
were very happy there. Whenever my mother became
bored or dissatisfied she thought of the hotels on the
Continent and immediately cheered up. There many
people sought us out, and others were brought to see us.
Newcastle was always coming with someone interesting
in tow. Leonard Jerome, who built the Jockey Club,
came with Newcastle, I remember, and so did Chevalier
Wyckoff, who had something to do with The Herald,
and did not use his title.
It was always said of the Duke and Duchess of New-
castle that "he married her for her money and she
married him for his title, so that they each got what
they wanted." It may have been true and probably
was, for they did not seem an ardently devoted couple,
and yet it is difficult to believe the rather cruel report
they were both so much too lovable to merit it. The

Duchess was a beauty and, when she wore the big, blue,
Hope Diamond, (I have often seen her wearing it)
she was a most striking figure. As for Newcastle
himself, I
always found him a most simple, warm-
hearted, generous man, full of delicate and kindly
feelings. He had big stables and raced his horses all
1 88
Duke of Newcastle
From a photograph by John Burton & Sons
THe London Season 189
the time, but it was said of him that he generally lost at

the races and one might almost know that he would.
He was a sort of "mark" for the racing sharks and they
plucked him in a shameless manner. I first met the
Newcastles at the dinner table of the Dowager Duchess
of Somerset, and more than once afterwards has New-
castle whispered to her "hang etiquette" and taken
me in to dinner instead of some frumpy marchioness
or countess.
We became acquainted with the Tennants of Rich-
mond Terrace. Their house was headquarters for an
association of Esoteric Buddhism; A. P. Sinnett, the
author of the book entitled Esoteric Buddhism, was a
prominent figure there. The family is perhaps best
known from the fact that Miss Tennant married the
celebrated explorer Stanley. But to me it always
stood for the centre of occult societies. The household
was an interesting one but not particularly peaceful.
I suppose the world is full of queer people and
situations, but I do think that among the queerest of
both must be ranked Lord Dudley, who owned Her
Majesty's Theatre. He lived in Park Lane and was a
very grand person in all ways, and, according to hear-
say, firmly believed that he was a teapot, and spent his

days in the miserable hope that somebody would be
kind enough to put him on the stove! He did not go
about begging for the stove exactly; his desire was just
an ever-present, underlying yearning! He was a nice
man, too, as I remember him. A man by the name of
Cowen represented the poor peer and we gave Cowen
his legitimate perquisites in the shape of benefit concerts
and so forth; but we all felt that the whole thing was
in some obscure manner terribly grim and pathetic.
Many things are so oddly both comic and tragic.

190 7\n American Prima Donna
During the warm weather we went often into the

country to dine or lunch at country houses. I shall
never forget Mr. Goddard's dinner at his place. He
had a glass house at the end of the regular house that
was half buried in a huge heliotrope plant which had
grown so marvellously that it covered the walls like a
vine. The trunk of it was as thick as a man's arm, and
the perfume My mother wrote in her diary"a single
!
line summing up the day as it had been for her Lovely

:
day. Strawberries and two black-eyed children." For

my part, I gathered all the heliotrope I wanted for once
in my life.
Mr. Sampson's entertainment is another notable

memory. Mr. Sampson was financial editor of that
august journal The London Times, much sought after
by the large moneyed interests, and lived in Bushy
Park, beyond Kensington. Mrs. Heurtly was our
hostess; and Lang, who had just been running for
Prime Minister, was there and, also, McKenzie, an
East Indian importer in a big way who afterwards
became Sir Edward McKenzie, through loaning to the
Prince of Wales the money for the trousseau and
marriage of the Prince of Wales' s daughter Louise
to the Duke of Fife, and who then was not invited to
the wedding! It was through Sampson, too, that I
firstmet the famous critic Davidson, and I think it
was on the occasion of his party that I first met Nilsson's
great friend Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck.
Among all the memories of that time stands out that
of the home
of the dear McHenrys in Holland Park,
overlooking the great sweep of lawn of Holland House

on which, it is said, the plotters of an elder day went
out to talk and conspire because it was the only place
in London where they could be sure that they would
TKe London Season 191
not be overheard. Alma Tadema

lived just around the
corner and we saw him. Another interesting
often
character of whom I saw a good deal at that time was
Dr. Quinn, an Irishman, connected through a morgan-
atic marriage with the royal family. He was very
short and jolly, and very Irish. He had asthma horribly
and ought really to have considered himself an invalid.
He gasped and wheezed whenever he went upstairs,
but he simply could n't resist dinner parties. He loved
funny stories, too, not only for his own sake but also
because his friend, the Prince of Wales, liked them so
much. My mother was very ready in wit and usually
had a fund of stories and jokes at her command, and
Dr. Quinn used to exhaust her supply, taking the
greatest delight in hearing her talk. He would come
panting into the house, his round face beaming, and
gasp:
"Any new American jokes ? I 'm dining with the
Prince and want something new for him !"
He loved riddles and conundrums, particularly
those that had a poetical twist in them. One of his
favourites was:
Why is a sword like the moon ?

Because it is the glory of the (k}night I
I have heard him tell that repeatedly, always ending
with a little appreciative sigh and the ejaculation,

"that is so poetical, is n't it ?"
One lovely evening we drove out to Greenwich to
dinner, in Newcastle's four-in-hand coach. It was not
the new but a huge, lumbering affair, all
style drag,
open, in which one sat sideways. There were postil-
lions in quaint dress and a general flavour of the Middle
Ages about the whole episode. There was nothing of

192 j\n .American Prima Donna
the Middle Ages about the dinner however. There
were twenty-five of us present in all among the;
number
Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, a beautiful woman with
most brilliant black hair, and Major Stackpoole, and
dear Lady Rossmore, his wife (who was so impulsive
that I have seen her jump up in her box to throw me the
flowers she was wearing), and some of the Hopes
(Newcastle's own family), that race that always behaves
so badly! A little later in the season, my mother and
I accepted with delight an invitation from the Duke
and Duchess of Newcastle to visit them at their place
in Brighton. The Duke naively explained that he had
been having "a run of rotten luck" of late, and thought
that I might turn it. Apparently I did, for the very
day after we got there his horse won in the races.
I sang, of course, in the evening, as their guest.
There was no thought of remuneration, nor could there
be. The graceful which our dear host showed
way in
his appreciation was to send me a pin, beautifully
executed, of a horse and jockey done in enamel,
enclosed in a circle of perfect crystal, the whole sur-
rounded with a rim of superb diamonds and amethysts
purple and white being his racing colours. The
brooch was inscribed simply with the date on which
his horse ran and won.
wore that pin for years. When I had it cleaned at
I
Tiffany's a long time afterwards, it made quite a

sensation, it was so unique. Once, I remember, I was
in the studio dwelling on Fifteenth Street of the
Richard Watson Gilders when I discovered that, having
dressed in a hurry, I had put my pin in upside-down.
I started to change it, and then said :
"O, what's the use. Nobody will ever notice it.

They are all too literary and superior around here!"
XKe London Season 193
The first man Mrs. Gilder presented to me was

evidently quite too much interested in the pin to talk
to me.
"Excuse me," he at last said politely, "but you will
like to know, I feel sure, that your brooch is upside-
down."
"O, is it," said I sweetly. But I did not take the
trouble to change it even then, and, afterwards, I would
not have done so for worlds, for I should have been
cheated out of a great deal of quiet amusement. One
of the contributors to The Century was later presented
to me, and the effect of that pin upside-down was
more irritating than it had been to the first man. He
almost stood on his head trying to discover what was
the trouble. At last :
"You 've got your pin upside-down," he snapped at

me as though a personal affront had been offered him.
"
"I know I have, I snapped back.
"What do you wear it that way for ?" he demanded.
"To make conversation!" I returned, nearly as
cross as he was.
"I don't see it," he said curtly. As a matter of
fact Ihad just realised that upside-down was the way
to wear the pin henceforward. I said to Jeannette
Gilder the next day :
"My upside-down pin was the hit of the evening. I

am never going to wear it any other way!"
I have kept my word during all these years. Never
have I worn Newcastle's pin except upside-down, and
I have never known anyone to whom I was talking to
fail and beg my pardon and say,
to fall into the trap
"you have your brooch on upside-down." Years later
I was once talking to Annie Louise Gary in Rome and a
perfectly strange man came up and began timidly:

13
"I beg your pardon, but your

"I know," I told him kindly. "My pin is upside-
down, is n't it ?"
He retreated, thinking me mad, I suppose. But the
fun of has been worth some such reputation. Differ-
it
ent people approach the subject so differently. Some

are so apologetic and some are so helpful and some,
like my Century acquaintance, are so immensely and
disproportionately annoyed.
But I am
wandering far afield and quite forgetting
my London
first season which, even at this remote
day, is an absorbing recollection to me. I had at that
time enough youthful enthusiasm and desire to "keep
going" to have stocked a regiment of debutantes!
Although I was quite as carefully chaperoned and
looked out for in England as I had been in America,
there was still an unusual sense of novelty and excite-
ment about the days there. I had all of my clothes
from Paris and learned that, as Sir Michael Costa had
insultingly informed me, I was "quite a pretty woman
anyhow." Add to this the generous praise that the
London public gave me professionally, and is it to be
considered a wonder that I felt as if all were a delightful
fairy tale with me as the princess?
As mymother has noted in her diary, we went one
evening to Covent Garden to hear Patti sing. One
really charming memory of Patti is her Juliette. She
was never at all resourceful as an actress and was never
able to stamp any part with the least creative indi-
viduality; but her singing of that music was perfect.
Maurice Strakosch came into our box to present to us
Baron Alfred de Rothschild who became one of the
English friends whom we never forgot and who never
forgot us. Maddox, too, called on us in the box that
evening. He was the editor of a little journal that was

the rival of the Court Circular. Maddox I saw a good
deal of later and found him very original and entertain-
ing. He ordered champagne that night, so we had
quite a littleparty in our box between the acts.
As my mother has also noted, I went to Covent
Garden to hear Mario for the first time. Fioretti was
the prima donna, said to be the best type of the Italian
school. Altogether the occasion was expected to be a
memorable one and I was full of expectations. David-
son, the critic of The London Times and the foremost
musical critic on the Continent, except possibly Dr.
Hanslick of Vienna, was full of enthusiasm. But I did
not think much of Fioretti nor, even, of Mario! Yes,
Mario the great, Mario the golden-voiced, Mario who
could "soothe with a tenor note the souls in Purga-
tory" was a bitter disappointment to me. I was too
inexperienced still to appreciate the art he exhibited,
and was but a ghost of his past glory. Yet
his voice
England adored him with her wonderful loyalty to old

idols.
Several distinguished artists and musicians came
into ourbox that night, Randegger the singing teacher
for one, and my good friend Sir George Armitage.
Sir George was breathless with enthusiasm.
"There is no one like Mario!" he exclaimed, rubbing
his hands with delight.
"This is the first time I ever heard him," I said.
"Ah, what an experience!" he cried.
"I should never have suspected he was the great
"
tenor, I had to admit.
"Oh, my dear young lady," said Sir George eagerly,
"that 'la' in the second act! Did you hear that 'la'
in the second act? There was the old Mario!"
His devotion was so touching that I forebore to

remind him that if one swallow does not make a sum-
mer, so one "la" does not make a singer. When poor
Mario came over to America later he was a dire failure.
He could not hold his own at all. He could not produce
even his "la" by that time. Like Nilsson, however,
he greatly improved dramatically after his vocal
resonances were impaired, for I have been told that
when in possession of his full voice he was very stiff
and unsympathetic in his acting.
Sir George Armitage, by the way, was a somewhat
remarkable individual, a typical, well-bred Englishman
of about sixty, with artistic tastes. He was a perfect
example of the dilettante of the leisure class, with
plenty of time and money to gratify any vagrant whim.
His particular hobby was the opera and he divided
;
his attentions equally between Covent Garden with

Adelina and Lucca, and Her Majesty's with Nilsson,
Titjiens, and Kellogg. When operas that he liked were
being given at both opera houses, he would make a
schedule of the different numbers and scenes with the
hours at which they were to be sung: 9.20 (Covent
Garden), Aria by Madame Patti. 10 o'clock (Her
Majesty's), Duet in second act between Miss Nilsson
and Miss Kellogg. 10.30, Sextette at Covent Garden,
etc., etc. He kept his brougham and horses ready and
would drive back and forth the whole evening, reaching
each opera house just in time to hear the music he
particularly cared for. He had seats in each house and
nothing else in the world to do, so it was quite a simple
matter with him, only, who but an Englishman of the
hereditary class of idleness would think of such a way
of spending the evening? He was a dear old fellow
and we all liked him. He really did not know much
about music, but he had a sincere fondness for it and

dearly loved to come behind the scenes and offer
suggestions to the artists. We
always listened to him
patiently, for it pleasure, and we never
gave him great
had to do any of the things he suggested because he
forgot all about them before the next time.
My mother's diary reads:
June Last night Nozze di Figaro. Mr. and Mrs.
ij.
McHenry sent five bouquets. Splendid performance.
75. Dined at Duchess of Somerset's.

16. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. McHenry. Stebbins
Vanderbilts.
18. Don Giovanni. Checks from Mr. Cowen. Banker
came to see us. Duke of Newcastle Sir George Armitage.
20. Benedict's Morning Concert, St. James' Hall.
Encore "Beware" Don Giovanni in the evening.
21. Dined with Duke and Duchess of New-
Sunday.
castle. Major Stackpoole, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest and
others. Rehearsed La Figula.
Monday. Rehearsal of La Figula. In the evening went
to hear Patti. Did n't like Patti. Received letter from
Colonel Stebbins from Queenstown.
Tuesday. Rehearsed La Figula. Called at Langham on
Godwin all came out in the evening.
Wednesday 24. Morning performance of Le Nozze got
home at 6. P.M. Charity concert for Mr. Cowen at 8.30 at
Dudley House.
Thursday. Rehearsal of La Figula. Concert in the
evening at Lady Fitzgerald's.
Monday. Louise and I went to drive. Do not learn
anything definite about the future where I am to be next
winter no one knows. I do not see any settled home for
me any more. Sometimes I am satisfied to have it so at
others get nervous and uneasy and discontented. Yet I
have lost interest in going home it will be so short a visit
so soon a separation then to some other stranger place
new friends new faces I want the old. The surface of
life does not interest me.
Tuesday. Dined at Langs' large party.
Wednesday 75. Went
to Crystal Palace Mapleson's
Benefit. The whole performance closed with the most
magnificent display of Fireworks I ever saw most
marvellous.
16. Don Giovanni full house great success in the part
Duchess and Lady Rossmore threw splendid bouquets
house very enthusiastic papers fine Mrs. McHenry and
Mr. Sampson came down Duke of Newcastle and Major
Stackpoole Miss Jarrett.
Monday. Le Nozze di Figaro.
Tuesday. La Figula.
Thursday. Went to theatre. Saw Nilsson and all the
artists. Went to hear Patti in Romeo and Juliette Strak-
osch gave us the box. Strakosch introduced Rothschilds.
Friday. Le Nozze di Figaro. Baron Rothschilds, Sir
George Armitage came around.
Saturday. Sir George breakfasted with Louise. Roths-
childs called letter from Mr. Stebbins.
Sunday morning. Dr. Kellogg of Utica called spent
several hours. Santley called and McHenry in the
evening.
I was greatly shocked by the heavy drinking in the

'sixtiesthat was not only the fashion but almost the
requirement of fashion in England. My horror when I
first saw a titled and distinguished Englishwoman in
the opera box of the Earl of Harrington (our friend of

the charming luncheon party), call an attendant and
order a brandy and soda will never be forgotten. It
was the general custom to serve refreshments in the
boxes at the opera, and bottles and glasses of all sorts
passed in and out of these private "loges" the entire
evening. Indeed, people never dreamed of drinking
XHe London Season 199
water, although they drank their wines "like water"

proverbially. Such prejudice as mine has two sides,
as I realise when I think of the landlady of our apart-
ment which we rented during a later London season in
Belgrave Mansions. When singing, I had to have a

late supper prepared for me something very light and
simple and nourishing. Our good landlady used to be
shocked almost to the verge of tears by my iniquitous
habit of drinking water pur-et-simple with my suppers.
"Oh, miss," she would beg, "let me put a bit of
sherry or something in it for you ! It '11 hurt you that
Miss! It '11 make you ill, that it will!"
way,
CHAPTER XIX
HOME AGAIN
asked me to stay on the other side and

MAPLESON
sing in England, Ireland,and France at practi-
cally my own terms, I refused to do so. I had made
but
my and
English success now I wanted to go home in
triumph. My mother agreed with me that it was time
to be turning homeward. So I accepted an engagement
to sing under the management of the Strakosches,
Max and Maurice, on a long concert tour.
have only gratitude for the manner in which my
I
own people welcomed my return. The critics found me
much improved, and one and all gave me credit for
"
hard and unremitting work. "Here is a young singer,
said one, "who has steadily worked her way to the
highest position in operatic art." That point of view
always pleased me; for I contend now, as I have con-
tended since I first began to sing, that, next to having a
voice in the first place, the great essential is to work;
and then work; and, after that, begin to WORK!
New York as a city did not please me when I saw it
again. I had forgotten, or never fully realised, how
provincial it was. Even to-day I firmly believe that it

is undoubtedly the dirtiest city in the world, that its
traffic regulation is the worst, and its cab service the
most expensive and inconvenient. All this struck me

with particular force when I came home fresh from
London and Paris.
200
Home .Again 201
My contract with the Strakosches was for twenty-

appearances a week, making a hundred
five weeks, four
performances This tour was only broken by a

in all.
short engagement under my old director Maretzek at
the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, an arrangement
made for me by Max Strakosch when we reached that
city in the spring; and, with the exception of Robert le
and one or two other operas, I spent

Diable, Trovatore,
the next three years singing in concert and oratorio
entirely. It was not enjoyable, but it was successful.
We went all over the country, North, South, East,
West, and everywhere found an enthusiastic public.
Particularly was this so in the South as far as I person-
ally was concerned. The poor South had not yet
recovered from the effects of the Civil War and did not
have much money to spend on amusements, but, when
at Richmond the people learned that I was Southern
born, more than one woman said to me:
"Go? To hear you! Yes, indeed; we '11 hang up all
we have to go and hear you!"
One of my popular fellow-artists on the first tour
was James M. Wehli, the English pianist. He was
known as the "left-handed pianist" and was in reality
better suited to a vaudeville stage than to a concert
platform. His particular accomplishment consisted in
playing a great number of pieces brilliantly with his
left hand
only, a feat remarkable enough in itself but
not precisely an essential for a great artist, and, even
as a pianist, he was not inspired.
My first appearance after my
European experience
was in a concert at the of Music in New
Academy
York. It was a real welcome home. People cheered
and waved and threw flowers and clapped until I was
literally in tears. I felt that it did not matter in the
2O2 An .American Prima Donna
leastwhether New York was a real city or not America ;
was a real country When the concert was over, the

!
men from the Lotus Club took the horses out of my

carriage and dragged it, with me in it, to my hotel.
And oh, my flowers! My American title of "The
Flower Prima Donna" was soon reestablished beyond
all perad venture. Flowers in those days were much
rarer than they are now; and I received, literally,
loads and loads of camellias, and roses enough to set up
many florist shops. Without exaggeration, I sent those
I received cartloads to the hospitals.
by And one
"floral offering" that I received in Boston was actually
too large for any waggon. A subscription had been
raised and a pagoda of flowers sent. I had to hire a
dray to carry it to my hotel; and then it could not be

got up the stairs but had to spend the night down-
stairs. In the morning I had the monstrous thing
photographed and sent it off to a hospital. Even this
was an undertaking as could not, for some reason,
I
get the dray of the night before and had to hire several
;
able-bodied men to carry it. I hope it was a comfort

to somebody before it faded! It is a pity that this
tribute on the part of Boston did not assume a more
permanent form, for I should have much appreciated a
more lasting token as a remembrance of the occasion.
It must not be thought that I was unappreciative
because I say this. I love anything and everything
that blooms, and I love the spirit that offers me flowers.
But I must say that the pagoda was something of a
white elephant.
While thinking of Boston and my first season at
home, I must not omit mention of Mrs. Martin.
Indeed, it will have to be rather more than a mere
mention, for it is quite a little story, beginning indirectly
Home Again 203
with Wright Sandford. Wright Sandford was the

only man in New York with a big independent fortune,
except "Willie" Douglass who spent most of his time
cruising in foreign waters. Wright Sandford was more
of a friend of mine than "Willie" Douglass, and I used
to haul him over the coals occasionally for his lazy
existence. He had eighty thousand a year and abso-
lutely nothing to do but to amuse himself.
"What do you expect me to do?" he would demand
plaintively. "I Ve no one to play with!"
Whenever I was starting on a tour he would send me
wonderful hampers put up by Delmonico, with the
most delicious things to eat imaginable in them, so
that my mother and I never suffered, at least for the
first day or two, from the inconveniences of the bad
food usually experienced by travellers. A very nice

fellow was Wright Sandford in ways, and to this
many
day I am appreciative of the Delmonico luncheons if of
nothing else.
When we were en route for Boston on that first tour,

a long trip then, eight or nine hours at least by the
fast trains there sat close to us in the car a little
woman who watched me all the time and smiled when-
ever glanced at her.
I I noticed that she had no
luncheon with her, so when we opened our Delmonico
hamper, I leaned across and asked her to join us. I
do not exactly know why I did it for I was not in the
habit of making friends with our fellow-travellers; but
the little person appealed to me somehow in addition
to her being lunchless. She was the most pleased
creature imaginable! She nibbled a little, smiled,
spoke hardly a word, and after lunch I forgot all about
her.
In Boston, as I was in my room in the hotel practis-
204 An American Frixna Donna
ing, before going to the theatre, there came a faint rap

" "
on the door. I called out Come in, yet nobody came.
I began to practise again and again came a little rap.
"Come in," I called a second time, yet still nothing

happened. After a third rap I went and opened the
door. In the dark hall stood a woman. I did not
remember ever having seen her before; but I could
hardly distinguish her features in the passage.
"I've come," said she in a soft, small voice, "to
ask you if you would please kiss me?"
Of course I complied. Needless to say, I thought
her quite crazy. After I had kissed her cheek she
nodded and vanished into the darkness while I, much
mystified, went back to my singing. That night at the
theatre I saw a small person sitting in the front row,
smiling up at me. Her face this time was somewhat
familiar and I said to myself, "I do believe that's
the little woman who had lunch with us on the train!"
"
and then I wonder could it also be the crazy woman
who wanted me to kiss her?"
During our week's engagement in Boston we were
confronted with a dilemma. Max Strakosch came to
me much upset.
"What are we going to do in Providence the only
decent hotel in the town has burned down," he said.
"
"You have to stop with friends.
'11
"I haven't any friends in Providence," I replied.

"Well, you'll have to get some," he declared.
"There 's no hotel where you could possibly stay and we
' '
can't cancel your engagement. The houses are sold out.

Presently a cousin of mine, acting as my agent on
these trips, came and told me that a man had called
on him at the theatre whose wife wished to "entertain"
Miss Kellogg while she was in Providence!
Home Ag'ain. 205
The idea appalled me and I flatly refused to accept

this extraordinary invitation but those two men simply
;
forced me into Strakosch, indeed, regarded the

it.
incident as a clear dispensation from heaven. "No-

mind
thing could be more fortunate," he said, "never
who they are, you go and stay with them anyway.
You Ve wonderful business waiting for you in Provi-
"
dence.
Well I went. Yet I felt very guilty about accepting
a hospitality that would have to be stretched so far.
It was no joke to have me for a guest. I knew well
that we would be a burden on any household, especially

if it were a modest one. When I was singing I had to
have dinner at half-past four at the latest; I could not
be disturbed by anything in the morning and, besides,
it meant three beds for mother, myself, and maid. In
Providence we arrived at a tiny house at the door of
which I was met by the little woman of the train who
was, as I had surmised, the same one who had wanted
me to kiss her. Supper was served immediately.
Everything was immaculate and dainty and delicious.
Our hostess had remembered some of the contents of
the Delmonico hamper that I had especially liked and
had cooked them herself, perfectly.
She made me promise never to stay anywhere else
than with her when I was in Providence and I never
have. In all, throughout the many years that have
intervened between then and now, I must have visited
her more than twenty times. During this period I have
been privileged to watch the most extraordinary devel-
opment that could be imagined by any psychologist.
When I first stopped with her there was not a book
in the house. While everything was exquisitely clean
and well kept, it was absolutely primitive. On my
2O6 -A.n .American Prima Donna
second found linen sheets upon the beds and the

visit I
soap and perfume that I liked were ready for me on the
dressing-table. She studied my "ways" and every

time I came back there was some new and flattering
indication of the fact. Have I mentioned her name?
It was Martin, Mrs. Martin, and her husband was
conductor on what was called the "Millionaire's
Train" that ran between Boston and Providence. I
saw very little of him, but he was a nice, shy man,
much respected in his business connection. He was
"Hezzy" and she was "Lizy" short for Kezekiah and
Eliza. They were a genuinely devoted couple in their
quiet way although he always stood a trifle in awe of

his wife's She was about ten years older
friends.
than I and had a
really marvellous gift for growing
and improving. After a while they left the first house
and moved into one a little larger and much more
comfortable. They had a library and she began to
gather a small circle of musical friends about her. Her
knowledge of music was oddly photographic. She

would bring me a sheet of music and say:
"Please play this part here; this is the nice part!"
But she was, and is, a fine critic. Some big singers are
glad to have her approval. As in music so it was with
books the little woman's was
instinctive but
taste
unerring. She has often brought me
a book of poetry,
pointed out the best thing in it, and said in her soft way:
"Don't you think this is nice? I do think it is so
"
nice It 's a lovely poem.
!
There was a young telegraph operator in Providence

who had a voice. His name was Jules Jordan. Mrs.
Martin took him into her house and practically brought
him up. He, too, began to grow and develop and is
now the head of the Arion Society, the big musical
Home .Again 207
association of Providence that has some of the biggest

singers in the country in its concerts. Mrs. Martin
entertains Jules Jordan's artistic friends and goes to
the concert rehearsals and says whether they are good
or not. She knows, too. "I am called the 'Singers"
"
friend, she said to me not very long ago. She criticises
the orchestra and chorus as well as the solos, and she is
right every time. I consider her one of the finest critics
Iknow. As for the professional critics, she is acquainted
with them all and they have a very genuine respect for
her judgment. She is the sort of person who is called

"queer." Most real characters are. If she does not
like one,the recipient of her opinion is usually fully
aware of what that opinion is. She has no social idea
at nor any toleration for it. This constitutes one
all,
point which her development is so remarkable.

in
Most women who "make themselves" acquire, first of
all,the social graces and veneer, the artificiality in
surface matters that will enable them to pass muster
in the "great world." She has allowed her evolution
to go along different lines. She has really grown, not
in accomplishments but in accomplishment; not in
manners but in grey matter. Indeed, I hardly know
how to find words with which to speak of Mrs. Martin

for I think her such a wonderful person; I respect and
care for her so much that I find myself dumb when I
try to pay her a tribute. If I have dared to speak of

her humble beginnings in the first little house it is
because it seems to me that only so can I really do her
justice as she is to-day. She is a living monument of
what a woman can do with herself unaided, save by the
force and the aspiration that is in her. Meeting her
was one of the most valuable incidents that happened
to me in the year of my home-coming.
2o8 An American Prima Donna
It seems as spent most of my time in those days
if I
being photographed. Likenesses were stiff and un-

natural; and I am inclined to believe that the picture
of me that has always been the best known the one
my hand marked a new epoch in photogra-
leaning on
phy. had
I been posing a great deal the day that was
taken and was dead tired. There had been much
arranging; many attempts to obtain "artistic effects."
Finally, I went off into a corner and sat down, leaning
my head on my hand, while the photographer put new
plates in his camera. Suddenly he happened to look
in my direction and exclaimed :
"By Jove could only I 'm going to try it

if I
anyway!" Then he shouted, "Don't move, please!"

and took me just as I was. He was very doubtful as to
the result for it was a new departure in photography;
but the attempt was very successful, and other photogra-
phers began to try for the same natural and easy effect.
Another time I happened to have a handkerchief in my
lap that threw a white reflection on my face, and the
photographer discovered from it the value of large
light-coloured surfaces to deflect the light where it
was needed. This, too, I consider, was an unconscious
factor in the introduction of natural effects into pho-
tography. however, took a satisfactory picture.
I never,
People who depend on expression and animation for

their looks never do. My likenesses never looked the
way I really did except, perhaps, one that a pho-

tographer once caught while I was talking about Duse,
explaining how much more I admired her than I did
Bernhardt.
In those concert and oratorio years I remember very
few pleasurable appearances: but unquestionably one
of the few was on June I5th, when the Beethoven
Home .Again 209
Jubilee was held and I was asked to sing as alternative

prima donna with Parepa Rosa. Although I had done
well in the Crystal Palace, I was not a singer who was
generally supposed nor expected to fill so large a place
as the American Institute Colosseum on Third Avenue,
and many people prophesied that I could not be
satisfactorily heard there. I asked my
friends to go to
different parts of the house and to tell me if voice my
sounded well. Even some of my friends out in front,
though, did not expect to hear me to advantage. But,

contrary to what we all feared, my voice proved to have
a carrying quality that had never before been ade-
quately recognised. The affair was a great success.
Parepa Rosa did not, as a matter of fact, have quite so
big a voice as she was usually credited with having.
She had power only to G. Above the staff it was a
mixed voice. She could diminish to an exquisite
quality, but she could not reinforce with any particular
volume or vibration.
There was another occasion that I remember with a
deep sense of its impressiveness that of the funeral of
:
Horace Greeley, at which I sang. I knew Horace

Greeley personally and recall many interesting things
about him; but, naturally perhaps, what stands out in
my memory is the fact that, a few days before he died,
he came to hear me sing Handel's Messiah, being, as
he said afterwards, particularly touched and impressed
by my rendering of / know that my Redeemer liveth.
When he came to die, the last words that he said were
those, whispered faintly, as if they still echoed in his
heart. It may have been because of this fact that it
was I who was asked to sing at his funeral.
On my return from abroad I was, of course, wearing
only foreign clothes and, as a consequence, found
2io An .American Prima Donna
myself embarrassed centre of much curiosity.

the
American women were still children in the art of dress-
ing. At one time I was probably the only woman in
America who wore silk stockings and long gloves.
People could not accustom themselves to my Parisian
fashions. In Saratoga one dear man, whom I knew
very well,came to me much distressed and whispered
that my dress was fastened crooked. I had the greatest
difficulty in convincing him that it was made that way
and that the crookedness was the latest French touch.
A recent fashion was that humped-up effect that gave
the wearer the attitude then known and reviled as the
"Grecian Bend." It was made famous by caricatures
and jokes in the funny papers of the time, but I, being
a new-comer so to speak, was not aware of its news-
paper notoriety. Conceive my injured feelings when
the small boys in the street ran after me in gangs
shouting "Grecian Bend! Grecian Bend!"
Another point that hurt the delicate sensibilities
of the concert-going American public was the fact that
at evening concerts I wore low-necked gowns. On the
other side the custom of wearing a dress that was cut
down for any and every appearance after dark, was
invariable, and it took me some time to grasp the
cause of the sensation with my modestly decollete
frocks. People, further, found my ease effrontery, and
my carriage, acquired after years of effort, "putting on
airs." In spite of the cordiality ofmy welcome home,
therefore, Ihad many critics who were not particularly
kind. Although one woman did write, "who ever saw
more simplicity on the stage?" there were plenty of
the others who said, "Clara Louise Kellogg has become
'stuck up' during her sojourn abroad." As for my
innocent desire to be properly and becomingly clothed,
Home .Again 211
it gave comments that were intended to be

rise to
quite scathing, if I had only taken sufficient notice of
them to think of them ten minutes after they had
reached my ears. That year there was put on the
"
millinery market a Clara Louise" bonnet, by the way,
that was supposed to be a great compliment to me,
but that I am afraid I would not have been seen wearing
at any price!
In this connection one champion arose in my defence,
however, whose efforts on my behalf must not be over-
looked. He was an
Ohio journalist, and his love of
justice was
greater than his knowledge of the
far
French language. Seeing in some review that Miss
Kellogg had "a larger repertoire than any living prinia
donna," this chivalrous writer rushed into print as
follows :
We do not of course know how Miss Kellogg was dressed

in other cities, but upon the occasion
of her last perform-
ance here we are positively certain that her repertoire did
not seem to extend out so far as either Nilsson's or Patti's.
It may have been that her overskirt was cut too narrow
to permit of its being gathered into such a lump behind,
or it may have been that it had been crushed down acci-
dentally, but the fact remains that both of Miss Kellogg's
rivals wore repertoires of a much more extravagant size
very much to their discredit, we think . . .

CHAPTER XX
"YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER"
A MAN whose name I never learned dropped a big,

fragrant bunch of violets at my feet each night
for weeks. Becoming discouraged after a while because
I did not seek him out in his gallery seat, he sent me a
note begging for a glance and adding, for identification,
"
this illuminating point: You 'II know me by my boots
hanging over!"
Who could disregard such an appeal? That night my
eyes searched the balconies feverishly. He had not
vainly raised my hopes; his boots were hanging over,
large boots, that looked as if they had seen considerable
service. I sang my best to those boots and dear man !
the violets fell as sweetly as before. I have con-

jured up a charming portrait of this individual, with a
soul high enough to love music and violets and simple
enough not to be ashamed of his boots. Would that
all "sincere admirers" might be of such an ingenuous
and engaging a pattern.

The variety of "admirers" that are the lot of a
person on the stage is extraordinary. It is very difficult
for the stage persons themselves to understand it. It
has never seemed to me that actors as a class are
particularly Personally I have always
interesting.
been too cognisant of the personalities behind the
scenes to ever have any theatrical idols; but to a great
many there is something absolutely fascinating about
212
Sincere Admirer** 213
the stage and stage folk. The actor appears to the

audience in a perpetual, hazy, calcium glory. We are,
one and all, children with an inherent love for fairy
tales and it is probably this love which is in a great
measure accountable for the blind adoration received
by most stage people.
I have received, I imagine, the usual number of
letters from "your sincere admirer," some of them
funny and some of them rather pathetic. Very few of

them were really impertinent or offensive. In nearly
all was to be found the same touching devotion to an
abstract ideal for which, for the moment, I chanced to

be cast. Once in a while there was some one who, like
a person who signed himself "Faust," insisted that I
had "met his eyes" and "encouraged him from afar."
Needless to say I had never in my life seen him; but he
worked himself into quite a fever of resentment on the
subject and wrote me several letters. There was also
a man who wrote me several perfectly respectful, but
ardent, love letters to which, naturally, I did not
respond. Then, finally, he bombarded me with another
type of screed of which the following is a specimen:
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, say something, if it is
only to rate me for tell me to go
my importunities or to
about my business! Anything but this contemptuous
silence!"
But these were exceptions. Most of my "admirers' "
letters are gems of either humour or of sentiment.
Among my treasures is an epistle that begins:
"Miss Clara Louise Kellogg

Miss:
Before to expand my feelings, before to make you
known the real intent of this note, in fine before to
disclose the secrets of my heart, I will pray you to
pardon my indiscretion (if indiscretion that can be
called) to address you unacquainted," etc.
Is n't this a masterpiece?

There was also an absurdly conceited man who wrote
me one letter a year for several years, always in the
same vein. He was evidently a very pious youth and
had "gotten religion" rather badly, for in every epistle
he broke into exhortation and urged me fervently to
become a "real Christian," painting for me the joys
of true religion if I once could manage to "find it."
In one of his later letters after assuring me that he had
prayed for me night and morning for three years and
would continue to do so he ended in this impressive
manner :
"... And if, in God's mercy, we are both per-

' '
mitted to walk the Golden Streets, I shall there seek
you out and give you more fully my reasons for writing
you."
Could anything be more entertaining than this nawe
fashion of making a date in Heaven?
Not all my letters were love letters. Sometimes I
would receive a few words from some woman unknown
to me but full of a sweet and understanding friendli-
ness. Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, then the centre of the
stage scandal through her friendship with Henry Ward
Beecher, wrote me a charming letter that ended with
what struck me as a very pathetic touch:
"I am unwilling to be known by you as the defiant,
discontented woman of the age rather, as an humble
helper of those less fortunate than myself
I never knew Mrs. Tilton personally, but have often
felt that I should have liked her. One of the dearest
'
"Yoxir Sincere Admirer" 215
communications I ever received was from a French

working girl, a corset maker, I believe. She wrote:
I am but a poor little girl, Mademoiselle, a toiler in the
sphere where you reign a queen, but ever since I was a

very little child I have gone to listen to your voice when-
ever you have deigned to sing in New York. Those magic
tone-flowers, scattering their perfumed sweetness on the
waiting air, made child heart throb with a wonderful
my
pulsation. . . .
One
of the favourite jests of the critics was my
obduracy in matters of sentiment. It was said that I
would always have emotional limitations because I had
no love affairs like other prime donne. Once, when I
gave some advice to a young girl to "keep your eyes
fixed upon your artistic future," or some such similar
phrase, the press had a good deal of fun at my expense.

"That" it was declared, "was exactly what was the
matter with Clara Louise she kept her eyes fixed upon
;
an artistic future instead of upon some man who was in

love with her!" I was rather a good shot, very fond of
target shooting, and many jokes were also made on the
supposed damage I did. One newspaper man put it
"
rather more aptly. "Not only in pistol shooting, he
said, "but in everything she aims at, our prima donna
"
is sure to hit the mark.
My "sincere admirers" were from all parts of the
house, but I found the "gallery" ones most
think I
sincere and, certainly, the most amusing. Max Maret-
zek used to say that he had no manner of use for an
artist unless she could fill the family circle. I am glad
to be able to record that I always could. singing My
usually appealed to the people. The Police Gazette
always gave me good notices! I love the family circle.
As a rule the appreciation there isgreater because of

the sacrifices which they have had to make to buy their
seats. When people can go to hear good music every
night, they do not care nearly so much about doing it.
I wonder if anybody besides singers get such an
extraordinary sense of contact and connection with
members of their audiences? I have sometimes felt as
if thought waves, reaching through the space between,
held me fast to some of those who heard me sing. Who
knows what sympathies, what comprehensions, what
exquisite friendships, were blossoming out there in the
dark house like a garden, waiting to be gathered? Let-
ters not necessarily love letters rather, stray mes-
sages o appreciation and understanding have brought
me a similar sense of joy and of safe intimacy. After
the receipt of any such, I have sung with the pleasant
sense that a new friend yes, friend, not auditor was
listening. I have suddenly felt at home in the big
theatre; and often, very often, have I looked eagerly
over the banked hosts of faces, asking myself wistfully
which were the strangers and which mine own people.
It was not only in the theatre that I found "ad-
mirers." My vacations were beset with those who
wanted to look at and speak to a genuine prima donna
at close range. Indeed, I had frequently to protect
myself from perfectly strange and intrusive people.
Often I have gone to Saratoga during the season.
Saratoga was a fashionable resort in those days and I
always had a good audience. One incident that I
remember of Saratoga was a detestable train that
invariably came along in the middle of my performance
the evening train from New York. I always had to
stop whatever I was singing and wait for it to go by.
One night I thought I would cheat it and timed my
Sincere Admirer" 217
song a little earlier so that I would be through before

the train arrived. It just beat me by a bar and I could
;
hear steaming nearer and nearing as I hurried on.

it
As I came to the end there was a loud whistle from the

locomotive but, for once, luck was on my side, for it
;
was pitched in harmony with my final note! The

coincidence was warmly applauded.
When on the road I not infrequently practised with
my banjo at hotels. It was more practicable to carry
about than a piano and, besides, it was not always an
easy matter to hire a good piano. One time also in
Saratoga I was playing that instrument preparatory
to beginning my morning practice, when an old gentle-
man who had a room on the same floor, descended to
the office in a fine temper. He was a long, slim, wiry
old fellow, with a high, black satin stock about his
bony neck, very few hairs on his little round head,
deep sunken eyes, pinched features, and an extremely
nervous manner.
"See here," he burst out in a cracked voice, as he
danced about on the marble tiling of the office floor,
"have you a band of nigger minstrels in the house, eh!
Zounds, sir, there 's an infernal banjo turn, turn, tum-
ming in my ears every morning and I can't sleep. Drat
banjoes I And nigger minstrels I hate
hate 'em.
'em too. You must move me, sir, move me at once.
That banjo '11 set me crazy. Move me at once, d 'ye
hear? or I '11 leave the house!"
"
"Why, said the clerk suavely, "that banjo player
sir,
is not a nigger minstrel, at all, sir, but Miss Clara

Louise Kellogg, who uses a banjo to practise with."
The hard lines in the old fellow's face relaxed, he
looked sharply at the clerk and, leaning over the
counter, remarked:
"What, Clara Louise Kellogg! W

why, I '11 go up
and listen Zounds, man, she 's my particular favour-
!
ite. She 's charmed me with her sweet voice many a

time. D n it, give her another banjo! Tell her to
play all day if she wants to! Clara Louise Kellogg, eh?
H'm, well, well!"
He
tottered off and, as I observed, after that so
long as I stayed left the door of his room open
down the hall so that he could hear my "turn, turn,
tumming."
A very different, though equally ingenuous tribute
to my powers was that given by an old Indian trapper
who,when in Chicago to sell his hides, went to hear me
sing and expressed his emotions to a newspaper man of
that city in approximately the following language:
have heard most of the sweet and terrible noises that

I
natives make. I have heard the thunder among the Hills
when the Lord was knocking against the earth until it

passed; and I have heard the wind in the pines and the
waves on the beaches, when the darkness of night was in
the woods, and nature was singing her Evening Song and
there was no bird nor beast the Lord has made, and I have
not heard a voice that would make as sweet a noise as na-
ture makes when the Spirit of the Universe speaks through
the stillness but that sweet lady has made sounds to-night
;
sweeter than my ears have heard on hill or lake shore at

noon, or in the night season, and I certainly believe that the
Lord has been with her and given her the power
Spirit of the
to sounds. A man might like to have
make such sweet
these sweet sounds in his ears when his body lies in his
cabin and his spirit is standing on the edge of the great
clearing. I wish she could sing for me when my eyes grow
dim and my feet strike the trail that no man strikes but
once, nor travels both wavs.
* **
Yoxir Sincere A.dmirer 219
Surely among my friends, if not among my "sincere

admirers," I may include Okakura, who came over
here with the late John La Farge as an envoy from the
Japanese Government to study the art of this country
as well as that of Europe. His dream was to found
some sort of institution in Japan for the preservation
and development of his country's old, national ideals in
art. His criticisms of Raphael and Titian, by the way,
were something extraordinary. As for music, he had a
marvellous sense for it. La Farge took him to a
Thomas Concert and he was vastly impressed by the
music of Beethoven. One might have thought that he
had listened to Occidental classics all his life. But, for
that matter, I know two little Japanese airs that
Davidson of London me might well have been writ-
told
ten by Beethoven himself; so it may be that there is an
obscure bond of sympathy, which our less acute ears
would not always recognise, between our great master
and the composers of Okakura's native land.
Okakura was only twenty-six when I first met him at
Richard Watson Gilder's studio in New York, but he
was already a professor and spoke perfect English and
knew all our best literature. When Munkacsy, the
Hungarian painter, came over, his colleague, Francis
Korbay, the musician, gave him an evening reception,
and I took my Japanese friend. It was a charming
evening and Okakura was the success of the reception.
When he started being introduced he was nothing but
a professor. Before he had gone the rounds he had
become an Asiatic prince and millionaire. He had the
"grand manner" and wore gorgeous clothes on formal
occasions.
Some years later I called on his wife in Tokio. I
considered this was the polite thing for me to do
22O .An .American Prima Donna
although Okakura himself was in Osaka at the time.

Okakura had an art school in Tokio, kept up with the
aid of the Government, where he was trying to fulfil
his old ambition of preserving the individuality of his
own work and
people's of driving out Occidental
encroachments. At the school, where we had gone
with a guide who could serve also as interpreter, I
asked for Madame. My request to see her was met
with consternation. I was asking a great deal how
much, I did not realise until afterwards.
Before I
could enter, I was requested to take off my shoes.
This I considered impossible as I was wearing high-
laced boots. Furthermore, we were having winter
weather, very cold and raw, and nothing was offered
me to put on in their place, as the Japanese custom is
at the entrances of the temples. My
refusal to remove
my shoes halted proceedings for a while; but, eventually,

I was led around to a side porch where I could sit
on a chair (I was amazed at their having such a thing)
and speak with the occupants of the house as they
knelt inside on their heels. The shoji, or bamboo and
paper screen, was pushed back, revealing an interior
wonderfully clever in its simplicity. The furniture con-
sisted of a beautiful brazier and two rare kakamonos
on the wall nothing more.
In came Madame Okakura in a grey kimono and
bare feet. Down she went on her knees and saluted me
in the prettiest fashion imaginable. We
talked through
the interpreter until her daughter entered, who spoke
to me in bad, limited French. The daughter was an
unattractive with an artificially reddened mouth,
girl,
but I thought the mother charming, like a most
exquisite Parisienne masquerading as a "Japanese
Lady."
'"Yoxir Sincere Admirer" 221
Not long after my visit I saw Okakura himself and

toldhim how much I had enjoyed seeing his wife. He
gave me an annoyed glance and remained silent. I was
nonplussed and somewhat mortified. I could not under-
stand what could be the trouble, for he acted as if his
honour were offended. In time I learned that the
unpardonable breach of good form in Japan was to
mention his wife to a Japanese!
So graceful, so delicate in both expression and feeling
are the letters that I have received from Okakura, that
I cannot resist my inclination to include them in this
chapter, although, possibly, they are somewhat too

personal. On January 4, 1887, he wrote:
MY DEAR Miss KELLOGG:
France lies three nights ahead of us. The returning
clouds still seek the western shore and the ocean rolls back
my dreams to you. Your music lives in my soul. I carry
away America in your voice; and what better token can
your nation offer? But praises to the great sound like
flattery, and praises to the beautiful sound like love. To
you they must both be tiresome. I shall refrain. You
allude to the Eastern Lights. Alas, the Lamp of Love
flickers and Night is on the plains of Osaka. There are
lingering lights on the crown of the Himalayas, on the
edges of the Kowrous, among the peaks of Hira and Kora.
But what do they care for the twilight of the Valley? They
stand like the ocean moon, regardless of the tempest below.
Seek the light in the mansion of your own soul. Are you
not yourself the Spirit Nightingale of the West? Are you not
crying for the moon in union with your Emersons and
Longfellows with your La Farges and your Gilders? Or
am I mistaken? I enclose my picture and submit the trans-
lation of the few lines on the back to your axe of anger and
the benevolence of your criticism as we say at home. I need a
great deal of your benevolence and deserve more of your

anger, as the lines sound so poor in the English. However

they do not appear very grand in the original and so I
submit them to your guillotine with a free conscience. The
lines are different from the former, for I forget them or
care not to repeat.
Will you kindly convey my best regards to Mrs. Gilder,
for I owe so much to her, to say nothing of your friendship !
Will you also condescend to write to me at your leisure?
(Translation: One star floats into the ocean of Night.

Past the back of Taurus, away among the Pleiades, whither
dost thou go? Sadly I watch them all. My soul wanders
after them into the infinite. Shall my soul return, or
never?)
VIENNA, March 4, 1887.

The home of a traveller is in his sweet memories. Under
the shadow of Vesuvius and on the waters of Leman my
thoughts were always for America, which you and your
friends have made so pleasant to me. Pardon me therefore
if my pen again turns toward you. How kind of you to
remember me Your letter reached me here last night and
!
I regret that I did not stay longer in Paris to receive it

sooner. Will you not favour me by writing again?
Europe is an enigma often a source of sadness to me.
The forces that developed her are tearing her asunder.
Is it because all civilisations are destined to have their
days and nights of Brahma? Or was the principle that

organised the European nations itself a false one? Did they
grasp the moon in the waters and at last disturb the image?
I know not. I only feel that the Spirit of Unrest is standing
beside me. War is coming and must come, sooner or later.
Conflicting opinions chase each other across the continent

as if the demons fought in the air before the battle of men
began. The policy of maintaining peace by increasing the
'Yoxir Sincere Admirer" 223
armies is absurd. It is indeed a sad state of things to make

such a sophism necessary. I am getting tired of this, though
there is some consolation that there are more fools in the
world than the Oriental.

I have been rather disappointed in the French music.
Perhaps I am too much prejudiced by The Persian Serenade

to appreciate anything else. The acting was artificial
and there was no voice which had anything of the Spirit
Nightingale in it. You once told me that you intended to
cross the Atlantic this summer. When? My dreams are
impatient of your arrival. May you come soon and correct
my one-sided impression of Europe !
I am going to Rome after two or three weeks' stay in
this place. That city interests me deeply, as yet the

spiritual centre of the West, whose voice still influences
the politics of Central Europe. In I shall be at the
May
Paris Salon and cross over to London in the early part
of June.
It snows every day in Vienna and I spend my time
mostly with the old doctors of the University. Their talks

on philosophy and science are indeed interesting, but
somehow or other I don't feel the delight I had in your
society in New York. Why?
July 12, 1887.

I am very glad to hear that you are in Europe. My
duties in London end this week and I have decided to
start for Munich next morning, thence to Dresden and
Berlin. I am thus looking forward to the great pleasure of
meeting you again and gathering fragrance from your
conversation.Mrs. Gilder wrote to me that you were not
quite well since your tour in the West and my anxiety
mingles with my hopes. The atmosphere of English civili-
sation weighs heavily on me and I am longing to be away.
It seems that civilisation does not agree with a member of
an Eastern barbaric tribe. My conception of music has
224 An American Prime Donna
been gradually changing. The Ninth Symphony has revo-
lutionised it. Where is the future of music to be?
Many questions crowd on me and I am impatient to lay
them before you at Carlsbad. Will you allow me to do so?
BERLIN. KAISERHAUF, July 24th.

The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden
glided dimly before me. Holbein was a disappointment.
The Sistine Madonna was divine beyond my
expectation.
I saw Raphael in his purity and was delighted. None of his
pictures is my
so inspired as this. Still thoughts wandered
amid these grand creations. They flitted past in a shower
of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through
the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's
twilight. . . .
To me your friendship is the boat that bears me

proudly home. I wait with pleasure any line you may
send me there. Wishing every good to you, I remain yours
respectfully.
KAISERHAUF, July 28th, 1887.

Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address
in Japan Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me
is
there I shall be so happy! The task which I have imposed

upon myself the preserving of historical continuity and
internal development, etc., has to work very slowly. I
must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be delighted
to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on
with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that
you have a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism.
Surely your lotus must be opening to the dawn. European
philosophy has reached to a point where no advance is
possible except through mysticism. Yet they ignore the
hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The Berlin
University has thus been forced to return to Kant and
begin afresh. They have destroyed but have no power to
Sincere Admirer** 225
construct, and they never will if they refuse to see more into
themselves. . . .
Hoping you the best and the brightest, I am

Yours faithfully,
OKAKURA KAKUDZO.
And so I come to one of all these who was really
a "sincere admirer," and a faithful lover, although I
never knew him. It is a difficult incident to write of,
it holds some of the deepest elements of
for I feel that
sentiment and of tragedy with which I ever came in
touch.
I was singing in Boston when a man sent me a mes-
sage saying that he was connected with a newspaper
and had something of great importance about which
he wanted to see me. He furthermore said that he
wished to see me alone. It was an extraordinary
request and, at first, I refused. I suspected a subter-
fuge a wager, or something humiliating of that sort.

But he persisted, sending yet another message to the
effect that he had something to communicate to me
which was of an essentially personal nature. Finally
I consented to grant him the interview and, as he had
requested, I saw him alone.

He was just back from the front where he had been
war correspondent during the heart of the Civil War,
and he told me that he had a letter to give to me from a
soldier in his division who had been shot. The soldier
was mortally wounded when the reporter found him.
He was lying at the foot of a tree at the point of death,
and the correspondent asked if he could take any last
messages for him to friends or relatives. The soldier
asked him to write down a message to take to a woman
whom he had loved for four years, but who did not
know of his love,
is
"Tell her," he said, speaking with great difficulty,

41
that I would not try even to meet her; but that I have
loved her, before God, as well as any man ever loved a
woman." He asked the reporter to feel inside his
" "
uniform for the woman's picture. It is Miss Kellogg,
he added, just before he died. "You don't think that
she will be offended if I send her this message now
do you?"
He asked the correspondent to draw his sabre and
cut off a lock of hair to send to me, and the reporter
wrote down the message on the only scraps of paper at
his disposal torn bits scribbled over with reports of
the enemy's movements, and the names of other dead
soldiers whose people must be notified when the battle
was over. And then the soldier my soldier died;
and the correspondent left him the picture and came
away.
The scribbled message and the lock of hair he put
into my hands, saying:
"He was
very much worried lest you would think
him presumptuous. I told him that I was sure you
would not."
I was weeping as he spoke, and so he left me.
CHAPTER XXI
ON THE ROAD
those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly

OH,uncomfortable to travel in the South and West
at that time, but it was decidedly risky as well. High-
way robberies were numerous and, although I myself
never happened to suffer at the hands of any desper-
adoes, I have often heard first-hand accounts from
persons who had been robbed of everything they were
carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse
James
and his men were same region and the
operating in the
celebrated highway man himself was once in the train
with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a glimpse
of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were
with him and, although they were behaving themselves
peacefully enough for the time being, I think that most
of the passengers were willing to give them a wide
berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw
something of a situation which might have developed
dramatically. There was a "three card monte" gang
working on the train. One of their number pretended
to be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure
victims into the game. I saw this particularly tough-
looking individual disappear into the toilet room and
come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play.
I also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his
right hip pocket : and I experienced a somewhat blood-
227
thirsty desire that there might be a genuine excitement

in store for us, but the alarm spread and nobody was
snared that trip.
As there were frequently no through trains on Sun-
days,we had sometimes to have special trains. I never
quite understood the idea of not having through trains
on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides unfortu-
nate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the
Sabbath. But so it was. And once our "special" ran
plump into a big strike of locomotive engineers at
Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by the
strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were
stalled there for hours. At last an engineer from the
East was found who consented to take our train
through and there was much excitement while he was
being armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of
ammunition, for the strikers had threatened to shoot
down any "scab" who attempted to break the strike.
We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car
to avoid the stones that might be thrown through the
windows when we started and when the train began to
;
move slowly our situation was decidedly trying. We

could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the engine
gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his
business and had been authorised to drive the engine
at top speed to get us out of the trouble, so soon the
noise of shooting and the general uproar were left
behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed,
but I, personally, never cared to come any closer to
lawlessness than I was then.
There were some bright spots on these disagreeable
journeys. One day as I was coming out of a hall in
Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the concert
we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew,
On tHe Road 229
an. Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in

London.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!"
"Did you see the advertisement?" I asked.
"No," he returned, "I 'm just off the yacht that 's
lying out there in the Lake. I 'm out looking into some
mining interests, you know. I heard your voice from
the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I *d
"
take a run on shore and look you up.
But such pleasant experiences were the exception.
The South in general was in a particularly blind and
dull condition just then. The people could not con-
ceive of any amusement that was not intended literally
"
to "amuse. They felt it incumbent to laugh at every-
thing. My chevol de bataille was the Polonaise from
Mignon, at the end of which I had introduced some
chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required

a great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion
of the house would appreciate it, of course, but on one
occasion a detestable young couple thought the trills
were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a
trill they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle
and, when there was a series of the chromatic trills,
they nearly burst. The chromatics introduced by me
were never written. They went like this:
One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a

whole evening for a singer. I recall one concert when I
was obsessed by a man in the front row. He would not
even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a
spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet the
spoiling, or, perhaps,he was really bored and disgusted.

At any rate, he kept his eyes fixed on a point high over
my head and not with a beatific expression, either. He
clearly did not think much of my work. Well I sang
my whole programme to that one man. And I was a

failure.Charmed I ever so wisely, I could not really
move him. But I did make him uncomfortable! He
wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He
must have felt that I was trying to win him over in
I sometimes wonder if other singers
spite of himself.
do the same with obdurate auditors? Surely they
must, for a sort of fetish of the profession that there
it is
is always one person present who is by far the most

difficult to charm. In that clever play The Concert the
pianist tells the young woman in love with him that he
was first interested in her when he saw her in the
audience because she did not cry. He played his best
in order to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear
roll down her cheek, he knew that he had triumphed as
an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert and
indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a
programme from some one in the audience with a
suggestion scribbled on the margin:
"Can't you sing something devilish for a change?"
I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a
tight-rope exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well

"The Evening Star" from Tannhauser and his per-
formance frequently ended in a chill silence with a bit
of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour
and he used to come off the stage and say:
"That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd
better do my bicycle act next?"
Times change and standards with them. The towns
where they yearned for bicycle acts and "something
Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen
From a photograph
On tKe Road 231
devilish" are to-day centres of musical taste and culti-

vation. I never think of the change of standards with-
out being reminded of an old tale of my father's which
iscurious in itself, although I cannot vouch for it nor
verify it. He said that somewhere Germany there
in
was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first
hung, many years before, was pitched in the key of C
and which was found to ring, in the nineteenth century,
according to our present pitch, at about our B flat.
The musical scientists said that the change was not in
the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had
been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos
who pitched them higher and higher to get a more
brilliant tone.
My
throat was very sensitive in those days. I took
cold easilyand used, besides, to be subject to severe
nervous headaches. Yet I always managed to sing.
Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capri-
cious prime donne who consider themselves and their
own physical feelings before their obligation to the
public that has paid to hear them. While, of course, in
fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider
her own interests, I do believe that she cannot be
too conscientious in this connection. In Carmen one
night broke
I my collar bone in the fall in the last act.
I was still determined to do my part and went out,
after it had been set, and bought material to match my
costumes so that the sling the surgeon had ordered
should not be noticed. And, for once fortunately, my
audiences were either not exacting or not observing, for,
apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact
that I could not use my right arm. I could not
help questioning whether my gestures were usually so
wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible !
Our experiences in general with physicians on the road

were lamentable. As a result my mother carried a
regular medicine chest about with her and all of my
fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was
the matter with them.
Another hardship that we all had to endure was the
being on exhibition. It is one of the penalties of fame.
Special trains were most unusual, and so were prime
donne, and crowds used to gather on the station plat-
forms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse
of us as we passed through.
Andthe food Some of our trials in regard to food
!
or, rather, the lack of it were very trying. Voices are

very dependent on the digestion; hence the need of, at
least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On one
trip wereally nearly starved to death for, of course,
there were no dining-cars and the train did not stop at
any station long enough to forage for a square meal.
Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men in the
company that, if he would get some "crude material"
at the next stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he
succeeded in securing a huge bundle of raw chops, a
loaf of bread and some butter. There was a big stove
at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the
chops, made
tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed,
it seemed a feast after ten hours with nothing at all!
Another time I got off our "special" to hunt luncheon

and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train
but could not make it. After a while the company
discovered that they had lost me on the way and backed
up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall never forget the
battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the
road in regard to coloured maid, Eliza. She was a
my
very nice and entirely presentable girl and he would
On the Road 233
not let her have even a cup of tea in the dining-room.

We had had a long, hard journey, and she was quite as
tired as the rest of us. when I found her still wait-
So,
ing after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks
to the effect that her presence at the table was much
to be preferred to the men who had eaten there without
table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with their
knives.
"And what else did we have the war for!" I finally
cried. How the others laughed at me. But Eliza was

fed, and well fed, too.
I had always to carry my own bedclothes on the
Western tours. When we first started out, I did not
realise the necessity, but later, I became wiser. Cleanli-
ness has always been almost more than godliness to me.
Before I would use a dressing-room I nearly always had
it thoroughly swept out and sometimes cleaned and
scrubbed. This all depended on the part of the country

we were in. I came to know that in certain sections of
the South-west I should have to have a regular house-
cleaning done before I would set foot in their accommo-
dations. I missed my bath desperately, and my piano,
and all the other luxuries that have become practical
necessities to civilised persons. When I could not have
a state-room on a train, my maid would bring a cup of
cold water to my berth before I dressed that was a poor
apology for a bath, but that saved my life on many a
morning after a long, stuffy night in a sleeper.
The lesser hardships perhaps annoyed me most. Bad
food, bad air, rough travelling, were worse than the
more ills of fatigue and indispositions.
serious But the
worst of was the water. One can, at a pinch, get
all
along with poor food or with no food at all to speak of,

but bad water is a much more serious matter. Even
dirt is tolerable if it can be washed off afterwards. But
I have seen many places where the water was less
inviting than the dirt. When I first beheld Missouri
water I hardly dared wash in it, much less drink it,
and was appalled when itwas served to me at the table.

I gazed with horror at the brown liquid in my tumbler,
and then said faintly to the waiter:
"Can't you get me some clear water, please?"
"Oh, yes," said he, "it '11 be clearer, ma'am, but it
won't be near so rich!"

And all the time I was working, for, no matter what
the hardships or distractions that may come an artist's
way, he or she must always keep at work. Singing is
something that must be worked for just as hard after it
iswon as during the winning process. Liszt is supposed
to have said that when he missed practising one day he
knew it; when he missed two days his friends knew it;
on the third day the public knew it. I often rehearsed
before a mirror, so that I could know whether I looked
right as well as sounded right; and, apropos of this, I
have been much impressed by the fact that ways of
rehearsing are very different and characteristic. Ellen
Terry once told me that, when she had a new part to
study, she generally got into a closed carriage, with the
window open, and was driven about for two or three
hours, working on her lines.
"It is the only way I can keep my repose," she
"
said. I only wish I had some of Henry's repose when
studying a part!"
Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia
From a photograph by Window & Grove
CHAPTER XXII
LONDON AGAIN
nearly three years of concert and oratorio

AFTER
and racketing about America on tours, it was a
joy to go to England again for another season. The
Peace Jubilee Association asked me to sing at their
celebration in Boston that spring, but I went to London
instead. The offer from the Association was a great
compliment, however, and especially the wording of
the resolution as communicated to me by the secretary.
"Unanimously voted: That Miss Clara Louise Kel-
logg, the leading prima donna of America, receive the
special invitation of the Executive Committee, etc."
The spring season in London was well along when we
arrived there and, before I had been in the city a day, I
began to feel at home again. Newcastle and Dr. Quinn
called almost immediately and Alfred Rothschild sent
me flowers, all of which made me realize that this was
really England once more and that I was among old
and dear friends.
I was again to sing under Mapleson's management.
The new opera house, built on the site of Her Majesty's

that had burned, was highly satisfactory; and he had
nearly all of his old singers again Titjiens, Nilsson, and
myself among others. Patti and Lucca were still our
rivals at Covent Garden; also Faure and Cotogni; and
there was a pretty, young, new singer from Canada
with them, Mme. Albani, who had a light, sweet voice
235
and was attractive in appearance. Our two innovations

at Her Majesty's were Marie Roze from the Paris Opera
Comique later destined to be associated with me
professionally and with Mapleson personally and Italo
Campanini. Campanini was the son of a blacksmith in
Italy and had worked at the forge himself for many
years before going on the stage, and was the hero of
the hour, for not only was his voice a very lovely one,
but he was also a fine actor. It was worth while to see
his Don Jose. People forgot that Carmen herself was
in the opera. Our other tenor was Capoul, the French-
man, Trebelli-Bettini was our leading contralto and my
friend Foli "the Irish Italian from Connecticut "-
was still with us.
Campanini, the idol of the town, was, like most
tenors, enormously pleased with himself. To be sure,
he had some reason, with his heavenly voice, his dra-
matic gift, and his artistic instinct; but one would like
some day to meet a man gifted with a divine vocal
organ and a simple spirit both, at the same time. It
appears to be an impossible combination. When
Mapleson told Campanini that he was to sing with me
in Lucia he frowned and considered the point.
"An American," he muttered doubtfully. "I have
never heard her do I know that she can sing? I
Campanini cannot sing with a prima donna of whom
I know nothing! Who is this Miss Kellogg anyway?"
"You 're quite right, " said the Colonel with the most
cordial air of assent. "You 'd better hear her before
you decide. She singing Linda to-night. Go into the
's
stalls and listen to her for a few moments. If you don't

want to sing with her, you don't have to."
That evening Campanini was on hand, ready to con-
trovert the very idea of an American prima donna
London Again 237
daring to sing with him. After the first act he came out
into the foyer and ran into the Colonel.
"Well," remarked that gentleman casually, winking
at Jarrett, "can she sing?"
"Sing?" said Campanini solemnly, "she has the
voice of a flute. It is the absolutely perfect tone. It is
a miracle!"
So, after all, Campanini and I sang together that
season in Lucia and in other operas. While Campanini
was a great artist, he was a very petty man in many
ways. A little incident when Capoul was singing
Faust one night is illustrative. Capoul, much admired
and especially in America, was intensely nervous and
emotional with a quick temper. Between him and
Italo Campanini a certain rivalry had been developing
for some time, and, whatever may be asserted to the
contrary, male singers are much bitterer rivals than
women ever are. On the night I speak of, Campanini
came into his box during the Salve d-imora and set down
to listen. As Capoul sang, the Italian's face became
annoyance and, after a moment or
lined with a frown of
two, he began to drum on the rail before him as if he
could not conceal his exasperation and ennui. The
longer Capoul sang, the louder and more irritated the
tapping became until most of the audience was unkind
enough to laugh just a little. Poor Capoul tried, in
vain, to sing down that insistent drumming, and, when
the act was over, he came behind the scenes and
actually cried with rage.
On what might be called my second debut in London,
I had an ovation almost as warm as my welcome home
to my native land had been three years before. I had
forgotten how truly the English people were my friends
until I heard the applause which greeted me as I walked
onto the stage that night in Linda di Chamouix. Sir

Michael Costa, who was conducting that year, was
always an irascible and inflexible autocrat when it
came to operatic rules and ideals. One of the points of

observance upon which he absolutely insisted was that
the opera must never be interrupted for applause.
Theoretically this was perfectly correct; but nearly all
good rules are made to be broken once in a while and
it was quite obvious that the audience intended this
occasion to be one of the times. Sir Michael went on
leading his orchestra and the people in front went on
clapping until the whole place became a pandemonium.
The house at last, and while still applauding, began to
minute of a tug-of-war
hiss the orchestra so that, after a
effect, SirMichael was obliged to lay down his baton
although with a very bad grace and let the applause
storm itself out. I could see him scowling at me as I
bowed and smiled and bowed again, nearly crying out-
right at the friendliness of welcome. There were
my
traitors in his own camp, too, for, as soon as the baton
was lowered, half the orchestra old friends mostly-
joined in the applause! Michael never before had
Sir
broken through his rule and;
do not fancy he liked me
I
any the better for being the person to force upon him
this one exception.
I include here a letter written to someone in America
just after this performance by Bennett of The London

Telegraph that pleased me extremely, both for its
general appreciative friendliness and because it was a
resume of the English press and public regarding my
former and my present appearance in England.
Miss Kellogg has not been forgotten during the years

which intervened, and not a few habitues cherished a hope
London Again 239
that she would be led across the Atlantic once more. She
was, however, hardly expected to measure herself against
the creme-de-la-cr&me of the world's prime donne with no
preliminary beat of drum and blowing of trumpet, trusting
solely to her own gifts and to the fairness of an English
public. This she did, however, and all the English love
of "pluck" was stirred to sympathy. We felt that here
was a case of the real Anglo-Saxon determination, and
Miss Kellogg was received in a manner which left nothing
of encouragement to be desired. Defeat under such circum-
stances would have been honourable, but Miss Kellogg was
not defeated. So far from this, she at once took a distin-
" "
guished place in our galaxy of stars rose more and more
;
into favour with each representation, and ended, as Susan-

nah in Le Nozze di Figaro by carrying off the honours
from the Countess of Mile. Titjiens and the Cherubino of
Mile. Nilsson. A greater achievement than this last Miss
Kellogg's ambition could not desire. It was "a feather in
her cap" which she will proudly wear back to her native
land as a trophy of no ordinary conflict and success. You
may be curious to know the exact grounds upon which we
thus honour your talented countrywoman, and in stating
them I shall do better than were I to criticise performances
necessarily familiar. In the first place, we recognise in
Miss Kellogg an artist,and not a mere singer. People of
the latter class are plentiful enough, and are easily to be
distinguished by the way in which they "reel" off their
task a way brilliant, perhaps, but exciting nothing more
than the admiration due to efficient mechanism. The
artist, on the other hand, shows in a score of forms that he
is more than a machine and that something of human
feeling may be made to combine with technical correctness.

Herein lies the great charm often, perhaps, unconsciously
acknowledged, of Miss Kellogg's efforts. We know at once,
listening to her, that she sings from the depth of a keenly
sensitive artistic nature, and never did anybody do this
without calling out a sympathetic response. It is not less
evident that Miss Kellogg is a consummate musician that

"rare bird" on the operatic boards. Hence, her unvarying
correctness; her lively appreciation of the composer in his
happiest moments, and the manner in which she adapts
her individual efforts to the production of his intended
effects. Lastly, without dwelling upon the charm of a
voice and style perfectly well known to you and ungrudg-
ingly recognised here, we see in Miss Kellogg a dramatic
artist who can form her own notion of a part and work it
out after a distinctive fashion. Anyone able to do this

comes with refreshing effect at a time when the lyric stage
iscovered with pale copies of traditionary excellence. It
was refreshing, for example, to witness Miss Kellogg's
Susannah, an embodiment full of realism without coarse-
ness and esprit without exaggeration. Susannahs, as a rule,
try to be ladylike and interesting. Miss Kellogg's waiting-
maid was just what Beaumarchais intended, and the audi-
ence recognised the truthful picture only to applaud it.
For all these reasons, and for more which I have no space
to name, we do honour to the American prima donna, so that
whenever you can spare her on your side we shall be happy
to welcome her on ours.
It was during this season in London that Max

Maretzek and Max Strakosch decided to go into opera
management together in America; and Maretzek came
over to London to get the company together. Pauline
Lucca and I were to be the prime donne and one of our
novelties was to be Gounod's new opera Mireille,
founded on the poem by the Provencal poet, Mistral.
I say "new opera" because it was still unknown in
America; possibly because it had been a failure in

London where it had already been produced. "The
Magnificent" thought it would be sure to do well in
"the States" on account of the wild Gounod vogue
that had been started by Faust and Romeo and Juliette.
London Again 241
I was to singand Colonel Mapleson sent Mr. Jarrett

it ;
with me on Gounod, who was then living in

to call
London, to get what points I could from the master
himself.
Everybody who knows anything about Gounod

knows also about Mrs. Welldon. Georgina Welldon,
the wife of an English officer, was an exceedingly
eccentric character to say the least. Even the most
straight-laced biographers refer to the "romantic
friendship" between the composer and this lady
which, after all, is as good a way as any of tagging it.
She ran a sort of school for choristers in London and
had, I believe, some idea of training the poor boys of
the city to sing in choirs. Her house was usually full of
more or less musical youngsters. She was, also, some-
thing of a musical publisher and the organiser of a
woman's musical association, whether for orchestral or
choral music I am
not quite certain. From this it will
be seen that she was, at heart, a New Woman, although
her activities were in a period that was still old-fash-
ioned. If she were in her prime to-day, she would
undoubtedly be a militant suffragette. She was also

noted for the lawsuits in which she figured one particu- ;
lar case dragging along into an unconscionable length

of time and being much commented upon in the
newspapers.
Gounod and she lived in Tavistock Place, in the
house where Dickens lived so long and that is always
associated with his name. On the occasion of our call,
Mr. Jarrett and I were ushered into a study, much
littered and crowded, to wait for the great man. It
proved to be a somewhat long drawn-out wait, for the

household seemed to be in a state of subdued turmoil.
We could hear voices in the hall; some one was asking
16
about a music manuscript for the publishers. Suddenly,

a woman flew into the room where we were sitting.
She was unattractive and unkempt she wore a rumpled
;
and kimono her hair was much tousled her bare

soiled ; ;
feet were thrust into shabby bedroom slippers; and she

did not look in the least as if she had had her bath.
Indeed, I am expressing her appearance mildly and
politely! She made a dive for the master's writing-
table, gathered up some papers sorting and selecting
with lightning speed and an air of authority and then
darted out of the room as rapidly as she had entered.
It was, of course, Mrs. Welldon, of whom I had heard
so much and whom I had pictured as a fascinating
woman. This is the nearest I ever came to meeting
this person who was so conspicuous a figure of her day,
although I have seen her a few other times. When

dressed for the street she was most ordinary looking.
Gounod was in the house, it developed, all the time
that we
waited, although he could not attend to us
immediately. He was living like a recluse so far as
life was concerned, but he
active professional or social
was a very busy man and beset with all manner of
duties. When he at last came to us, he greeted us with
characteristic French courtesy. His manners were
exceedingly courtly. He was grey-haired, charming,
and very quiet. I think he was really shy. With
apologies, heopened his letters, and, while giving orders
and hearing messages, a pretty incident occurred. A
young girl, very graceful and sweet looking, came into
the room. She hurried forward with a little, impulsive
movement and, curtseying deeply to Gounod, seized
one of his hands in both of hers and raised it to her lips.
"Cher maitref" she murmured adoringly, and flitted
away, the master following her with a smiling glance.
London .Again 243
It was Nita Giatano, an American, afterwards Mrs.

Moncrieff, now the widow of an English officer, who
was studying with Gounod and living there and who,
later, became fairly well known as a singer. Then
Gounod proceeded to say pleasant things about my
Marguerite and was interested in hearing that I was
planning to do Mireille. We then and there went over
the music together and he gave me an annotated score
of Mireille with his autograph and marginal directions.
I treasured it for years afterwards; and a most tragic
fate overtook it at last. I sent it to a book-binder to be
bound, and, when came back, did not im-
the score
mediately look through it. It was some time later,
indeed, that I opened it to show it off to someone to
whom I had been speaking of the precious notes and
autograph. I turned page after page there were no
notes. I looked at the title page there was no signa-
ture. That wretched book-binder had not scrupled
to substitute a new and valueless score for my beloved
copy, and had doubtless sold the original, with Gounod's
autograph and annotations, to some collector for a
pretty sum. When I tried to hunt the man up, I found
that he had gone out of business and moved away. He
was not to be found and I have never been able to
regain my score.
Mireille was not given for several years, as affairs
turned out, and I rather congratulated myself that
this was so, for it was not one of Gounod's best produc-
tions. I once met Mme. Gounod in Paris, or, rather,
in its environs, at a garden party given at the Menier
the Chocolat Menier place. She was a well-man-
nered, commonplace Frenchwoman, rather colourless
and uninteresting. I came to understand that even
Georgina Welldon, with her untidy kimono and her
lawsuits, might have been more entertaining. I asked
Gounod, on this occasion, to play some of the music of
Romeo and Juliette. He did so and, at the end, said:
"I see you like my children!"
Gounod was chiefly famous in London for the
delightful recitals he gave from time to time of his own
music. He had no voice, but he could render pro-
grammes of his own songs with great success. Every-
body was enthusiastic over the beautiful and intricate
accompaniments that were such a novelty. He was so
splendid a musician that he could create a more charm-
ing effect without a voice than another man could have
achieved with the notes of an angel. Poor Gounod,
like nearly all creative genuises, had a great many
bitter struggles before he obtained recognition. Count
Fabri has told me that, while Faust (the opera which
he sold for twelve hundred dollars) was running to
packed houses and the whole world was applauding it,
Gounod himself was really in need. His music pub-
lisher met him in the streets of Paris, wearing a wretched
old hat and looking very seedy.
"Why on earth," cried the publisher, "don't you
get a new hat?"
"I did not make enough on Faust to pay for one,"
was the bitter answer.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SEASON WITH LUCCA
the London season and before returning to

AFTER
America we went to Switzerland for a brief holi-
day. During this little trip there occurred a pleasing
and somewhat quaint incident. On the Grunewald
Glacier we met a young Italian-Swiss mountaineer who
earned his living by making echoes from the crags with
a big horn and by the national art of yodeling. There
was one particular echo which was the pride of the
region and, the day we were exploring the glacier, he
did not Although he tried
call it forth as well as usual.
several times, we could distinguish very little echo.
Finally, acting on a sudden impulse, I stood up in our
carriage and yodeled for him, ending with a long trill.
The high, pure air exhilarated me and made me feel
that I could do absolutely anything in the world with
my voice, and I actually struck one or two of the high-
est and strongest notes that I ever sang in my life and
one of the best trills. The echoes came rippling back
to us with wonderful effect.
The young mountaineer took off his Tyrolean hat
and bowed to me deeply.
"Ah, mademoiselle!" he said, "if I could call into
being such an echo, my fortune here would be made!"
Our stay there was all too short to please me and the
day soon came for us to start for home. We crossed on
245
246 -A.n American Prima Donna
the Cuba of the Cunard Line, and a very poor steamer
she was. It was not in the least an interesting trip.
There was no social intercourse, because all the passen-
gers were too seasick to talk or even to listen. It seemed
to them like a personal affront for anyone not to suc-
cumb to mal de mer.
"You mean thing," one woman said to me, "why
are n't you seasick!"
Our passenger list was, however, a somewhat strik-
ing one. Rubenstein and Wieniawski were on board

and Clara Doria; Mark Smith, the actor; Edmund
Yeats and Maddox, the editor whom had known in
I
London, and, of course, Pauline Lucca. She was regis-

tered as the Baroness von Raden and had her baby
with her the one generally believed to have a royal
father and, with her baby and her seasickness, was
very much occupied. Her father and mother accom-
panied her. Lucca, as we know, had been a ballerina.
Her toes were all twisted and deformed by her early
years of dancing. She once showed them to me, a piti-
ful record of the triumphs of a ballet dancer. There
was something of the ballerina in her temperament,
also, which she never entirely outgrew. Certainly she
was far from being a prima donna type. An irresist-
ible sense of fun made her a most amusing companion ;
and her charm lay largely in her unexpectedness. One

never could guess what she was going to do or say next.
I recall an incident that occurred a little later in
Chicago that illustrates this. A very handsome music

critic I will not mention his name came behind the
scenes one night to see us. He was a grave young man,
with a brown beard and beautiful eyes, and his appear-
ance gave a vague sense of familiarity as if we had seen
it in some well-known picture. Yet I could not place
THe Season -witK I/ucca 247
the resemblance. Lucca stood off at a little distance

studying him owlishly for a minute or two as he was
chatting to me in the wings. Presently she whisked
up to him with her brown eyes dancing and, looking
up at him in the drollest way, said laughingly:
"And how do you do, my Jesus Christ!"
On this voyage home I saw more or less of Edmund
Yeats who kept us amused with a steady flow of witty
talk and w ho kept up an equally steady flow of brandy
r
and soda, and of Maddox who was not seasick and was
willing to both walk and talk. Maddox was an interest-
ing man, with many strange stories to tell of things and
people famous and well-known. Among other person-
alities we discussed Adelaide Neilson, whose real name,
by the way, was Mary Ann Rogers. I was speaking
of her refinementand pretty manners on the stage, her
gracious and yet unassuming fashion of accepting
applause, and her general air of good breeding, when
Maddox told me, to my great astonishment, that this
was more remarkable than I could possibly imagine
since the charming actress had come from the most
disadvantageous beginnings. She had, in fact, led a
life that is generally characterised as "unfortunate"
and it was while she was in this life that Maddox first
met her, and, finding the girl full of ambition and
aspirations toward something higher, had put her in
the way of cultivating herself and her talents. These
facts as told me by Maddox have always remained in
my mind, not in the least to Neilson's discredit, but

quite the reverse, for they only make her charming and
artisticachievements all the more admirable. I have
always enjoyed watching her. She was always just
diffident enough without being self-conscious. It used
to be pretty to see her from a box where I could look
at her behind the scenes compose herself before taking

a curtain She would slip into the mood of the
call.
part that she had just been playing and that she wished
still to suggest to the audience. Which reminds me
that Henry Irving once told me that he and Miss Terry
did exactly this same thing. "We always try to keep
"
within the picture even after the act is over, he said.
"An actor should never take his call in his own charac-
ter,but always in that which he has been personating."
On the whole the particular trip of which I am now
speaking stands out dominantly in my memory because
of Rubenstein. I never, never saw anyone so seasick,
nor anyone so completely depressed by the fact. Poor
creature! He swore, faintly, that he would never cross
the ocean again even to get home! Occasionally he
would talk feebly, but his spirit was completely broken.
I have not the faintest idea what Rubenstein was like
when he was not seasick. He may have sparkled con-
summately in a normal condition but he did not sparkle
;
on the Cuba.
The Lucca-Kellogg season which followed was not a
comfortable one, but netted us large receipts. The
it
work was arduous, the operas heavy, and the manage-

ment was up to its ears in contentions and jealousies.
New York was in a musical fever during the early
seventies. We were just finding out how to be musical
and it was a great and pleasurable excitement. We
were pioneers, and enjoyed it, and were happy in not
being hide-bound by traditions as were the older
countries, because we had none. One of the season's
sensations was Senorita Sanz, a Spanish contralto,
whose voice was not unlike that of Adelaide Phillips.
She was a beautiful woman and a good actress, and,
above all, she had the true Spanish temperament,
THe Season witH Lxicca 249
languid, exoticand yet fiery. Her Azucena was a fine

performance; and she created a tremendous furore with
La Paloma, which was then a novelty. She used to sing it
at Sunday night concerts and set the audiences wild with
:
Jf' ,. N
wanted to resign from the company, but, of course,
was talked out of that attitude. Jarrett would not,
however, consent to my even alternating with Lucca
in the part; but possibly he was wise in this as Mar-
guerite was never one of her best personations. She

played a very impulsive and un-German Gretchen, in
spite of herself, being an Austrian by birth. One of the
newspapers said that "she fell in love with Faust at
first sight and the Devil was a useless article!" Her
characterisation of the part was somewhat devilish in
itself; her work was striking, effective, and piquant, but
not touched by much distinction. The difference be-
tween our presentations was said to be that I "con-
vinced by a refined perfection of detail" and Lucca by
more vivid qualities. Indeed, our voices and methods
were so dissimilar that we never felt any personal
rivalry, whatever the critics said to the contrary. As
one man justly expressed it: "Neither Lucca nor
Kellogg has the talent for quarrelling." There were,
of course, rival factions in our public. A man one night
sent a note behind the scenes to me containing this
"
message: Poor Kellogg! you have no chance at all with
Lucca!" Two days later Mme. Lucca came to me
laughing and said that some one had asked her: "How
do you dare to sing on the same bill with Miss Kellogg,
the American favourite?"
So interesting did our supposed rivalry become, how-
ever, as to excite considerable newspaper comment.
In reply to one of these in The Chicago Tribune a
contributor answered:
To The Chicago Tribune:

the Editor of
SIR In your issue of this morning, there is an editorial
:
headed "Operatic Failure," which is, in some respects,

so unjust and one-sided as to call for an immediate protest
Newspaper Print of the Kellogg-Lucca Season
Drawn by Jos. Keppler
XKe Season witH I/ucca 251
against its injustice. Having taken your ideas from The

New York Herald, and having no other source of informa-
tion, it is not to be wondered at that you should fall into
error. For reasons best known to Mr. James Gordon
Bennett, The New York Herald, since the commencement
of the Jarrett-Maretzek season, has undertaken to write up
Madame Lucca at the expense of every other artist con-
nected with the troupe; and it is because of The Herald's
fulsome laudations of Lucca, and its outrageously untruthful
criticisms of Kellogg, that much of the trouble has occurred.
Of the two ladies, Kellogg is by far the superior singer.
Lucca has much dramatic force, but, in musical culture, is
not equal to her sister artist, and there is no jealousy on the
part of either lady of the other. The facts are these : The
management, taking their cue from The Herald, and being
afraid of the power of Mr. Bennett, tried to shelve Kellogg,
and the result has been that the dear public would not
permit the injustice, and they, the managers, as well as The

Herald, are amazed and angered at the result of their dirty
work.
OPERA.
Chicago, Oct. 28, 1872.
Lucca and I gave Mignon that season together, she

playing the part of Mignon and I that of Felina, the
cat. Mignon was always a favourite part of my own,
a sympathetic with poetry and sentiment.
role filled
When I first studied it, I most carefully read Wilhelm
Meister, upon which it is founded. Regarding the part
of Felina, I have often wondered that people have
never been more perceptive than they appear to have

been of the analogy between her name and her qualities,
for she has all of the characteristics of the feline species.
Our dual star bill in the opera was highly successful
and effective in spite of Jarrett's continual attacks upon
me through the press and in every way open to him.
He did me a particularly cruel turn about Felina. I

started off in the role, the opening night, in what I still
believe to have been the correct interpretation. Wil-
helm Meister was set in a finicky period and its charac-
ters wore white wigs and minced about in their actions.
My part was comedy and the gestures should have

all
been little and dainty and somewhat constrained. So

I played it, until I saw this criticism, written by one of
Jarrett's creatures, "Miss Kellogg has no freedom of

movement in the role of Felina, etc."
My mother, always anxious for me to profit by
criticism that might have value, said that perhaps the
man was right. At any rate, between the two, I be-
came so self-conscious that the next time I sang Felina
I could not get into the mood of it at all. Not to seem
restricted in gesture, I waved my arms as if I were in
Norma; and the performance was a very poor one in
consequence. Yet, in spite of Jarrett's machinations,
it was said of me in the press of the day:
"... Her rendering
of Felina was a magnificent
success. From scene on the balcony until her
the first
light-hearted laughter dies away, she is a vision of

beauty and grace, appealing to every high aesthetic
emotion and charming all hearts with her sweetness."
Furthermore, an eminent Shakespearean critic, writ-
ing then, said:
As an actress, Miss Kellogg's superiority cannot justly

be questioned. Some things are exquisitely represented by
the fair Swede, Miss Nilsson, such as the dazed look, the
stupefaction caused by a great shock, like that of the death
of Valentin, for instance; such as the madness to which
the distracting conflict of many selfish feelings and passions
leads. But she is always circumscribed by her own con-
Clara Louise Kellogg in Mignon
XHe Season witH Lvicca 253
sciousness. Her soul never passes beyond that limit

never surrounds her filling the stage and infecting the
audience with a magnetic atmosphere which is a part of
herself, or herself transfused, if such expressions be allow-
able. In this respect Miss Kellogg is very different and
greatly superior. Her sympathies are large. She con-
ceives well the effects of the warmer and more generous
passionsupon the person who feels them. She can, by the
force of her imagination,abandon herself to these influences,
and, by her artistic skill, give them apt expression. She
can cease to be self-conscious, and feel but the fictitious
consciousness of the personage whom
she represents, while
the force of her own magnetises her auditors till
illusion
they respond like well-tuned harps to every chord of

feeling which she strikes.
Such notices, such critiques, were compensations!

Taken as a whole, Felina was a successful part for me;
largely on account of that piece of glittering generalities,
the Polonaise. In this, according to one critic, "she
aroused the admiration of her auditors to a condition
"
that was really a tempestuous furore. So, as I say,
there were compensations for Jarrett's unkindnesses.
CHAPTER XXIV
ENGLISH OPERA
idea of giving opera in English has always

THEinterested me. I never could understand why
there were any more reasons against giving an English
version of Carmen in New York than against giving a
French version of Die Freischutz in Paris or a German
version of La Belle Helene in Berlin. To be sure, it goes
without saying, from a purist point of view it is a patent
truth, that no libretto is ever so fine after it has been
translated. Not only does the quality and spirit of the
original evaporate in the process of translating, but,
also, the syllables come wrong. Who
has not suffered
from the translations of foreign songs into which the
translator has been obliged to introduce secondary
notes to fit the extra syllables of the clumsily adapted
English words? These are absolute objections to the

performance of any operas or songs in a language other
than the one to which the composer first set his music.
Wagner in French is a joke; so is Goethe in Italian.
A musician of my acquaintance once spoke of Strauss' s
Salome as a case in point, although it is a queerly
inverse one. "Oscar Wilde's French poem or play
'
whichever you like to call it he said, "was trans-
lated into German; and it was this translation, or so it is
generally understood, that Strauss set to music. When

the opera a French opera in spirit, taken from a
254
English Opera 255
French text that was most Frenchly treated was

given with Oscar Wilde's original French words, the
music often seemed to go haltingly, as though it had
been adopted to phrases for which it had not been com-
"
posed. Several notable singers have recently entered
a protest against giving opera in English. Miss Garden
admirable and spontaneous artist though she be
once wrote an article in which she cited Madame Butter-
fly as an example of the inartistic effects of English
librettos. I do not recall her exact words, but they
referred to the scene in which Dick Pinkerton offers

Sharpless a whiskey and soda. Miss Garden said, If I
remember correctly, that the very words "whiskey and
soda" were inartistic and spoiled the poetry and pictur-
esqueness of the act. Personally, I do not see that it was
the words that were inartistic, but, rather, the introduc-
tion of whiskey and soda at all into a grand opera. My
point is that such objections obtain not more strin-
gently against English translations than against Ger-
man, French, or Italian translations. Furthermore,
after all said that can be said against translations
is
into whatsoever language, the fact remains that coun-

tries andraces are not nearly so different as they
pretend to be; and a human sentiment, a dramatic
situation, or a lovely melody will permeate the con-
sciousness of a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German
in approximately the same manner and in the same
length of time. Adaptations and translations are
merely different means, poorer or better as the case
may be, of facilitating such assimilations; and, so soon
as the idea reaches the audience, the audience is going
to receive it joyfully, no matter what nation it comes
from or through what medium : that is, if it is a good
idea to begin with.
Possibly this may be a little beside the point; but,

at least, it serves to introduce the subject of English
opera or, rather, foreign grand opera given in English
the giving of which was an undertaking on which I
embarked in 1873. I became my own manager and,
with C. D. Hess, organised an English Opera Company
that, by its success, brought the best music to the
comprehension of the intelligent masses. I believe that
the enterprise did much for the advancement of musical
art in this country; and it, besides, gave employment
to a large number of young Americans, several of whom
began their careers in the chorus of the company and
soon advanced to higher places in the musical world.
Joseph Maas was one of the singers whom this company
did much for; and George Conly was another. The
former at first played small parts, but his chance came
to him as Lorenzo in Fra Diavolo, when he made a big
hit, and, eventually, he returned to England and be-
came her greatest oratorio tenor. I myself made the
versions of the standard operas used by us during the
first season of English opera, translating them newly
and directly from the Italian and the French and, in

some instances, restoring the text to a better condition
than found in English opera generally. My enter-
is
prise met with a great deal of criticism and discussion.

Usually, public opinion and the opinion
of the press
were favourable. One
my staunch
of supporters was
Will Davis, the husband of Jessie Bartlett Davis. In
The Chicago Tribune he wrote:
Unless the public can understand what is sung in opera

or oratorio recital, song or ballad, no more than a passing
interest can be awakened in the music-loving public. I
do not agree with those who claim that language or thought
English Opera 257
is a secondary consideration to the enjoyment of vocal

music. I believe that a superior writer of lyrics can fit
words to the music of foreign operas that will not only
be sensible but singable. I agree with The Tribune that
opera in the English language has never had a fair show,
but I claim that the reason for this is because of the bad
translations that have been given to the artists to sing.
After our success had become assured, one of the

press notices read:
Never, in this country, has English opera been so credit-

ably produced and so energetically managed as by the
present Kellogg-Hess combination. All the business details
being supervised by Mr. Hess, one of the longest-headed
and hardest-working men of business to be found in even
this age and nation, are thoroughly, systematically and
promptly attended to; while all the artistic details, being
under the direct personal care of Miss Clara Louise Kellogg,
confessedly the best as well as the most popular singer
America has produced, are brought to and preserved at
the highest attainable musical standard. The performers
embraced in the Hess-Kellogg English Opera Company
comprise several artists of the first rank. The names of
Castle, Maas, Peakes, Mrs. Seguin, Mrs. Van Zandt, and
Miss Montague are familiar as household words to the
musical world, while the repertoire embraces not only all
the old established favourites of the public, but many of
the most recent or recherche novelties, such as Mignon,
and The Star of the North, in addition to such genuine
English operas as The Rose of Castille.
During the three seasons of our English Opera Com-

pany, we put on a great number of operas of all schools,
from The Bohemian Girl to The Flying Dutchman. The
former is pretty poor stuff cheap and insipid I never
liked to sing it. But the houses it drew! People
17
258 j\n. American Prima Donna
loved it. I believe there would be a large and senti-
mental public ready for it to-day. Its extraneous matter,
the two or three popular ballads that had been intro-
duced, formed a part of its attraction, perhaps. Cur
Devil's Hoof in The Bohemian Girl was Ted Seguin
who became quite famous in the part. His wife Zelda
Seguin was our contralto and they were among the
earliest people to travel with The Beggar's Opera and
other primitive performances. George A. Conly was
our basso and a fine one. He was a printer by trade and
he had his first chance with us at the Globe Theatre in
Boston. He was our Deland, too, in The Flying Dutch-
man. Eventually, he was drowned; and I gave a benefit
for his widow. Maurice Grau and Hess had gone to
London to engage singers for my English Opera Com-
pany and had selected, among others, Wilfred Morgan
for first tenor and Joseph Maas for second tenor.
Morgan had been singing secondary roles for some time

at Covent Garden. On our opening night of Faust he
gave out with a sore throat, and Maas took his place
successfully. William Carlton once told me that when
he was just starting out he bought the theatrical
wardrobe of Alberto Lawrence, a baritone, and was
looking at himself in a mirror, dressed in one of his
second costumes, in the green room of the Academy of
Music early during our English season, when Morgan
came up to him and said :
"Are you going on in those old rags?"

Carlton had to go on in them. The critics next day
gave him a couple of columns of praise; but Morgan,
whose wardrobe was gorgeous, was a complete failure
in his debut. Our manager had finally to tell him that
he could be second tenor or resign. In six weeks he was
drawing seventy dollars less salary than Carlton, who
EnglisH Opera 259
was a baritone and a beginner. Carlton said that about

this time Wilfred Morgan came up to him exclaiming,
"Well, Bill, I wish I had your voice and you had my

clothes!"
William Carlton was a young Englishman, only
twenty-three when he joined us; but he was already
married and had two children. When we were rehears-
ing The Bohemian Girl, in the scene where the stolen
daughter is recognised and Carlton had to take me in
his arms, he said:
"I ought to kiss you here."
1 '
"Not lower than this! said I, pointing to my fore-

head. He was much amused. Indeed, he was always
laughing at my mother and me for our prudish ways;
and my not marrying was always a joke between us.
" "
It 's a sin, he declared once, when we were talking
on a train, "a woman who would make such a perfect
wife!"
"Louise," interrupted my mother sternly, "don't
talk so much! You '11
your voice!"
tire
My good mother! She was always ruffling up like an

indignant hen about me. In one scene of another
opera, I remember, the villain and I had been playing
rather more strenuously than usual and he caught my

arm with some force. I staggered a little as I came off
the stage and my mother flew at him.
"Don't you dare touch my daughter so roughly,"
she cried, much annoyed.
Mr. Carlton has paid me a nice tribute when writing
of those days and of me at that time. He has said:
I have the most grateful memory of the sympathetic
assistance I received from the gifted prima donna when I

arrived in this country under the management of Maurice
Grau and C. D. Hess, who were conducting the business
details of the Kellogg Grand Opera Company. Like many
Englishmen, was
I quite unprepared for the evidences of
perfection which characterised the production of opera in
the United States and, as I had not yet attained my twenty-
fourth year, I was somewhat awed by the importance of
the roles and the position I was imported to fulfil. It was
in a great measure due to the gracious help I received from
Miss Kellogg that, at my debut at the Academy of Music,
Philadelphia, as Valentine in Faust to her Marguerite, I

achieved a success which led up to my renewing the engage-
ment for four consecutive years.
In putting on grand opera in English I had, in each

two countries to contend with;
case, the tradition of
but I endeavoured to secure some uniformity of style
and usually rehearsed them all myself, sitting at the
piano. The singers were, of course, hide-bound to the
awful translations that were institutional and to them
inevitable. None of them would have ever considered
changing a word, even for the better. The translation
of Mignon was probably the most completely revolu-
tionary of the many translations and adaptations I
indulged in. I shall never forget one fearfully clumsy
passage in Trovatore.
"To the handle,
To the handle,
To the handle
Strike the dagger!"
There were two modifications possible, either of

which was vastly preferable, and without actually
changing a word.
"Strike the dagger,
Strike the dagger,
Strike the dagger
To the handle!"
English Opera 261
or, which I think was the better way,
"Strike the dagger

To the handle,
Strike the dagger
To the handle!"
a simple and legitimate repetition of a phrase. This

isa case in illustration of the meaningless absurdity
and unintelligibility of the average libretto.
Those were the days in which I devoutly appreciated
my general sound musical training. The old stand-bys,
Fra Diavolo, Trovatore, and Martha were all very well.
Most singers had been reared on them from their
artistic infancy. But, for example, The Marriage of
Figaro was an innovation. To it I had to bring my best
experience and judgment as cultivated in our London
productions; and we finally gave a very creditable
English performance of it. Then there were, besides,
the new operas that had to be incepted and created
and toiled over: The Talisman and Lily o 'Killarney
among others. The Talisman by Balfe, an opera of the
Meyerbeerian school, was first produced at the Drury
Lane in London, with Nilsson, Campanini, Marie Roze,
Rota, and others. Our presentation of it was less pre-
tentious, naturally, but we had an excellent cast, with
Joseph Maas as Sir Kenneth, William Carlton as Coeur
de Lion, Mme. Loveday as Queen Berengaria, and
Charles Turner as De Vaux. I was Edith Plantaganet.
When the opera was first put on in London, under the
direction of Sir Jules Benedict, it was called The Knight
of the Leopard. Later, it was translated into Italian
under the title of // Talismano, and from that finally
re-translated by us and given the name of Sir Walter
Scott's work on which it was based. It was not only
Balfe's one real grand opera, but was also his last
important work. Lily o'Killarney, by Sir Jules Bene-

dict, was not a striking novelty. It had a graceful duet
for the basso and tenor, and one pretty solo for the
prima donna "I'm Alone" but, otherwise, it did

not amount to much. But we scored in it because of
our good artistry. Our company was a good one.
Parepa Rosa did tremendous things with her English
opera tournees; but I honestly think our work was more
artistic as well as more painstaking. There were not
many of us; but we did our best and pulled together;
and I was very happy in the whole venture. Benedict's
Lily o'Killarney was written particularly for me, and
was inspired by Colleen Bawn, Dion Boucicault's big
London success. I have always understood that
Oxenford wrote the libretto of that a fine one as
librettos go but Grove's Dictionary says that Bouci-
cault helped him.
Perhaps this is as good a place as any in which to
mention Sir George Grove and his dictionary. When
I was in London I was told that young Grove he was
not "Sir" then was compiling a dictionary; and, not
having a very exalted idea of his ability, I am free to con-
fess that, in a measure, I snubbed him. In his copiously
filled and padded dictionary, he punished me by giving
me less than half a column considerably less space than

;
is devoted in the corresponding column to one Michael
Kelly "composer of wines and importer of music!" It

is an accurate paragraph, however, and he heaped coals
of fire on my head by one passage that is particularly

suitable to quote in a chapter on English opera:
She organised an English troupe, herself superintending

the translation of the words, the mise en scdne, the training
English Opera 263
of the singers and the rehearsals of the chorus. Such was

her devotion to the project that, in the winter of '74-*75,
she sang no fewer than one hundred and twenty-five nights.
hear that the scheme was successful.
It is satisfactory to
Miss Kellogg's musical gifts are great She has a. . .
remarkable talent for business and is never so happy as

when she is doing a good or benevolent action.
I have never been able to determine to my own

satisfactionwhether the "remarkable talent for busi-
ness" was intended as a compliment or not! The one
hundred and twenty-five record is quite correct, a
number of performances that tried my endurance to
the utmost; but I loved all the work. This particular
venture seemed more completely my own than anything
on which I had yet embarked.
We put on The Flying Dutchman, at the Academy of
Music (New York), and it was a tremendous undertak-
ing. It was another case of not having any traditions
nor impressions to help us. No one knew anything
about the opera and the part of Senta was as unex-
plored a territory for me as that of Marguerite had
been. One thing I had particular difficulty in learning
how to handle and that was Wagner's trick of long
pauses. There is a passage almost immediately after
the spinning song in The Flying Dutchman during w-hich
Senta stands at the door and thinks about the Flying
Dutchman, preceding his appearance. Then he comes,
and they stand still and look at each other while a spell
grows between them. She recognises Vanderdecken
as the original of the mysterious portrait; and he is
wondering whether she is the woman fated to save him
by self-sacrifice. The music, so far as Siegfried Behrens,
my director at the time, and I could see, had no mean-

ing whatever. It was just a long, intermittent mumble,
continuing for eighteen bars with one slight interrup-

tion of thirds. I had not yet been entirely converted
to innovations such as thisand did not fully appreciate

the value of so extreme a pause. I knew, of course,
that repose added dignity; but this seemed too much.
"
"For heaven's sake, Behrens, said I, "what's the
public going to do while we stand there? Can we hold
their interest for so long while nothing is happening?"
Behrens thought there might be someone at the
German Theatre who had heard the opera in Germany
and who could, therefore, give us suggestions; but no
one could be found. Finally Behrens looked up Wag-
ner's own brochure on the subject of his operas and
came to me, still doubtful, but somewhat reassured.
"Wagner says," he explained, "not to be disturbed
by long intervals. If both singers could stand abso-
lutely still, this pause would hold the public double the
"
length of time.
Wetried to stand "absolutely still." It was an
exceedingly difficult thing to do. In roles that have

tense moments the whole body has to hold the tension
rigidly until the proper psychological instant for emo-
tional and physical relaxation. The public is very
keen to without knowing how or why. A
feel this,
drooping shoulder or a relaxed hand will "let up" an

entire situation. The first time I sang Senta it seemed
impossible to hold the pause until those eighteen bars
were over. "I have got to hold it! I have got to hold
it!" I kept saying to myself, tightening every muscle
as if I were actually pulling on a wire stretched between
myself and the audience. I almost auto-hypnotised
myself; which probably helped me to understand the
Norwegian girl's own condition of auto-hypnotism!
An inspiration led me to grasp the back of a tall Dutch
Eng'IisH Opera 265
chair on the stage. That chair helped me greatly and,

as affairs turned out, I held the audience quite as
firmly as I held the chair!
Afterwards I learned the wonderful telling-power of
these "waits" and the great dignity that they lend to
a scene. There is no hurry in Wagner. His work is
full of pauses and he has done much to give leisure to
the stage. When I was at Bayreuth that most beauti-

ful monument to genius I met many actors from the
Theatre Francais who had journeyed there, as to a

Mecca, to study this leisurely stage effect among
others.
Our production was a fair one but not elaborate.
We had, I remember, a very good ship, but there were
many shortcomings. There is supposed to be a trans-
figuration scene at the end in which Senta is taken up
to heaven but this was beyond us and / was never thus
;
rewarded for my devotion to an ideal! I liked Senta's

clothes and make-up. I used to wear a dark green skirt,
shining chains, and a wonderful little apron, long and of
white woollen. For hair, I wore Marguerite's wig
arranged differently. I should like to be able to put on
a production of Die Fliegende Hollander now There is
!
just one artist, and only one, whom I would have play
the Dutchman and that is Renaud, for the reason,
principally, that he would have the necessary repose

for the part. I had understudies as a matter of course.
One of them was wall-eyed; and, on an occasion when
I wasill, she essayed Senta. William Carlton, was, as
usual, our Dutchman, and he had not been previously
warned of Senta's infirmity. He came upon it so un-
expectedly, indeed, and it was so startling to him, that
he sang the whole opera without looking at her for
fear that he would break down!
CHAPTER XXV
ENGLISH, OPERA (Continued}
account of our English Opera would be complete

NO without mention of Mike. He was an Irish lad
with all the wit of his race, and his head was of a par-
He was only sixteen when he
ticularly classic type.
joined us, but he became an institution, and I kept
track of him for years afterwards. His duties were
somewhat arbitrary, and chiefly consisted of calling at
the dressing-room of the chorus each night after the
opera with a basket to collect the costumes. Beyond
this, his principal occupation was watching my scenes
and generally pervading the performances with genuine
interest. He particularly favoured the third act of
Faust, I remember; and absolutely considered himself
a part of my career, constantly making use of the
phrase "Me and Miss Kellogg."
One of the operas we gave in English was my old
friend The Star of the North. It was quite as much a
success in English as it had been in the original. We
chose it for our gala performance in Washington when
the Centennial was celebrated, and my good friends,
President and Mrs. Grant, were in the audience. The
King of Hawaii was also present, with his suite, and
came behind the scenes and paid me extravagant com-
pliments. His Hawaiian Majesty sent me lovely
heliotropes, I remember, my favourite flower and my
266
English Opera (Continued) 267
favourite perfume. The Star of

At one performance of
the North at a matinee in Booth's Theatre, New York,
there occurred an incident that was reminiscent of my
London experience with Sir Michael Costa's orchestra.
It was in the third act, the camp scene. There is a
quartette by Peter, Danilowitz and two vivandieres
almost without accompaniment in the tent on the stage,
and I, as Catherine, had to take up the note they left
and begin a solo at its close. The orchestra was sup-
posed to chime in with me, a simple enough matter to do
if they had not fallen from the key. It is surprising
how relative one's pitch is when suddenly appealed to.
Even a very trained ear will often go astray when some
one gives it a wrong keynote. Music more than almost
any other art is dependent; every tone hangs on other
tones. That particular quartette was built on a musical
phrase begun by one of the sopranos and repeated by
each. She started on the key. The mezzo took it up a
shade flat. The tenor, taking the phrase from the mezzo,
dropped a little more, and when the basso got through
with it, they were a full semitone lower. Had I taken
my attaqiie their pitch, imagine the situation when
from
the orchestra came in !
My
heart sank as I saw ahead
of us the inevitable discord. It came to the last note. I
allowed a half -second of silence to obliterate their false
pitch. Then I concentrated and took up my solo in the
original and correct key. That "absolute pitch" again!
Behrens expressed his amazement after the curtain fell.
The company, after that, was never tired of experi-
menting with my gift. It became quite a joke with
them to cry out suddenly, at any sort of sound a
whistle, or a bell :
"Now, what note is that? What key was that in,

Miss Kellogg?"
Most of our travelling on these big western tours of

opera was very tiresome, although we did it as easily
as we could and often had special cars put at our
disposal by railroad directors. We were still looked
upon as a species of circus and the townspeople of the
places we passed through used to come out in throngs
at the stations. Ihave said so much about the poor
hotels encountered at various times while on the road
that I feel I ought to mention the disastrous effect
produced once by a really good hotel. It was at the
end of our first English Opera season and, in spite of
the fact that we were all worn out with our experiences,
we proceeded to give an auxiliary concert trip. We had
a special sleeper in which, naturally, no one slept much;
and by the time we reached Wilkesbarre we were even
more exhausted. The hotel happened to be a good
one, the rooms were quiet, and the beds comfortable.
Every one of us went promptly to bed, not having to
sing until the next night, and William Carlton left word
at the office that he was going to sleep: "and don't
call me unless there 's a fire!" he said. In strict
accordance with these instructions nobody did call
him and he slept twenty-four hours. When he awoke
it was time to go to the theatre for the performance
and he found he could n't sing He had slept so

!
much that his circulation had become sluggish and he

was as hoarse as a crow. we had to
Consequently,
change the programme moment.
at the last
Carlton, like most nervous people, was very sensitive
and easily put out of voice, even when he had not slept
twenty-four consecutive hours. Once in Trovatore he
was seized with a sharp neuralgic pain in his eyes just
as he was beginning to sing "II Balen" and we had to stop
in the middle of it. During this same performance, an
EnglisK Opera (Continued) 269
unlucky one, Wilfred Morgan, who was Manrico, made

both himself and me ridiculous. In the finale of the
first act of the opera, the Count and Manrico, rivals
for the love of Leonora, draw their swords and are
about to attack each other, when Leonora interposes
and has to recline on the shoulder of Manrico, at
which the attack of the Count ceases. Morgan was
burly of build and awkward of movement and, for some
reason, failed to support me, and we both fell heavily to
the floor. It is so easy to turn a serious dramatic
situation into ridicule that, really, it was very decent
indeed of our audience to applaud the contretemps
instead of laughing.
Ryloff, an eccentric Belgian, was our musical director
for a short time. He was exceedingly fond of beer
and used to drink it morning, noon, and night,
especially night. Even our rehearsals were not sacred
from his thirst. In the middle of one of our full dress
rehearsals he suddenly stopped the orchestra, laid
down his baton, and said to the men:
"Boys, I must have some beer!"
Then he got up and deliberately went off to a nearby
saloon while we awaited his good pleasure.
I have previously mentioned what a handsome and
dashing Fra Diavolo Theodore Habelmann was, and

naturally other singers with whom sang the opera
I
later have suffered by comparison. In discussing the

point with a young girl cousin who was travelling with
me, we once agreed, I remember, that it was a great
pity no one could ever look the part like our dear old
Habelmann. Castle was doing it and doing
just then,
it very well except for his clothes and general make-up.
But he was so extremely sensitive and yet, in some

ways, so opinionated, that it was impossible to tell him
plainly that he did not look well in the part. At last,

my cousin conceived the brilliant scheme of writing
him an anonymous letter, supposed to be from some
feminine admirer, telling him how splendid and wonder-
fuland irresistible he was, but also suggesting how he
could make himself even more fascinating. A descrip-
tion of Habelmann's appearance followed and, to our
great satisfaction, our innocent little plot worked to a
charm. Castle bought a new costume immediately
and strutted about in it as pleased as Punch. He really
did present a much more satisfactory appearance,
which was a comfort to me, as it is really so deplorably
disillusioning to see a man looking frumpy and unattrac-
tive while he is singing a gallant song like:
3
Proud -
ly and wide my stanc - ard
f 1
-I
1/
flies O'er dar -

ing heads, a no - ble band !
Naturally these tours brought me all manner of

adventures that I have long since forgotten little
incidents "along the road" and meetings with famous
personages. Among them stand out two experiences,
one grave and one gay. The former was an occasion
when I went behind the scenes during a performance of
Henry VIII to see dear Miss Cushman (it must have
been in the early seventies, but I do not know the
exact date), who was
playing Queen Katherine.
She asked me would be kind enough to sing the
if I
solo for her. I was very glad to be able to do so, of
course, and so, on the spur of the moment, complied.
EnglisH Opera (Continued) 271
I have wondered since how many people in front ever

knew that it was I who sang Angels Ever Bright and
Fair off stage, during the scene in which the poor,
wonderful Queen was dying! The other experience
of these days which I treasure was my meeting with
Eugene Field. It was in St. Louis, where Field was a
reporter on one of the daily papers. He came up to the
old Lindell Hotel to interview me; but that was some-
thing I would not do give interviews to the press so
my mother went down to the reception room with her
sternest air to dismiss him. She found the waiting
young man very mild-mannered and pleasant, but she
said to him icily:
"My daughter never sees newspaper men."

"Oh," said he, looking surprised, "I 'm a singer and
I thought Miss Kellogg might help me. I want to
have my voice trained." (This is the phrase used
generally by applicants for such favours.) Mother
looked at the young man suspiciously and pointed to
the piano.
"Sing something," she commanded.
Field obediently sat down at the instrument and
sang several songs. He had a pleasing voice and an
expressive style of singing, and my mother promptly
sent for me. We spent some time with him in conse-
quence, singing, playing, and talking.

It was an excel-
lent "beat" and neither my mother nor
for his paper,
I bore him any malice, we had liked him so much,
when we read the interview next day. After that he

came to see me whenever I sang where he happened
to be and we always had a laugh over his "interview"
with me the only one, by the way, obtained by any
reporter in St. Louis.
On one concert tour a little before the English
Opera venture we had arrived late one afternoon in

Toledo where the other members of the company were
awaiting me. Petrelli, the baritone, met me at the
train and said immediately:
"There is a strange-looking girl at the hotel waiting
"
for you to hear her sing.
"Oh, dear," I exclaimed, "another one to tell that
she has n't any ability!"
"She 's very queer looking," Petrelli assured me.
As I went to my supper I caught a glimpse of a very-
unattractive person and decided that Petrelli was
right. She was exceedingly plain and colourless, and
had a large turned-up nose. After supper, I went to
my room to dress, as I usually did when on tour, for the
theatre dressing-rooms were impossible, and presently
there was a knock at the door and the girl presented
herself.
She was poorly clad. She owned no warm coat, no
rubbers, no proper clothing of any sort. I questioned
her and she told me a pathetic tale of privation and
struggle. She lived by travelling about from one hotel
to the next, singing in the public parlour when the
manager would permit it, accompanying herself upon
her guitar, and passing around a plate or a hat after-
wards to collect such small change as she could.
"I sang last night here," she told me, "and the
manager of the hotel collected eleven dollars. That 's
all I 've got and I don't suppose he '11 let me have
much of that!"
Of course I, who had been so protected, was horrified
by all this. I could not understand how a girl could

succeed in doing that kind of thing. She told me,
furthermore, that she took care of her mother, brothers,
and sisters.
EnglisH Opera (Continued} 273
"I must go to the post-office now and see if there 's

a letter from mother!" she exclaimed presently, jump-
ing up. was pouring rain outside.
It
"Show me your feet!" I said.
She grinned ruefully as she exhibited her shoes,
but she was off the next moment in search of her letter.
When she came back to the hotel, I got hold of her
again, gave her some clothes, and took her to the
concert in my carriage. After I had sung my first song
she rushed up to me.
"
"Let me look down your throat, she cried excitedly,
"I 've got to see where it all comes from!"
After the concert we made her sing for us and our
accompanist played for her. She asked me frankly if I
thought she could make her living by her voice and I
said yes. Her poverty and her desire to get on naturally
appealed to me, and I was instrumental in raising a
subscription for her so that she could come East. My
mother immediately saw the hotel proprietor and ar-
ranged that what money he had collected the night
before should be turned over to her. It has been said
that I am responsible for Emma Abbott's career upon
the operatic stage, but I may be pardoned if I deny the
allegation. My
idea was that she intended to sing in
churches, and I believe she did so when she first came
to New York. She was the one girl in ten thousand who
was really worth helping, and of course my mother and
Ihelped her. When we returned from my concert tour,
I introduced her to people and saw that she was
properly looked out for. And she became, as every one

knows, highly successful in opera appearing in many
of my own roles. In a year's time from when I first met
her, Emma Abbott was self-supporting. She was a
girl of ability and I am glad that I started her off fairly,
18
although, as a matter of fact, she would have got on

anyway, whether I had done anything for her or not.
Her way to success mighthave been a longer way,
unaided, but she would have succeeded. She was eaten
up with ambition. Yet there is much to respect in
such a dogged determination to succeed. Of course,
she was never particularly grateful to me. Of all the
girls I have helped and there have been many only
one has ever been really grateful, and she was the one
for whom I did the least. Emma wrote me a flowery
letter once, full of such sentences as "when the great
Prima Donna shined on me," and "I was almost in
heaven, and I can remember just how you sang and
looked," and "never can I forget all your goodness
to me." But in the little ways that count she never
actually evinced the least appreciation. Whenever we
were in any way pitted against each other, she showed
herself jealous and ungenerous. She made enemies in
general by her lack of tact, and never could get on in
London, for instance, although in her day the feeling
there for American singers was becoming most kindly.
Emma Abbott did appalling things with her art, of
which one of the mildest was the introduction into
Faust of the hymn Nearer My God to Thee! It was in
Italy that she did it, too. I believe she introduced it to
please the Americans in the audience, many of whom
applauded, although the Italians pointedly did not.
And yet she was always trying to "purify" the stage
and librettos ! I have always felt about Emma Abbott
that she had too much force of character. Another thing
that I never liked about her was the manner in which
she puffed her own successes. She was reported to have
made five times more than she actually did; but, at
that, her earnings were considerable, for she would
English Opera (Continued) 275
sacrifice much except the character to money -get-

ting. Indeed, she was a very fine business
woman.
I have spoken about George Conly's tragic death by
drowning and of the benefit the Kellogg-Hess English
Opera Company gave for his widow. Conly had also
sung with Emma Abbott and, when the benefit was
given, she and I appeared on the same programme.
She knew my baritone, Carlton, and sent for him before
the performance. She explained that she wanted him
to appear on the bill with her in Maritana and, also, to
see that all donations from my friends and colleagues
were sent to her, so that her collection should be larger
than mine. Carlton explained to her that he was sing-
ing with Miss Kellogg and so would send any money
that he could collect to her. It seems incredible that
any one could do so small an action, and I can only con-
sider it one of many little attempts to be spiteful and
to show me that my erstwhile protegee was now at the
"
"top of the ladder.
Her thirst for profits finally was the indirect means
of her death. When Utah was still a territory, the
town of Ogden, where many travelling companies gave
concerts, was very primitive. The concert hall had no
dressing-room and was cold and draughty. I always
refused outright to sing in such theatres, or else dressed
in my and drove to the concert warmly wrapped
hotel
up. Emma Abbott was warned that the stage in the
concert hall of the town of Ogden was bitterly cold.
The house had sold well, however, and the receipts
were considerable. Emma dressed in an improvised
screened-off dressing-room, and, having a severe cold
to begin with, she caught more on that occasion, and
suddenly developed a serious case of pneumonia from
which she died, a victim to her own indiscretion.
CHAPTER XXVI
AMATEURS AND OTHERS
the seventies New York was interesting musically,

IN chiefly because of its This sounds some-
amateurs.
thing like a paradox, but at that time New York had a
collection of musical amateurs who were almost as
highly cultivated as professionals. It was a set that

was extremely interesting and quite unique; and which
bridged in a wonderful way the traditional gulf between
art and society.
Those of us who were fortunate enough to know
New York then look about us with wonder and amaze-
ment now. It seems, with our standards of an earlier
generation, as if there were no true social life to-day,
just as there are left no great social leaders. As for
music but perhaps it behooves a retired prima donna
to be discreet inmaking comparisons.
Mrs. Peter Ronalds; Mrs. Samuel Barlow; her
daughter Elsie, who became Mrs. Stephen Henry Olin;
May Callender; Minnie Parker the granddaughter of
Mrs. Hill and later the wife of M. de Neufville; these
and many others were the amateurs who combined
music and society in a manner worthy of the great
French hostesses and originators of salons. Mrs. Bar-
low was in advance of everybody in patronising music.
She was cultivated and artistic, had travelled a great
deal abroad, and had acquired a great many charming
276
.Amateurs and OtKers 277
foreign graces in addition to her own good American

brains and breeding, and her fine natural social tact.
When I returned to New York after a sojourn on the
other side, she came me one day,
to see and said :
"Louise, you 've been away so much you don't know

what our amateurs are doing. I want you to come to
"
my house to-night and hear them sing.
Like all professionals, I was a bit inclined to turn
"
up my nose at the very word "amateur, but of course
I went to Mrs. Barlow's that evening, and I have rarely
spent a more enjoyable three hours. Elsie Barlow sang

delightfully. She had a limited voice, but an unusual
musical intelligence; I have seldom heard a public
singer give a piece of music a more delicate and dis-
criminating interpretation. Then Miss May Callender
" "
sang Nobile Signer from the Huguenots, and aston-
ished me with her artistic rendering of that aria. Miss
Callender could have easily been an opera singer, and a
distinguished one, if she had so chosen. Eugene Oudin,
a Southern baritone, also sang with charming effect.
Minnie Parker, an eminent connoisseur in music, had
"
her turn. She sang "Bel Raggio from Semit-amide with
fine execution and all the Rossini traditions. And I
must not forget to mention Fanny Reed, Mrs. Paran
Stevens 's sister, who sang very agreeably an aria from
// Barbiere. it was a most startling and
Altogether
illuminating evening, and I was proud of my country
and of a society that could produce such amateurs.
Mrs. Peter Ronalds was another charming singer of
that group; as was, also, Mrs. Moulton, who was Lillie
Greenough before her marriage. Both had delightful
and well cultivated voices. Mrs. Moulton had studied
abroad, but for the most part the amateurs of that day
were purely American products.
I often visited Mrs. Barlow at her country place at

Glen Cove, L. I. She was the most tactful of hostesses,
and house there was no fuss or formality,
in her
nothing but kind geniality and courtesy. She was the

first hostess in the United States to ask her women
guests to bring their maids; and she never once has

asked me to sing when I was there. I did sing, of course,
but she was too well-bred to let me feel under the
slightest obligation. American hostesses are certainly
sometimes very odd in this connection. I have men-
tioned Fanny Reed and Mrs. Stevens in Boston, and
the time I had to play "Tommy Tucker" and sing for
my supper and I am now reminded of another occasion
;
even more unpardonable, one that made me indirectly

quite a bit of trouble.
Once upon a time when I was visiting in Chicago,
and was being made much of as an American prima
donna freshly arrived from European triumphs, some
old friends of my father gave me a reception. I had
been for nearly fourteen months abroad, and had come
back with the associations and manners of the best
people of the older countries: and this I particularly
mention to suggest what a shock my treatment was to
me.
On the day of the reception I had one of my worst
sick headaches. I did not want to go, naturally, but
the husband of the woman
giving the reception called
for me and
begged that I would show myself there, if
only for a few moments. mother also urged me to
My
make an effort and go. I made it and went. In view
of what afterwards occurred, I want to say that my
costume was a black velvet gown created by Worth,
with a heavy, long, handsome coat and a black velvet
hat. When I reached the house I was so ill that I
.Amateurs and OtHers 279
could not stand at the door with my hostess to receive

the guests, but remained seated, hoping that I would
not groan aloud with the throbbing of my head.
The ladies began arriving, and nearly every one of
them was in full evening dress in the afternoon! Mrs.
Marshall Field, I remember, came in an elaborate
point lace shawl, and no hat.
I had not been there half an hour before I was asked
to sing! I had brought no music, there was no accom-

panist, and I was so dizzy that I could hardly see the
keys of the piano, yet, as the request was not altogether
the fault of my hostess, I did my best, playing some
sort of an accompaniment and singing something very
badly, I imagine. Then I went home and to bed.
That episode was served up to me for eight years.
I never went to Chicago without reading some reference
to it in the newspapers, and my friends have told me
that years later it was still discussed with bitterness.

It was stated that I was "ungracious," "rude," and
that I had "insulted the guests by my plain street
attire" (shade of the great Worth!); that I only sang
once and then with no attempt to do my best; that I
did not eat the elaborate refreshments; did not rise
from my chair when people were presented to me; and
left the house inside an hour, although the reception
was given for me. The bitterest attack was an article
printed in one of the morning papers, an article written
by a woman who had been among the guests. I never
answered that or any other of the attacks because the
host and hostess were old friends and felt very badly
about the affair; but I have a memory of Chicago that
Trill go with me to the grave. It was very different
with the New York hostesses of w hom Mrs. Barlow,
T
Z.Irs. Ronalds, and Mrs. Gilder were the representatives.

By them a singer was treated as a little more, not

less, than an ordinary human being!
O you unfortunate people of a newer day who have
not the memory of that enchanting meeting-ground in
East Fifteenth Street: the delightful Gilder studio,
the rebuilding of which from a carriage house into a
studio-home was about the first piece of architectural
work done by Stanford White. There was one big,
beautiful room, drawing-room and sitting-room com-
bined, with a fine fireplace in it. Many a time have I
done some scene from an opera there, in the firelight,
to a sympathetic few. Everybody went to the Richard
Watson Gilders' at least, everybody who was worth
while. They were in New York already the power
that they remained for so many years. Some pedantic
enthusiast once said of them that, "The Gilders were
empowered by divine right to put the cachet of recogni-
tion upon distinction."
Miss Jeannette Gilder came into my life as long ago
as 1869. I was singing in a concert in Newark and she
was in the wings, listening to my first song. My
mother and my maid were near her and, when I came
off the stage, as we were trying to find a certain song
for an encore, the pile of music fell at her feet. Promptly
the tall young stranger said:
"Please let me
hold them for you."
Her whole personality expressed a species of beaming
admiration. I looked at her critically; and from this
small service began our friendship.
The Gilders were then living in The
Newark.
father, who was a Chaplain in the 4Oth New York
Volunteers,died during the Civil War. His sons,
Richard Watson Gilder and William H. Gilder, were
also soldiers in the Civil War. The Richard Watson
.Amateurs and OtKers 281
Gilders were married in 1874. Mrs. Gilder was Miss

Helena de Kay, granddaughter of Joseph Rodman
Drake, who was the author of The Culprit Fay.
I met many interesting people at the Fifteenth Street
studio. Helen Hunt Jackson, I remember well. She
was then Mrs. Hunt, long before she had married Mr.
Jackson or had written Ramona. She was a most
pleasing personality, just stout enough to be genuinely
genial. And Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett I first
met there, about the time her Lass o'Lowrie's appeared,
a story we all thought most impressive. George Cable
was discovered by the Gilders, like so many other
literary lights, and he and I used to sing Creole melodies
before their big fireplace. His voice was queer and
light, without colour, but correct and well in tune. He
had only one bit of colour in him and that the poetry
of his nature he gave freely and exquisitely in his
tales of Creole life. At a much later time I saw some-
thing of the old French Quarter of New Orleans of

which he wrote, the whole spirit of which was so lovely.
I also first met John Alexander at the Gilders' after he
came back from Paris and John La Farge, who brought
;
there with him Okakura, the Japanese art connoisseur.

That was when I first met Okakura; and on the same
occasion he was introduced to Modjeska, she and I
being the first stage people he had ever met socially.
Later, in '79~'8o, I saw a good deal of the Gilders
in Paris, where they had a studio in the Quartier Latin.
At that time, Mr. Gilder arranged for Millet's autobio-
graphy which first made him widely known in America ;
and in their Paris studio I met Sargent and Bastien

Le Page and many other notables. I recall how becom-
ingly Rodman Gilder then three or four years old
" "
was always dressed, in Little Lord Fauntleroy fashion
long before the days of his young lordship. It was at

this same period that I went to Fontainebleau to study
the Barbizon School and met the son of Millet, who
was trying to paint and never succeeded.
Speaking of the Gilders reminds me, albeit indirectly,
of Helena Modjeska, whom I first saw in Sacramento,
playing Adrienne Lecouvreur. I was simply enchanted

and thought I had never seen such delicate and yet
such forcible acting. One reason why I was so greatly
impressed was that had acquired the foreign standard
I
of acting, and had been much disturbed when I came
home to find such lack of elegance and ease upon the
stage. She had the foreign manner the grace and,
at the same time, the authority of the great French and
German players; and it seemed to me that she ought
to be heard by the big critics. So I wrote home to
Jeannette Gilder in New
York an enthusiastic account
of this actress who was being wasted on the Sacramento
Valley. The public-spirited efforts of the Gilders in

promoting anything artistic was so well and so long
known that almost unnecessary to add that they
it is
interested themselves in the Polish artist and secured

for her an opportunity to play in the East. She came,
saw, and conquered; and I shall always feel, therefore,
that I was definitely instrumental in launching Mod-
jeska in theatrical New York.
"Didn't I tell you so?" I said to Jeannette Gilder.
There was always something very odd to me about
Helena Modjeska. I never liked her personally half
as much as I did as an actress. was But she certainly
a wonderful actress. I once met John McCullough and
talked with him about Modjeska, and he told me that
she first acted in Polish to his English Ophelia to his
Hamlet out West somewhere, I think it was in San
.A.mate\irs and OtKers 283
Francisco. He said that he had been the first to urge

her to learn English, and he was most enthusiastic about
the wonderful effect she created even at that early time.
As had seen her in Sacramento during, approxi-
I
mately, the same period, I could discuss her with him

sympathetically and intelligently.
Although I never personally liked Helena Modjeska,
I have liked as well as known many stage folk and have
had, first and last, many real friends among them. It
was my good fortune to know the elder Salvini in
America. He happened to be stopping at the same
hotel. He looked like a successful farmer; a very plain
man, very. He told me, among other interesting
things, that no matter how small his part happened to
be, he always played each succeeding act in a stronger
colour, maintaining a steady crescendo, so that the last
impression of all was the climax. I remember him in
Othello, particularly his delicate and lovely silent act-
ing. When Desdemona came in and told the court how
he had won her, Salvini only looked at her and spoke
but the one word: "Desdemona!" but the way he
said it "made the tears rise in your heart and gather
"
to your eyes.
Irving and Terry, always among my close friends, I
first met in London, at the McHenrys' house in Holland
Park. At that time the McHenrys' Sunday night
Later, when they came to
dinners were an institution.
America, I saw great
a deal of them; and I remember
Ellen Terry saying once, after a luncheon given by me
at Delmonico's, "What a splendid woman Jeannette
'
Gilder is! You know and she gave me a rueful
glance "I am always wrong about men, but seldom
about women!"
Dear Ellen Terry ! She has always been the freshest,
284 .An American Priixxa Donna
the most wholesome, and the most spontaneous person-
ality on the stage: a sweet and candid woman, with a
sound, warm heart and a great genius. At Lady
Macmillan's a number of people, most of them literary,
were discussing that deadly worthy and respectable
actress Madge Robertson Mrs. Kendall. The morals
of stage people was the subject, and Mrs. Kendall was
cited as an example of propriety. One of the women
present spoke up from her corner:
"Well," said she, "all I can say is that if I were
giving a party for young girls I would steer very clear
of Mrs. Kendall and ask Miss Terry instead. The
Kendall lady does nothing but tell objectionable stories
that lead to the glorification of her own purity, but you
will never in a million years hear an indelicate word
from the lips of Ellen Terry!"
The only complaint Henry Irving had to make
againstNew York was that he "had no one to play
with." He insisted, and quite justly, too, that New
York had no leisure class: that cultivated Bohemia,
the playground for people of intellectual tastes and
varied interests, did not exist in New York. He used
to say that after the theatre, and after supper, he
could not find anybody at his club who would discuss
with him either modern drama or the old dramatic
traditions; or give him any exchange of ideas or intelli-
gent comradeship.
He and I had many delightful talks, and
I wish
now that I had made notes of the things he told me
about stagecraft. He had a great deal to say about
stage lighting, a subject he was for ever studying and
about which he was always experimenting. It was his
idea to do away with shadows upon the stage, and he
finally accomplished his effect by lighting the wings
Ellen Terry
A.mate\irs and OtKers 285
very brilliantly. Until his radical reforms in this

direction the theatres always used to be full of grotesque
masses of light and shade. To-day the art of lighting
may be said to have reached perfection.
One of the most interesting things about Henry
Irving was the way in which he made use of the small-

est trifles that might aid him in getting his effects. He
knew perfectly his own limitations, and was always
seeking to compensate for them. For example, he was
utterly lacking in any musical sense; like Dr. Johnson,
he did not even possess an appreciation of sweet sounds,
and did not care to go to either concerts or operas.
But he knew how important music was in the theatre,
and he knew instinctively with that extraordinary
stage-sense of his what would appeal to an audience,
even if it did not appeal to him. So, if he went any-
where and heard a melody or sequence of chords that
he thought might fit in somewhere, he had it noted
down at once, and collected bits of music in this way
wherever he went. Sometime, he felt, the need for
that particular musical phrase would arrive in some
production he was putting on, and he would be ready
with it. That was a wonderful thing about Irving
he was always prepared.
Speaking of Irving and his statement about the lack
of a cultivated leisure class in New York, reminds me
of the Vanderbilts, who were
shining examples of this
very lack, for they were immensely wealthy and yet
did not half understand, at that time, the possibilities
of wealth. William H. Vanderbilt was always my very
good friend. His father, Cornelius, the founder of the
family, used to say of him that "Bill hadn't sense
enough to make money himself he had to have it left
to him!" The old man was wont to add, "Bill's no
good anyway!" The Vanderbilts were plain people in

those days, but had the kindest hearts. "Bill" took a
course in practical railroading, filling the position of
conductor on the Hudson River Railroad, from which
"job" he had just been promoted when I first knew
him. He did turn out to be some "good" in spite of
his father's pessimistic predictions.
My mother andI spent many summers at "Clare-
hurst," my country home at Cold Spring on the Hudson.

The Vanderbilts' railroad, the New York Central, ran
through Cold Spring, so that my Christmas present
from William H. Vanderbilt each year was an annual
pass. He began sending it to me alone, and then
included my mother, until it became a regular institu-
tion. We saw something of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt
at Saratoga also, which was then a fashionable resort,
before Newport supplanted it with a higher standard of
formality and extravagance. I remember I once started
to ask William H. Vanderbilt's advice about investing
some money.
"You may know of some good security " I began.
"I don't! I don't!" he exclaimed with heat.
Then he shook his finger at me impressively, saying:
"Let me tell you something that my father always
said, and don't you ever forget it. He said that 'it
takes a smart man to make money, but a damned sight
' '
smarter one to
keep it!
My place at Cold Spring was where I went to rest
between seasons, a lovely place with the wind off the
Hudson and gorgeous oak trees all about. When
River,
the acorns dropped on the tin roof of the veranda in
the dead of night they made an alarming noise like
tiny ghostly footsteps.
One day when I was off on an herb-hunting expedi-
Amateurs and OtHers 287
tion, some highwaymen tried to stop my carriage,

and that was the beginning of troublous times at Cold
Spring. It developed that a band of robbers was
operating in our neighbourhood, with headquarters in a

cave on Storm King Mountain, just opposite us. They
made a specialty of robbing trains, and were led by a
small man with such little feet that his footprints were
easily enough traced; traced, but not easily caught
up with! He never was caught, I believe. But he, or
about our place; and we were
his followers, skulked
alarmed enough to provide ourselves with pistols.
That was when I learned to shoot, and I used to have
shooting parties for target practice. father wouldMy
prowl about after dark, firing off his pistol whenever he
heard a suspicious sound, so that, for a time, what
with acorns and pistols, the nights were somewhat
disturbed.
During the summers I drove all over the country and
had great fun stopping my pony he was a dear pony,
too, and rambling about picking flowers. I never
passed a spring without stopping to drink from it.
I 've always had a passion for woods and brooks; and
was the enterprising one of the family when it came to
exploring new roads. Of the beaten track I can stand
only just so much; then my spirit rises in rebellion. I
love a cowpath.
Iused to be an adept, too, at finding flag-root, which
was "so good to put in your handkerchief to take to
church"! (We carried our handkerchiefs in our hands
' '
in those days.) Or dill, or fresh fennel, to chew through
'
the long service !
'
Now the dill flavour is called caraway
seed but;
it is n't the same, or does n't seem so. And
there was fresh, sweet, black birch! Could anything
be more delicious than the taste of black birch? The
present generation, with its tea-rooms and soda-water

fountains, does not know the refreshment of those
delicacies prepared by Nature herself. I feel sure that
John Burroughs appreciates black birch, being, as he is,

one of the survivals of the fittest!
CHAPTER XXVII
"THE THREE GRACES"
1877, 1 embarked upon a venture that was destined,

IN in spite of much success, to be one of the most
unpleasant experiences of my professional career. Max
Strakosch and Colonel Mapleson, the younger Henry
Mapleson organised a Triple-Star Tour all over Amer-
ica,the three being Marie Roze, Annie Louise Cary, and
Clara Louise Kellogg. The press called us "The Three
Graces" and wrote much fulsome nonsense about
"three pure and irreproachable women appearing to-
gether upon the operatic stage, etc." The classifica-
tion was one I did not care for. Here, after many
intervening years, I enter and put on record my
protest. At the time it all served as advertising to
boom the tour and, as it was most of it arranged for by
Mapleson himself, I had to let it go by in dignified
silence.
Nor was Henry Mapleson any better than he should
have been either, in his personal life or in his business
relations, as his wives and I have reason to know. I
say "wives" advisedly, for he had several. Marie

Roze was never really married to him but, as he called
her Mrs. Mapleson, she ought to be counted among the
number. At the time of our "Three-Star Tour," she
was playing the role of Mapleson's wife and finding it
somewhat perilous. She was a mild and gentle woman,
19 289
very sweet-natured and docile and singularly stupid,

frequently incurring her managerial "husband's" rage
by doing things that he thought were impolitic, for he
had always to manage every effect. She seldom com-
plained of his treatment but nobody could know them
without being sorry for her. Previous to this relation
with Mapleson, Marie Roze had married an exceed-
ingly fine man, a young American singer of distinction,
who died soon after the marriage. She had two sons,
one of whom, Raymond Roze, passed himself off as her
nephew for years. I believe he is a musical director of
position and success in London at the present day.
Henry Mapleson did not inherit any of the strong

points of his father, Col. J. M. Mapleson of London,
who really didknow something about giving opera,
although he had his failings and was difficult to deal
with. Henry Mapleson always disliked me and, over
and over again, he put Marie in a position of seeming
antagonism to me; but I never bore malice for she was
innocent enough. She had some spirit tucked away in
her temperament somewhere, only, when we first knew
her, she was too intimidated to let it show. When she
was singing Carmen she was the gentlest mannered
gypsy that was ever stabbed by a jealous lover a
handsome Carmen but too sweet and good for any-
thing. Carlton was the Escamillo and he said to her
quite crossly once at rehearsal,
"You don't make love to me enough! You don't put
enough devil into it!"
Marie flared up for a second.
"I can be a devil if I like," she informed him. But,
in spite of this assertion, she never
put any devil into
anything she did on the stage at least.

Very few singers ever seem to get really inside
&-
*
Colonel Henry Mapleson
From a photograph by Downey
"The Three Graces" 291
Carmen. Some
modern ones come closer to her;
of the
but in my day there was an unwritten law against
realism in emotion. In most of the old standard roles
it was all right to idealise impulses and to beautify the
part generally, but Carmen is too terribly human to
profitby such treatment. She cannot be glossed over.
One can, likes, play Traviata from an elegant
if one
point of
view, but there is nothing elegant about
Merimee's Gypsy. Neither is there any sentiment.
Carmen purely or, rather, impurely elemental, a

is
complete animal. I used to love the part, though.

little
When I was studying the part, I got hold of Prosper

Merimee's novel and read it and considered it until I
really understood the girl's nature which, en passant, I
may say is more than the critic of The New York Tribune
had done. I doubt if he had ever read Merimee at all,
for he said that my rendering of Carmen was too
realistic ! The same column spoke favourably in later
years, of Mme.
Calve's performance, so it was un-
doubtedly a case of autres temps, autres mceurs ! Car-
men was, of course, too low for me. It was written for
a low mezzo, and parts of it I could not sing without
forcing my lower register. The Habanera went very
well by being transposed half a tone higher; but the
card-playing scene was another matter. The La Morte
encore lies very low and I could not raise it. Luckily
the orchestra is quite light there and I could sing
reflectively as if I were saying to myself, as I sat on
the bales, "My time is coming!"

-5^
an -
Ri-pe-te-ra: l'av-el!.... cor!
2
-N- **-
an -cor!.. La Morte an -cor!

In the fortune-telling quartette arranged with one of

I
the Gypsy girls Frasquita, I think it was, to sing
my part and let me sing hers, which was very high, and
thus relieve me.
A role in which I made my debut while I was with
Marie Roze and Gary was Aida. Mapleson was anxious
that Roze should have it, but Strakosch gave it to me.
One of Mapleson's critics wrote severely about my
sitting on a low seat instead of on the steps of the dais
during the return of Rhadames, I remember in this
connection. But nothing could prevent Aida from being
a success and it became one of my happiest roles. A
year or two later when I sang it in London my success
was confirmed. Gary was Amneris in it and ranked
next to the Amneris for whom Verdi wrote it, although
she rather over-acted the part. I have never seen an
Amneris who did not. There is something about the
part that goes to the head. Speaking of my new roles
at that period, I must not forget to mention my mad
scene from Hamlet; nor my one act of Lohengrin that
I added to my repertoire. Lucia had always been one of
my successes; and I believe thatone of the points that
made my Senta was that I interpreted her
interesting
as a girl obsessed with what was almost a monomania.
She was a highly abnormal creature and that was the
way I played her. It was a satisfaction to me that a
few people here and there really appreciated this rather
subtle interpretation. In commendation of this inter-
pretation there appeared an anonymous letter in The
Chicago Inter -Ocean, a part of which read:
In her rendering of this strange character (Senta) Miss
Kellogg keeps constantly true to the ideal of the great
composer, Wagner. In her acting, as well as in her singing,
we see nothing of the woman only the abnormal manifesta-
;
Clara Louise Kellogg as Aida
*THe THree Graces" 293
tions of the subject of a monomania. The writer is informed

by a physician whose observations of the insane, extending
over many years, enable him to judge of Miss Kellogg's
acting in this character, and he does not hesitate to say
that she delineates truthfully the victim of a mind diseased.
Such a delineation can only be the result of a careful study
of the insane, aided by a wonderful intuitive faculty. The
representation of the mad Ophelia in the last act of Hamlet,
given by Miss Kellogg last Saturday, fully confirms the
writer in the belief that no woman since Ristori possesses
such power in rendering the manifestations of the insane."
The portion of my tour with Roze and Gary under

the management of Max Strakosch that took me to the
far West, was particularly uncomfortable. Fortunately
the financial results compensated in a large measure
for the annoyances. Not only did I have Mapleson's
influence and his determination to push Marie Roze at
all costs to contend with, and the trying actions and
personality of Annie Louise Gary, but I also was sub-
jected to much embarrassment from a manager named
Bianchi, with whom, early in my career, I had partially
arranged to go to California. Our agreement had
fallen through because he was unable to raise the sum
promised me; so, when I did go, with Roze and Gary
and Strakosch, he was exceedingly bitter against me.
Annie Louise Gary was, strictly speaking, a contralto ;
yet she contrived to be considered as a mezzo and even
had a try at regular soprano roles like Mignon. It is
almost superfluous to state that she disliked me. So
far as I was concerned, she would have troubled me
very little indeed if she had been willing to let me alone.

I would not know her socially, but professionally I
always treated her with entire courtesy and would have

been satisfied to hold with her the most amicable
294 -A.n American Prime Donna
relations in the world, as I have with all singers with
whom I have appeared Annie Louise Gary,
in public.
however, willed it otherwise. The Tribune once printed

a long editorial in which Max Strakosch was described
as pacing up and down the room distractedly, crying:
"Oh, what For God's sake, don't break up
troubles!
my troupe!" This was rather exaggerated; but I
daresay there was more truth than fiction in it. Poor
Max did have his troubles!
Max Strakosch was an Austrian by birth and, having
lived the greater part of twenty-five years in this coun-
try, considered himself an American. He began his
career with Parodi, somewhere back in the rosy dawn
of our operatic history. Parodi was a great dramatic
singer the only woman of her day brought over as
the rival of Jenny Lind. Later Max Strakosch was
with Thalberg, after which he was connected with the
importation of various opera troupes having in their
lists such singers as Madame Gazzaniga, Madame
Coulsen, Albertini, Stigelli, Brignoli, and Susini. In all

these early enterprises he was associated with his
brother Maurice. He would himself have become a
musician, but Maurice advised differently. So, as he
expressed it, he always engaged his artists "by ear";
that is, he had them sing to him and in that way
judged of their availability. Maurice used to say to
him, "If you are merely a technical musician you can
only tell what will please musicians. If you have
general musical culture, and know the public, you can

tell what will please the public." And, as Max some-
times amplified, "I have discovered this to be correct
in many cases. Jarrett, who acted as the agent of
Nilsson and Lucca, is not a practical musician. Neither
is Morelli, who is a great impresario; neither is Maple-
4
The Three Graces" 295
son. But they know what the public want and they
furnish it." After he separated from his brother in
operatic management, Max travelled with Gottschalk,
with Carlotta Patti, and first brought Nilsson to
America. Capoul, Campanini, and Maurel all made

their appearance on the American operatic stage under
his guidance.
Do you find your artists difficult to manage? [he was

asked by a San Francisco reporter].
In some respects, yes, [was his reply]. They have
certain operas which they wish to sing and they decline to
learn others. The public get tired of these and demand
novelty. With Miss Kellogg there is never this trouble.
She knows forty operas and knows them well. She has a
wonderful musical memory. She is a student, and learns
everything new that is published. She has worked her way
to her present high position step by step. She is sure of her
position. She has an independent fortune, but loves her
art and her country. But she is not obliged to confine
herself to America. She has offers from London, Paris, and
St. Petersburg, and will probably visit those places next
season. She is just now at the zenith of her powers. She
has learned Paul and Virginia, a very charming opera
written for Capoul, and which will be given here for the
first time in the United States. If we give our contem-
plated season of opera here she will sing Valentine in The

Huguenots for the first time.
This same reporter has described Max as follows:
He can be seen almost at any hour about the Palace

Hotel when not engaged with a myriad of musicians
opera singers long ago stranded on this coast, young
vocalists with voices to be tried, chorus singers seeking
employment, players on instruments wanting to perform,
in his orchestra, and people who come on all imaginable
errands or looking at the objects of curiosity about the
city. He
always in a state of vibration; has a tongue
is
forever in motion and a body never at rest. He is as

demonstrative as a Frenchman. He talks with all the
oscillations, bobs, shrugs, and nervous twitchings of the
most mercurial Parisian. He has a pronounced foreign
accent. When speaking, his voice runs over the entire
gamut, only stopping at C sharp above the lines. In the
dining-room he attracts the attention of guests and waiters
by the eagerness of his manner. When interested in the
subject of conversation, he throws his arms sideways,
endangering the lives of his neighbours with his knife and
fork, rises in his seat, makes extravagant gestures . . .
His greeting is always cordial, accompanied by a grasp of

the hand like a patent vice or the gentle nip of a hay-press.
Mile. lima de Murska, "The Hungarian Nightin-

gale," was with us part on this tour. She
of the time
was a well-known Amina in Sonnambula and appeared
in our all-star casts of Don Giovanni. She was said to
have had five husbands. I know she had a chalk-
white face, a belt of solid gold, and a menagerie of
snakes and lizards that she carried about with her.
This is all I remember with any vividness of Murska.
It all seems long, long ago; and, I find, it is the
ridiculously unimportant things that stand out most

clearly in my memory. For instance, we gave extra
concerts, of course, and one of them lasted so long,
thanks to encores and general enthusiasm, that Stra-
kosch had to send word to hold the train by which we
were leaving. But the audience wanted more, and yet
more, and at last I had to go out on the stage and say:
"There 's a train waiting for me! If I sing again,
I '11 miss that train!"
Then the people laughingly consented to let me go.
Another funny little episode happened in San Fran-
'
THe THree Graces '
297
cisco, when I did for once break down in the middle of

a scene. It was let me see I think it must have been
in our last season of English opera, instead of in "The
Three Graces" tour, for it occurred in The Talisman,
but speaking of California suggests it to me. We
carried six Russian singers. They all joined the Greek
Church choir later. One of them was a little man
about five feet high, with a sweet voice, but an ex-
tremely nervous temperament. There was an unim-
portant The
role in Talisman of a crusading soldier who
had to rush on and sing a phrase to the effect that St.
George's boats and horses were approaching from both
sides; I do not recall the words. The only man who
could sing the "bit" was our five-foot Russian friend.
He had to wear a large Saracen helmet and carry a
shield six feet high and his entrance was a running one.
;
I, playing Lady Edith Plantagenet, looked around to
see the poor little chap come staggering along under

the immense shield and to hear a very shaky and
frightened voice gasp: "Sire, St. George's floats and
boats, and flounts and mounts I to sing
tried
"A traitor! A traitor!" but got only as far as "A
"
trai when I was overcome with an impulse of
laughter and the curtain had to be rung down !
I recall, too, avisit I had from a Chinese woman.

I had bought something from a Chinese shop in San
Francisco, and the wife of the merchant, dressed most

ceremoniously and accompanied by four servants, came
to see me and expressed her desire to have me call on
her. So a cousin who was with me and I went, expect-
ing to see a Chinese interior; but we found the most

banal of American furnishings and surroundings. After-
wards we visited Chinatown and one of the opium dens,
where we saw the whole process of opium smoking
by the men there, lying in bunks along the wall like

shelves. It was on this trip, too, when going West,
that, as we reached the Junction in Utah to branch off
to Salt Lake City, we found the tracks were all filled up
with the funeral train flat decorated cars with seats
left from the funeral of Brigham Young.
But the strongest recollection of all yes, even than

the troubles between Annie Louise Gary and myself
stands out, of that Western tour, the knowledge of the
good friends won, personally and professionally, a
I
collective testimonial ofwhich remains with me in the
form of a large gold brooch shaped like a lyre, across
which is an enamelled bar of music from Faust deli-
cately engraved in gold and with diamonds used as the
notes. On the back is inscribed :
"
"Farewell from friends who love thee.
The same year I sang at the triennial festival of
the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. Emma
Thursby, a high coloratura soprano, was with us. So
were Charles Adams and M. W. Whitney. Gary also
sang. It was a very brilliant musical event for the
Boston of those days. It was in Boston, too, although
a little later, that Von Bulow called on me and, speak-
ing of practising on the piano, showed me his ringers,
upon the tips of every one of which were very tough
corns. In further conversation he remarked, with
regard to Wagner, "Ah, he married my widow!"
When singing in Boston one night, during "The
Three Graces" tour, at a performance of Mignon, there
was noted by one newspaper man who was present the
somewhat curious fact that in singing that Italian opera
only one of the principals sang in his or in her native
tongue. Gary was an American, Roze a Frenchwoman,
Tom Karl (Carroll) an Irishman, Verdi (Green) an
Faust Brooch Presented to Clara Louise Kellogg
".The Three Graces" 299
American, and myself. The only Italian was Frapoli,

the new tenor.
In 1878, on a Western trip, I remember my making
a point, in some place in Kansas, of singing in an
institute on Sunday for the pleasure of the inmates.
We had done this sort of thing frequently before,
notably in Utica. So we went to the prison to sing to
the prisoners. I said to the company, "I am going to
sing to give pleasure, and not a hymn is to be in the
programme!" When I was told of the desperadoes in
the place I was almost intimidated. The guards were
particularly imposing. I played my own accompani-
ments and I sang negro melodies. I never had such an
audience, of all my
appreciative audiences. Never, I
feel sure, have I given quite so much pleasure as to
those lawless prisoners out in Kansas.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ACROSS THE SEAS AGAIN
WAS glad to be going again to England. My farewell

I to my native land was, however, more like an
ovation than a farewell. One long table of the ship's
grand saloon was heaped with flowers sent me by friends
and "admirers." The list of my fellow passengers on
this occasion was a distinguished one, including Bishop
Littlejohn, Bishop Scarborough, Bishop Clarkson, and

other Episcopal prelates who were going over to attend
the conference in London; the Rev. Dr. John Hall;
Maurice Grau, Max Strakosch, Henry C. Jarrett, John
McCullough, Lester Wallack, General Rathbone of
Albany, Colonel Ramsay of the British army, Frederick
W. Vanderbilt, and Joseph Andrede, the Cape of Good
Hope millionaire. I was interviewed by a Sun reporter,
on deck, and assured him that I was going abroad for
rest only.
"No," I said, "I shall not sing a note. How could

I, after such a season one hundred and fifty nights
of constant labour. No; I shall breathe the sea air,
and that of the mountains, and see Paris delightful
Paris! With such a lovely summer before me, it
would be a little hard to have to work."
It was like old times to be in England once more.
Yet I found many changes. One of them was in the
state of my old friend James McKenzie who had been
300
-Across tKe Seas Again 301
in the East Indian trade and had a delightful place in

Scotland adjoining that of the Queen, through which
she used to drive with the incomparable John Brown.
I had been invited up there on my first visit to England,
but was not able to accept. When I asked for him this
time I learned that he had been knighted for loaning
money to the Prince of Wales. A girl I knew quite
well told me, this year, a touching little story of a half-
fledged romance which had taken place at Sir James's

place in Scotland. The Prince who was known in
England as "Collars and Cuffs" and who died young,
was with the McKenzies for the hunting season and
theremet my friend, such a pretty American girl she
was! They fell in love with each other and,
though of
course nothing could come they played out their
of it,
pathetic little drama like any ordinary young lovers.

"Come down early to dinner," the Prince would
'11 have a bit of heather for
"I
whisper. you!"
And when they met in London, later, he took her to
Marlborough House and showed her the royal nurseries
and the shelves where his toys were still kept. The girl
nearly broke down when she told me about it. I have

thought of the little story more than once since.
"He hated to have me courtesy to him," she said.
"He used to whisper quite fiercely: 'don't you courtesy
to me when you can avoid it I can't bear to have you
"
doit!'
My new London that season was Aida. For,
role in
of course, Iwas singing It went so well that Mapleson
!
(pere) wanted to extend my engagement. But I was

very, very tired and, for some reason this, probably,
not in my usual "form," to borrow an Anglicism, so I
decided to go to Paris and rest, meanwhile waiting for
something to develop that I liked well enough to accept.
3O2 .An American Prima Donna
Maurice Strakosch had been my agent in England, but

it seemed to me that his methods were becoming some-
what antiquated. So I gave him up and decided that I

would get along without any agent at all. I also gave
up Colonel Mapleson. Mapleson owed me money
although, for that matter, he owed everybody. Poor
Titjiens sang for years for nothing. So, when, as soon as
I was fairly settled in Paris, the Colonel sent me earnest
and prayerful summons to come back to London and
go on singing A'ida, I turned a deaf ear and sent back
word that I was too tired.
My first appearance in London this season was at
a Royal Concert at Buckingham Palace to which, as
before, I was "commanded." There were present
many royalties, any number of foreign ambassadors,
dukes, duchesses, marquises, marchionesses, arch-
bishops, earls, countesses, lords, and viscounts. Her
Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales wove, I remem-
ber, a gown of creme satin brocade trimmed with point
d'Alencon, trimmed with pansy-coloured velvet; and
her jewels were diamonds, pearls, and sapphires. Her
tiara was of diamonds and she was decorated with
many orders. Said an American press notice:

Miss Kellogg, it is a pleasure to say, achieved a complete
triumph and received the congratulations of the Prince and
Princess of Wales and of everyone present. . . .And not
a whit behind this was the great triumph she gained on the
evening of June 19th, in her character of Aida, without
doubt the most impressive and ambitious of her impersona-
tions, and which has won for her in America the highest
praise from musical people and public on account of the
intensity of feeling which she throws into the dramatic
action and music. The London Times critic, who is un-
doubtedly the best in London, bestows praise in unequivocal
Across tKe Seas Again 303
language for the excellence of Miss Kellogg's interpretation.

That Miss Kellogg has been so successful as a singer will be
g^d news to her friends, and that she has been so successful
as an American singer will be still better news to those
people who feel keenly for our national reputation as
lovers and promoters of the fine arts.
In an interview in London Max Strakosch was asked

with regard to his plans for another season:
"Why do you contemplate giving English opera instead

of Italian?"
" ' '
' '
For two reasons ,
The first is that English
he replied .
is very popular now and

the great generality of people in
England and America prefer it. This is especially the case
in England. The second reason is that, although Kellogg
is the equal of an Italian operatic star, fully as fine as
Gerster, immeasurably superior to Hauck, people with set
ideas will always have their favourites, and partisanship
is possible; whereas in English opera Kellogg stands alone,
unapproachable, the indisputable queen."

"What is all this talk I hear about a lot of rich men
coming to the front in New York to support Mapleson's
operatic ventures with their money?"
"Why, it is all talk; that 's just it. That sort of talk has
been talked for years back, but they never do anything.
Why did n't these rich men that want opera in New York
give me any money? I stood ready to bring out any
artists they wanted if they would guarantee me against

loss. But they never did anything of the kind, and I have
brought out the leading artists of our times at my own
risks. The only man who 's worth anything of all that lot
that 's talking so much about opera now in New York is
Mr. Bennett. He 's got the Herald, and that has influence."
"
What do you think of Americans as an opera-going
people?" he was asked.
"
While we have many music-lovers in America, it is
304 -A.n .American Prima Donna
nevertheless a. matter to cater to our public," Max

difficult
replied. "Here England there is such an immense con-

in
stituency for opera; people who have solid fortunes, which
nothing disturbs, and who want opera and all other beauti-
ful and luxurious things, and will pay largely for them.
In America hard times may set everybody to economising
and, of course, one of the first things cut off is going to the
opera."
"Was all that gossip about disputes and jealousies be-
tween Kellogg and Gary last season a managerial dodge
for notoriety?"
"
Dear me, no. I have n't the slightest idea how all that
stuff and nonsense started. Kellogg and Gary were always
good friends. Gary was n't pleased with her treatment
If
last year, why should she engage with us again? Besides,
what rivalry could there possibly be between a soprano and
a contralto? The soprano is the prima donna incontestably,
the star of the troupe."
In Paris my mother and I took an apartment on the

Rue de Chaillot, just off the Champs Elysees. One
of the first things I did in Paris was to refuse an offer
to sing in Budapesth. While in Paris I, of course, did
sing many times, but it was always unprofessionally.
I had a wonderful stay in Paris, and went to everything
from horse shows to operas. Those were the charming
days when Mme. Adam had her salon. I met there
some of the most gifted and brilliant people of the age.
She was the editor of the Nouvelle Revue, and it was
through her that I met Coquelin. He frequently
recited at her receptions; and it was a great privilege
to hear his wonderful French and his inimitable intona-
tion in an intime way.
The house where I enjoyed visiting more than any
other except the Adams', was that of Theodore Robin,
who had married a rich American widow and had a
Across tKe Seas -A.;ain 305
beautiful home on Pare Monceau.

His baritone voice
was a very fine one, and he had studied
at first with
a view to making a career for himself; but he was
naturally indolent and, having married money, his
indolence never decreased. Valentine Black was an-
other friend of ours and we spent many an evening
at his house listening toGodard and Widor play their
songs. Widor was the organist at Saint Sulpice and
had composed some charming lyric music. Godard was
a very small man, intensely musical. He had the curi-
ous gift of being able to copy another composer's style
exactly. Few people know, for instance, that he wrote
all the recitative music for Carmen. It is almost in-
credible that another brain than Bizet's should have so
marvellously caught the spirit and the mood of that
music.
The Stanley Club gave me a dinner in the following
March at which my mother and I were the only ladies
present. Mr. Ryan was the President of the Club and
represented the New York Herald. The foreign cor-
respondents of the Evening Post and the Boston Adver-
tiser were there, and next to Ryan sat Richard Watson
Gilder who was representing the Century Magazine.

There were also there several poets and writers, and
more than one painter whose picture hung in the Salon
of that year. No one asked me to sing; but I felt that
I wanted to and did so. After the "Jewel Song" and
the "Polonaise," someone asked for "Way Down on
the Suwanee River." I sang it, and was struck by the
incongruous touch of the little negro melody, the
brilliant Stanley Club, and all Paris outside.
No
one can live in the atmosphere of artistic Paris
without being interested in other branches of art
besides one's own. That is a charming trait of French
306 j<\n .American Prima Donna
people they are not a bit prejudiced when it comes to

;
recognising forms of genius that are unfamiliar. The

stupidest Parisian painter will weep over Tschaikow-
sky's Pathetiqiie Symphony or will wildly applaud one of
the rather cumbersome Racine tragedies at the Theatre
Francais. I knew Cabanel quite well (not, I hasten to
add, that he would be apt to cultivate an artistic taste

in anybody) and I met Jules Stewart at the Robins',
whose father was the greatest collector of Fortuneys
in the world. I think it was he who took me to the
Loan Exhibition of the Barbizon School of Painting
that year. The pictures were hung beautifully, I
remember, so that one could see the stages of their
development.
It was about the same time that I first heard Joseph-
ine de Reszke in Paris. In any case it was somewhere
in the seventies. She was a soprano with a beautiful
voice but not an attractive personality. Her neck was
exceptionally short and set so far down into her shoul-
ders that she just escaped deformity. She was very
much the blonde, northern type, and still a young
woman. I have heard that she did not have to sing for
monetary reasons. A few years later she married a
wealthy Polish banker and left the stage. At the time
I first heard her the de Reszke men were not singing. It
was in Le Roi de Lahore that I heard her, with Lascelle.
I never listened to anything more magnificently done
than Lascelle's singing of the big baritone aria. Maurel

followed him as a baritone. He was a great artist also,
with possibly more intelligence in his singing than
Lascelle. Lascelle relied entirely on his glorious voice;
in consequence he never realised all in his career that
might have been possible. In reality, if you have one

great gift, you have to develop as many other gifts as
Across tHe Seas .Again 307
possible in order to present and to protect that one

properly A little later I heard Maurel in lago. (This
!
reminds me of Othello in Munich, when .Vogel, the tenor,

sang out of tune and nearly spoiled MaureFs work).
What an actor, and what an intelligence! One felt in
Maurel a man who had studied his roles from the
original plots. He played a great part in costuming,
but, curiously enough, he could never play parts of
what I call elemental picturesqueness. His Amonasro
in A'ida was good, but it was a bit too clean and tidy.
He looked as if he were just out of a Turkish bath,

immaculate, in spite of his uncivilised guise. He could,
however, play a small part as if it were the finest role
in the piece; and he had an inimitable elegance and
art, even with a certain primitive romantic quality
lacking. But what days those were of what marvel-

lous singing companies I hear no such vocalism now,
!
in spite of the elaborate and expensive opera that is
put on each year.

In my mother's diary of this period I find:
Louise presented to Verdi and we had no idea she would

appear in any newspaper in consequence. . . .
She went to hear the damnation of Faust last Sunday

and says the orchestra was very fine. The singing is not so
much. She went to hear A'ida last night at the Grau Opera
House with Verdi to conduct and Krauss as A Ida.
Chorus and orchestra fine artists. Well she was dis-
appointed! Krauss sings so false and has not as much
power as Louise. She came home quite proud of herself.
Took her opera and marked everything. Says her tempo
was very nearly correct; but yet she was disappointed.
Krauss changes her dress. Louise does not. . . .
We went to Miss Van Zandt's debut. She made a verit-

able success. Has a very light tone. The Theatre Comique
is small. She extremely slender and, if not worked too

is
hard, will develop into a fine artist. Our box joined Patti's.
I sat next to her and we lost no time in chatting over every-
thing that was interesting to us both. She told me her whole

story. I was very much interested and had a most agree-
;
able evening. Was glad I went.
In a letter written by my mother to my father I find

another mention of my meeting Verdi:
"Louise was invited to breakfast with Verdi, the
composer of A'ida. She said he was the most natural,
unaffected, and the most amiable man (musical) she
ever met."
CHAPTER XXIX
TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED
HAVE gone abroad nearly every summer and it was

I on one of these trips, in 1877, that I first met
Lilian Nordica. It was at a garden party given by the
Menier Chocolat people at their usine just outside
Paris, after she had returned from making a tour of
Europe with Patrick Gilmore's band. A few years
later she and I sang together in Russia; and we have
always been good friends. At the time of the Gilmore

tour she was quite a girl, but she dressed her hair in a
fashion that made her look much older than she really
was and that threw into prominence her admirably
determined chin. She always attributed her success
in life to that chin. Before becoming an opera singer
she had done about everything else. She had been a,
book-keeper, had worked at the sewing machine, and
sung in obscure choirs. The chin enabled her to sur-
mount such drudgery. A young person with a chin so
expressive of determination and perseverence could not
be downed. She told me at that early period that she
always kept her eyes fixed on some goal so high and
difficult that it seemed impossible, and worked toward
itsteadily, unceasingly, putting aside everything that
stood in the path which led to it. In later years she
spoke again of this, evidently having kept the idea
throughout her career. "When I sang Elsa," she said,
309
"I thought "

then Isolde,
of Brunhilde, My ad-
miration for Mme. Nordica is deep and abounding.
Her breathing and tone production are about as nearly
perfect as anyone's can be, and, if I wanted any young
student to learn by imitation, I could say to her, "Go
and hear Nordica and do as nearly like her as you
can!" There are not many singers, nor have there
ever been many, of whom one could say that. And one
of the finest things about this splendid vocalism is
that she has had nearly as much to do with it as had
God Almighty in the first place. When I first knew her
she had no dramatic quality above G sharp. She could
reach the upper notes, but tentatively and without
power. She had, in fact, a beautiful mezzo voice; but
she could not hope for leading roles in grand opera
until she had perfect control of the upper notes needed
to complete her vocal equipment. She went about it,
moreover, "with so much judition," as au old man I
know in the country says. But it was not until after
the Russian engagement that she went to Sbriglia in
Paris and worked with him until she could sing a high
C that thrilled the soul. That C of hers in the In-
flammatus in Rossini's Stabat Mater was something
superb. Not many singers can do it as successfully as
Nordica, although they can all accomplish a certain
amount in "manufactured" notes. Fursch-Nadi, also
a mezzo, had to acquire upper notes as a business
proposition in order to enlarge her repertoire. She
secured the notes and the requisite roles; yet her voice
lost greatly in quality. Nordica's never did. She
gained all and lost nothing. Her voice, while increas-
ing in register, never suffered the least detriment in
tone nor timbre.
It was Nordica who first told me of Sbriglia, giving
Teaching and tHe Half-Talented 311
him honest credit for the help he had been to her. Like
alltruly big natures she has always been ready to
acknowledge assistance wherever she has received it.
Some people and among them artists to whom Sbrig-
lia's teaching has been of incalculable value
maintain
a discreet silence on the subject of their study with
him, preferring, no doubt, to have the public think
that they have arrived at vocal perfection by their own
incomparable genius alone. All of training had my
been in native country and I had always been very
my
proud of the fact that critics and experts on two conti-
nents cited me as a shining example of what American
musical education could do. All the same, when I was
in Paris during an off season, I took advantage of being
near the great teacher, Sbriglia, to consult him. I
really did not want him actually to do anything to my

voice as much as I wanted him to tell me there was
nothing that needed doing. At the time I went to him
I had been singing for twenty years. Sbriglia tried my
voice carefully and said:
"
Mademoiselle, you have saved your voice by singing
"
far forward.
"That's because I've been worked hard," I told
him, "and have had to place it so in self-defence.
Many a night I Ve been so tired it was like pumping
to sing ! Then I would sing 'way, 'way in front and, by
so doing, was able
to get through."
"Ah, that's it!" said he. "You've sung against
your teeth the best thing in the world for the preserva-
"
tion of the voice. You get a white, flat sound that way.
"Then I don't sing wrong?" I asked, for I knew that
the first thing great vocal masters usually have to do is

to tell one how not to sing.
"Mademoiselle," said Sbriglia, "you breathe by the
grace of God! Breathing is all of singing and I can

teach you nothing of either."
Sbriglia's method was the old Italian method known
to teachers as diaphragmatic, of all forms of vocal
training the one most productive of endurance and

stability in a voice. I went several times to sing for
him and, on one occasion, met Plangon who had been

singing in Marseilles and, from a defective method, had
begun to sing out of tune so badly that he resolved to
come to Paris to see if he could find someone who might
help him to overcome it. He was quite frank in saying
that Sbriglia had "made him." I used to hear him
practising in the Maestro's apartment and would

listen from an adjoining room so that, when I met
him, I was able to congratulate him on his improve-

ment in tone production from day to day. Phrasing
and expression are what make so many great French
artists that, and an inborn sense of the general
effect. French actors and singers never forget to
keep themselves picturesque and harmonious. They
may get off the key musically but never artistically.
Germans have not a particle of this sense. They
are individualists, egoists, and are forever thinking of
themselves and not of the whole. When I heard
Slezak, I said to myself: "If only somebody would
photograph that man and show him for once what he
looks like!"
The worst thing Sbriglia had to contend with was the
obtuseness of people. They did not know when they
were doing well or ill, and would not believe him when
he told them. I remember being there one day while a
young Canadian girl was making tones for the master.
She had a good voice and could have made a really fine
effect if she could only have heard herself with her
TeacHing and tKe Half-Talented 313
brain. After he had been working with her for a time,

she sang a delightful note properly placed.
"Good!" exclaimed Sbriglia.
"That was lovely," I put in.
"
That? I would n't sing like that for anything! It
sounded like an old woman's voice!" cried the girl,
quite amazed.
Sbriglia threw up his hands in a frenzy and ordered
her out of the house. So that was an end of her as far
as he was concerned.
Sbriglia really loved to teach. It was a genuine
joy to him to put the finishing touches on a voice to do

;
those things for it that, apparently, the Creator had not

had time to do. I know one singer who, when compli-
mented upon his vast improvement, replied without
the slightest intention of impiety:
"Yes, I am singing well now, thanks to Sbriglia,
11
and, of course, le bon Dieu! he added as an after-
thought.
Everyone knows what Sbriglia did for Jean de Reszke,
turning him from an unsuccessful baritone into the
foremost tenor of the world. Sbriglia first met the
Polish singer at some Paris party, where de Reszke
told him that he was discouraged, that his career as a
baritone had not been a fortunate one, and that he had
about made up his mind to give it all up and leave the
stage. He was a rich man and did not sing for a living
like most professionals. Sbriglia had heard him sing.
Said he:
"M. de Reszke, you are not a baritone."
"I am coming to that conclusion myself," said
Monsieur ruefully.
"No, you are not a baritone," repeated Sbriglia.
"You are a tenor."
314 -A.n -American Prima Donna
Jean de Reszke laughed. A tenor? He? But it was

absurd !
Nevertheless Sbriglia was calmly assured; and he

was the greatest master of singing in France, if not in
the world. After a little conversation, he convinced M.
de Reszke sufficiently, at least, to give the new theory a
chance.
"You need not pay me anything," said the great
teacher to the young man. "Not one franc will I take
from you until I have satisfied you that my judgment
is correct. Study with me for six months only and then
you and the world!"
I will leave it to
That was the beginning of the course of study which
launched Jean de Reszke upon his extraordinarily
prosperous and brilliant career.
Speaking of Sbriglia leads my thoughts from the
study of singing in general to the struggle of young
singers, first, for education, and, second, for recognition.
I would like to impress upon those who think of trying
to make a career or who would like to make one the
from reading the twenty-third and
benefit to be derived
twenty-fourth chapters of George Eliot's Daniel De-
ronda, in which she makes clear how much early
environment counts. There must have been some
musical atmosphere, even if not of an advanced or
educated kind. Music must be absorbed with the air
one breathes and the food one eats, so as to form part
of the blood and tissue.
It is sad to see the number of girls with the idea
that they are possessed of great gifts just ready to be
developed by a short period of study, after which they
will blossom out into successful singers. Injudicious
friends absolutely without judgment or musical dis-
crimination are responsible for the cruel disillusions
TeacHing and tKe Half-Talented 315
that so frequently follow. I would like to cry out to

them to reject the thought or only to entertain it when
;
encouraged by those capable by experience or training

of truly judging their gifts. Many and many a girl
comes out of a household where the highest musical
knowledge has been the hand-organ in the street, and
believes that she is going to take the world by storm.
She prepared to save and scrimp and struggle to go
is
upon the stage when she really should be stopping at

home, ironing the clothes and washing the dishes
allotted her by a discriminating and judicious Provi-
dence. Said Klesner to Gwendolen who wants to go on
the stage in Daniel Deronda:
You have exercised your talents you recite you sing

from the drawing-room Standpunkt. My dear Frdulein,
you must unlearn all that. You have not yet conceived
what excellence is. You must unlearn your mistaken
admirations. You must know what you have to strive for,
and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken
discipline. Your mind, I say. For you must not be think-
ing of celebrity. Put that candle out of your eyes and look
only at excellence. You would, of course, earn nothing.
You could get no engagement for a long while. You would
need money for yourself and your family. . . .
A mountebank's child who helps her father to earn

shillings when she is six years old a child that inherits
a singing throat from a long line of choristers and learns
to sing as it learns to talk has a likelier beginning. Any
great achievement in acting or in music grows with the
growth. Whenever an artist has been able to say, "I
"
came, I saw, I conquered, it has been at the end of patient
practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity
for receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine
dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require a
shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty of

effect. Your muscles your whole frame must go like a

watch, true, true, true, to a hair. That is the work of
springtime, before habits have been determined.
This demonstrates what I cannot emphasise too

heartily the impossibility of taking people out of their
normal environment and making anything worth while
of them. There is a place in the world for everybody
and, if everybody would stay in that place, there would
be less confusion and fewer melancholy misfits. Sing-
ing is not merely vocal. It is spiritual. One must be in
music in some way; must hear it often, or, even, hear it
talked about. Merely hearing it talked about gives
one a chance to absorb some musical ideas while one's
mental attitude is being moulded. Studying in classes
supplies the musical atmosphere to a certain extent;
and so does hearing other people sing, or reading
biographies of musicians. All these are better than
nothing much better and yet they can never take
the place of really musical surroundings in childhood.
Being brought up in a household where famous com-
posers are known, loved, and discussed, where the best
music is played on the piano and where certain critical
standards are a part of the intellectual life of the
inmates is a large musical education in itself. The
young student will absorb thus more real musical
feeling, and judgment, and knowledge, than in spending
years at a conservatory.
I have often and often received letters asking for
advice and begging me to hear the voices of girls who
have been told they have talent. It is a heart-breaking
business. About one in sixty has had something
resembling a voice and then, ten chances to one, she
has not been in a position to cultivate herself. It is
TeacHing and tHe Half-Talented 317
a girl that a woman must have many

difficult to tell
things besides a voice to make a success on the stage.

It seems so well! so conceited to say to her:
"
My poor child, you must have presence and person-
ality; good teeth and a knowledge of how to dress;
grace of manner, dramatic feeling, high intelligence,
and an aptitude for foreign languages besides a great
many other essentials that are too numerous to men-
tion but that you will discover fast
enough if you try
to go ahead without them!"
An impulsive and warm-hearted friend was visiting
me once when I received a letter from a young woman
whom I will call "E. H.," asking permission to come
and sing for me. I read the note in despair and threw
it over to my friend.
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked,
after she had glanced through it.
"
Nothing. The girl has no talent. "
"How do you know that?" protested my friend.
"By her letter. It is a crassly ignorant letter. I

feel perfectly sure that she can't sing."
"You are very unkind!" my friend reproached me.
"You ought at least to hear her. You may be dis-
'
couraging a genuine genius

" " "
Now see here, I interrupted,
'
E. H.
'
is evidently
ignorant and uneducated. She further admits that she
is poor. These facts taken together make a terrible
handicap. She 'd have to be a miracle to make good in
spite of them."
" "
I will pay her expenses to come here and see you,
declared my dear friend, obstinate in well-doing, like
many another mistaken philanthropist.
I told her that she might take that responsibility
if she liked, but that I would have nothing to do with
any such way. "It 's a

raising a girl's false hopes in
littlehard on her," I said, "to have to borrow money
to take a journey simply to be told that she can't sing.
"
However, have it your own way and bring her.
She came. I saw her approaching up the driveway
and simply pointed her out to my misguided friend.
"
Anyone would have known the minute he saw "E. H.
that she could not sing. She slouched and dragged her
feet and was hopelessly ordinary, every inch of her. It
was not merely a matter of plainness, but something far
worse. She was quite hopeless. It turned out, poor
soul, that she was a chambermaid in a hotel. People
had heard her singing at her work and had told her
that she ought to have her voice cultivated. It was,
as usual, a case of injudicious friends, and, by the
way, the very fact of being carried away by such praise
is a mark of a certain lack of intelligence. This
in itself
girl had no temperament, no ear, no equipment, no

taste, no advantages in the way of having heard music.
I had to say to her:
"You have a pretty voice but nothing else, and not a
sign of a career. Dismiss it all, for you must have
"
something more than a few sweet notes.
She cried, and I did, too. I hate to be obliged to tell
girls such disagreeable truths.
Another girl came to me with her mother. She was
full of herself and her mother equally wrapped up in
her. She had taken part in small village affairs in the
littleConnecticut town where she lived. Her voice was
not bad, but she produced her notes in a wrong manner.
Her teacher had encouraged her and promised her
success. But teachers do that, many of them! I do
not know that they can altogether be blamed.
"You don't breathe right, " I said to this Connecticut
TeacHing' and tKe Half-Talented 319
girl. "You don't produce your tone right. You've

no experience and, of course, you believe your teacher.
But you forget one thing. Your teacher has to live
and you pay him for stimulating you, even if he does so
without justification."
What I did not go on to say to her, although I longed
to, was that she was not the build of which prime donne
are made. A prima donna has to be compactly, sturdily
made, with a strong backbone to support her hard work
and a lifted chest to let the tones out freely. A niece of
Bret Harte's, who appeared for a time in grand opera,
drooped her chest as she exhausted her breath and,
when I saw her do it, I said:
"She sings well; but she won't sing long!"
She did n't.
My Connecticut girl was big and sloppy, a long-
drawn-out person, such as is never, never gifted with a
big voice.
There is something else which is very necessary for
every girl to consider in going on the operatic stage.
Has she the means for experimenting, or does she have
to earn her living in some way meanwhile? If the
former is the case, it will do no harm for her to play
about with her voice, burn her fingers if need be, and
come home to her mother and father not much the
worse for the experience. I sympathise somewhat with
the teachers in not speaking altogether freely in cases
like these. There is no reason why anyone should take
from a girl even one remote chance if she can afford
to take it. But poor girls should be told the truth. So
I said to my young Connecticut friend :
"My dear, you are trying to support yourself and

your mother, aren't you? Very well. Now, suppose
you go on and find that you can't what will you do
32O .An American Prima Donna
then? What are you fitted for? What can you turn
your hand to? What have you acquired? Look how
few singers ever arrive and, if you are not one of the
few, will you not merely have entirely unfitted yourself
for the life struggle along other lines?"
Herewith I say the same to four-fifths of all the girl
singers who, in villages, in shops, in schools, every-
where, are all yearning to be great. They came to me
in shoals in Paris and Milan, begging for just enough
money to get home with. I have shipped many a

failure back to America, and my soul has been sick
for their disappointment and disillusionment. But
they will not be guided by advice or warning. They
have got to learn actually and bitterly. Neither are
they ever grateful for discouragement nor yet for
encouragement. If you give them the former, they
think you are a selfish pessimist and if you give them
;
the latter, they accept it as no more than their due. As

I have previously mentioned, I have known only one
grateful girl and she was of ordinary ability. Emma

Abbott, for whom I certainly did a great deal, was only
grateful because she knew it was expected of her by
the world at large. I believe she really thought that all
I did was to hasten her success a little and that she
reallyhad not needed my assistance. Possibly, she had

not. But this other girl, to whom I gave a little,
unimportant advice, wrote me afterwards a most
appreciative letter, saying that my advice had been
invaluable to her. It was the only word of genuine
gratitude I ever received from a young singer; and I
kept her letter as a curiosity.
I believe there are, or were, more would-be prime
donne in Chicago than anywhere else on earth. I shall
never forget appointing a Thursday afternoon in the
TeacHing; and tHe Half-Talented 321
Windy City to hear twelve aspirants to operatic fame

pretty, fresh, self-conscious, young girls for the most
part. There was one of the number who was particu-

larly pretty and particularly aggressive. She criticised
the others lavishly, but hung back from singing herself.
She talked a great deal about her voice, saying that she
had sung for Theodore Thomas and that he had told
her there was no hall big enough for it! Such colossal
conceit prejudiced me in advance and I must confess I
"
felt a little curiosity to hear this "phenomenal organ.
It proved to be perfectly useless. She had neither
power nor quality nor comprehension. She could,
however, make a big noise, as I told her. On Sunday
my friends began coming in to see me, full of an article
that had appeared in one of the papers that morning.
Everyone began with :
"Good morning, Louise. My dear! Have you

"
seen, etc.
The article, that had quite openly been given the
paper by the young lady whose voice had been so much
admired by Theodore Thomas, described my unkind-
ness to young singers, my
jealous objection to praising
aspirants, my discouragement of good voices!
As a matter of fact, I have always been the friend of
young especially of young singers. So far from

girls,
wishing to hurt or discourage them, I have often gone

out of my
way to help them along. And I believe that
every time I have been obliged to tell a young and
eager girl that there was no professional triumph ahead
of her, it has cut me almost, if not quite, as deeply as it
has cut her. For I always feel that I am maiming, even
killing some beautiful thing in discouraging her, even
when I know it to be necessary and beneficial.
Another thing that I wish young would-be artists
would remember is that, worth while to sing the

if it is
music of a song, it is
equally worth while to sing the
words, and that you cannot sing the words really,
unless you are singing their meaning. Do I make
myself understood, I wonder? Once a girl with a
sweetly pretty voice sang to me Nevin's Mighty Lak
a Rose, the little negro song which Madame Nordica
gave so charmingly. When the girl had finished, I said :
"My have you read those words?"

dear,
She looked at me blankly. I know she thought I was
crazy.
"Because," I proceeded, "if you read the poetry
over before you sing that song again, you '11 find that it
"
will help you.
She had, I presume, "read" the words or she could
not have actually pronounced them; but she had not
made the slightest attempt to read the spirit of the little
song. No picture had come to her of a rosy baby

dropping asleep and of a loving mammy crooning over
him. She had not read the feeling of the song, even if
she had memorised the syllables. Girls hate to work.
They, even more than boys, want a short cut to effi-
ciency and success. Labour and effort are cruel words
to them. They want the glamour and the fun all at
once. What would they say to the noble and inspiring
example merchant of sixty, whom
of old E. S. Jaffray, a
I once knew, who, at that age, decided to learn Italian
in order to read Dante in the original?
The best way as I have said before and as I insist
on saying for anyone to learn to sing is by imitation
and assimilation. My friend Franceschetti, a Roman
gentleman, poor but of noble family, has classes that I
always attend when I am in the Eternal City, and
wherein the instruction is most advantageously given.
TeacHing and tHe Half-Talented 323
He criticises each student in the presence of the others

and, if the others are listening at all intelligently, they
must profit. But you must listen, and then listen, and
then keep on listening, and finally begin to listen all
over again. You must keep your ear ready, and your
mind as well.
Just as Faure, when he heard the bad baritone, said
to himself, that
' '
's my note ! Now how does he do it ? "

so you must hold yourself ready to learn from the
most humble as well as from the most unlikely sources.
Never forget that Faure learned from the really poor
singer what no good one had been able to teach him.
Remember, too, that Patti learned one of her own flexi-
ble effects from listening to Faure himself: and that
these great artists were not too proud to acknowledge
it. I never went to hear Patti, myself, without study-
ing the fine, forward placing of her voice and coming

home immediately and trying to imitate it.
Yet, after all one's efforts to help, one can only let
the young singers find out for themselves. If we could
profit by each other's experience, there would be no
need for the doctrine of reincarnation. But I wish oh,
how I wish that I could save some foolish girls from
embarking on the ocean of art as half of them do with
neither chart or compass, nor even a seaworthy boat.
A
better metaphor comes to me in my recollection of
a famous lighthouse that I once visited. The rocks
about were strewn with dead birds pitiful, little, eager
creatures that had broken their wings and beaten out
their lives all night against the great revolving light.
So the lighthouse of success lures the young, ambitious
singers. And so they break their wings against it.
CHAPTER XXX
THE WANDERLUST AND WHERE IT LED ME
season of 1879 in Paris was certainly a won-

THAT
derful one; and yet, before it was over, I caught
that strange fever of unrest that sends birds migrating
and puts the Romany tribes on the move. With me
it came as a result of over-fatigue and ill-health; an
instinctive craving for the medicine of change. The
preceding London season had been exacting and, in
Paris, I had not had a moment in which to really rest.
Although the days had been filled most pleasantly and
interestingly, they had been filled to over-flowing, and
I was very, very tired. So, in the grip of the wander-
lust, we packed our trunks and went to Aix-les-Bains.

We had not the slightest idea what we would do next.
My mother was not very well, either, and my coloured
maid, Eliza, had to be in attendance upon her a good
deal of the time, so that I was forced to consider the
detail of proper chaperonage. We were in a French
settlement and I was a prima donna, fair game for
gossip and comment. Therefore, I invited a friend of
mine, a charming young Englishwoman, down from
Paris to visit me. She was very curious about America,
I remember. She was always asking me about "the
States" and was especially interested in my accounts
of the anti-negro riots. The fact that they had been
almost entirely instigated by the Irish Catholics in
324
Led by tHe "Wanderlust 325
New York excited her so that she felt obliged to go and

talk with a priest in Aix about it. It was she, also, who
said something one day that I thought both amusing
and significant.
"My dear," she exclaimed, "tell me what are
'buttered nuts'?"
"Never heard of them," I replied.
"
Oh, yes, my dear Louise, you must have! They are
American books!"
in all
Of course she meant butternuts,
laughinglyas I
explained. A moment observed meditatively,

later she
"you know, I never take up an American novel that

I don't read some description of food!"
I think what she said was quite true. I have re-
marked it since. do not consider that we

Although I
are a greedy nation in practice when it comes to food,
we do love reading and hearing about good things to
eat.
Presently, as my mother felt better and had no real

need of me, I decided to take a little trip, leaving her at
Aix with Eliza. Not quite by myself, of course. I
never reached such a degree of emancipation as that.
But I asked my English friend to go with me, and one
fine day she and I set out in search of whatever enter-
taining thing might come our way. I had been so held

down to routine all my life, my comings and goings had
been so ordered and so sensible, that I deeply desired
to do a bit of real gypsy wandering without the handi-
cap of a travelling schedule. No travelling is so delight-
ful as this sort. Don Quixote it was, if I remember
rightly, who let his horse wander whithersoever he
pleased, "believing that in this consisted the very being
of adventures."
We went first to Geneva and so over the Simplon
Pass into Italy. We dreamed among the lakes, reading

guide-books to help us decide on our next stopping-
point. So, on and on, until after a while we reached
Vienna. Three hours after my arrival there Alfred
Fischoff, the Austrian impresario, routed me out.
"Where you bound for?" he wanted to know.
are
"Nowhere. That is just the beauty of it!"
"Ah!" he commented understandingly. And then
he asked, "How would you like to sing?"
Even though I was on a pleasure trip the idea allured
me, for always like to sing.
I
"Sing where?" I questioned.
"Here, in Vienna."
"I couldn't. I don't sing in German," I objected.
"You could sing als Cast" (as a guest), he said.
Finally it was so arranged and, I may add, I was the
only prima donna except Nilsson who had ever been
permitted to sing in Italian at the Imperial Opera
House, while the other artists sang in German. P.
letter from my mother to my father at that time
discloses a light upon her point of view.
"Louise telegraphed for Eliza and her costumes. I
thought at first she was crazy, but it appears she was
sane after all. A fine Vienna engagement. ..."
It was an undertaking to travel in Germany in those
days.The German railway officials spoke nothing but
German and, furthermore, they are never adaptable
and quick like the Italians. In France or Italy they
understood you whether you spoke their language or
not; but a Teuton has to have everything translated
into his untranslatable tongue. When my mother
own
had finally gathered together my costumes, she wrote
out a long document that she had translated into
German, concerning all that Eliza was to do, and
Led by tHe "Wanderlust 327
where she was to go, and gave it to her so that she could
produce it along the way and be passed on to the next
official without explanation or complication. And after
this fashion Eliza and my costumes reached me safely.

She was a good traveller and a good maid. She was
also very popular in that part of the world. Negroes
had no particular stigma attached to them on the
Continent. Many of them were no darker of hue than
the Hindu and Mohammedan royalties who journeyed
there occasionally. So, wherever we went, my good,
dark-skinned Eliza was a real belle.
There was much to interest me in Vienna, not only as
a foreign capital of note, but also as a curiosity. In a
long life, and after many and diverse experiences, I
never had been in a city so entirely bound up in its
own interests and traditions. The luckless sinner
battering vainly upon the gates of Heaven has a better
fighting chance, than has the ambitious out-
all told,
sider who aspires to social recognition by the Viennese
aristocracy. If an American is ever heard to say that

he or she has been received by Viennese society, those
hearing the speech laugh in their sleeve and
may
wonder what society was. The thing cannot be done.
it
A handle to one's name, an estate, all the little ear-

marks of "nobility" are not only required but insisted
on. I believe it to be a safe statement to make that no
one without a title, and a title recognised by the
Austrians as one of distinction, can be received into the
inner circle. Even diplomatic representatives of re-
publics are not exempt from this ruling. They may
have the wealth of the Indies, and their wives may
possess the beauty of Helen herself, and yet they are not
admitted. For this reason Austria is a most difficult
post for republican legations. Republican representa-
tives do not stay there long. Usually, the report is
that they are recalled for diplomatic reasons, or their
health has failed, or some other pride-saving excuse to
satisfy a democratic populace. Vienna was, and I
suppose is, the dullest Court in the whole world. The
German Court at one time had the distinction of being
the dullest, but that has looked up a bit during the
reign of the present Kaiser. But Austria! The society
of Vienna has absolutely no interest in anything or
anybody outside its own sacred Inner Circle.

On one occasion I was guilty of a great breach of
etiquette. Meyerbeer's son-in-law, a Baron of good
lineage, was calling on me, and a correspondent from
The London Daily Telegraph, whom I had met socially
and not professionally, happened to be present. Al-
though I knew from my foreign experiences that
possibly it was hardly the correct thing to do, I, not
unnaturally, presented them to each othei. To my
surprise the Baron became stiff and the young English-
man somewhat ill at ease. I must say, however, the
Englishman carried it off better than the Baron did.
When the Austrian had departed, my newspaper ac-
quaintance told me that I had committed a social faux
pas in making them known to each other. Introduc-
tions are absolutely taboo between titled persons and
"commoners," as they are sternly called. A baron
could not meet a newspaper man!
As a case in point, an Englishman of very distin-
tinguished connections arrived in Vienna at the time
of one of the Court balls. He applied at his Embassy
for an invitation, but was told that such a thing would
be quite impossible. Viennese etiquette was too rigid,
etc. Therefore, he did not go to the ball. But it so
chanced that, a little later, when he went to call on the
Led by tKe \^anderl\ast 329
British Ambassador, he mentioned, casually enough,

that he had a courtesy title but never used it when
travelling.
"Why didn't you say so?" exclaimed the Ambassa-
dor. "I could have got you an invitation quite easily,
ifyou had only explained that!"
Even the opera was very official and imperial. The
Court Theatre was a government house, and the
manager of it an Intendant and a rather grand person.
In my time he was Baron Hoffman; and he and the
Baroness asked me often to their home and placed
boxes at the opera at my disposal, this last courtesy
being one that the regular artists at the opera are
never permitted to receive. The Imperial Opera House
ofVienna is perhaps the most complete operatic organi-
sation in existence and especially, at that time, was the
company prime donne. Mme. Materna
rich in fine
was considered to be the greatest dramatic singer then
living. Mile. Bianchiwas a marvellous chanteuse legere,
the equal of Gerster. Mme. Ehn was the most
poetical of prime donne and not unlike Nilsson. Of
Lucca's fame it is needless to speak again.
I sang seven roles in Vienna Lucia, the Ballo in Mas-
:
chera, Mignon, Traviata, Trovatore, Marta, and one act

of Hamlet, the mad scene, of course. It was during
Marta that had paid to me one of the most satisfying
I
compliments of my life. Dr. Hanslick was then the

greatest musical critic of Europe, a distinguished and
highly cultivated musical scholar, even if he did war
against Wagner and the new school. To the astonish-
ment of the whole theatre, between the acts, he wan-
dered in by himself behind the scenes to call upon me
and offer his congratulations. Only one other singer
had ever been thus honoured by him before. He was
33 -An American Prime Donna
graciousness itself and, in his paper, the Neue Frei

Presse, he wrote these memorable words:
"Miss Kellogg is an artist of the first order the
only one to compare with Patti. It is the first time
since Patti has gone that we have heard what one can
call singing! I congratulate Vienna on having heard
such a colossal artist!"
Later, I was asked to the Hoffmans' again to meet
Herr Hanslick and his wife; and they were only two
of the many distinguished and interesting people that
I met at the Intendant's house. Sonnenthal was one
of them, the great actor from the Hoftheatre. And
Fanny Elssler was another. I wonder how many people
to-day know even the name of Fanny Elssler, the
dancer who captivated the young King of Rome and
lived with him for so long? There is mention of her in
L'Aiglon. When I met her she was seventy odd, and
very quiet and dull. She was vastly respecte 1 in Austria
and held an exceedingly dignified position.
enough German to be able to sing in Ger-
I learned
man and his friends, with I know not
for the Intendant
what sort of accent. They were very polite about it
always, saying more than once to me, "what a gentle
accent!" But my German was dealt with less kindly
by my audience one night. The spoken dialogue in
Mignon simply had to be made comprehensible and
therefore I had mastered it, as I thought, quite accept-
ably enough. But somewhere in it I came what our
English friendscall a most awful "cropper." I do not
know to day what dreadful thing I could have said,
this
but it afforded the house an ecstasy of amusement.
The whole audience laughed loudly and heartily and
long; and I confess I was considerably disconcerted.
But, all things considered, the Viennese audiences were
Led by the Wanderlust 331
satisfactory to sing to. They have one little custom,

or mannerism, that is decidedly encouraging. When
they like anything very much, they do not break the
action by applauding, but, instead, a little soft "Ah!"
goes over the house. It was an indescribably com-
all
forting sound and spurred a singer on to do her best to

please them. I sang Felina in Mignon, and the Viennese,
to my eternal gratitude, liked me in the part. remem-
I
bered Jarrett and the "wooden gestures" he had fixed

upon me in the role, and it was most satisfactory to have
people in the Austrian Capitol declare that I was
"an exquisite creation after Watteau!" Of course the
Germans and Austrians were so wedded to Materna's
rather heroic style of singing that I suppose any less
strenuous methods might well have struck them as
unforceful, buta propos of Materna and the inevitable
comparison of my work with hers the Fremden Blatt
was kind enough to print:
"The grand powerful high tones, and the
voice, the
stupendously passionate accents were not heard. Yet
she knows how to sing with a full, strong voice, with
"
high tones, and with a graceful passionateness !
That expression "graceful passionateness" has re-

mained in my vocabulary ever since, for it is a triumph
of clumsy phraseology, even for a German paper.
want to quote Dr. Hanslick once more; it is such
I
a lovely and amazing thing to quote:

"From her lips," said this illustrious critic, speaking of
your humble servant, "we have heard Verdi's hardest

and harshest melodies come forth refined and softened."
Is this believable? Edward Hanslick did really apply
the adjectives "hard" and "harsh" to Verdi's music!
It has to be read to be believed, but what he said is on
file.
33 2 .An American Prima Donna
"
Speaking of "gentle accent, I had, on one occasion,
the full beauty of the Teutonic language borne in upon
me in a peculiarly striking form. It was in Robert der
Teufel, that I heard in Vienna. The instance that
struck me was the great scene during which he
in
practises magic in the cave and makes the dead to rise

so that they can dance a ballet later on. Alice is
wandering around, and the devil is in a great state of
mind lest she has seen or overheard something of his
magic.
"
Was hast du gesehen?" says he.
"Nichts!" she replies.
"Nichts?" he repeats.
"
Nichts," insists she.
" "
That Nichts! was repeated over and over until the
whole theatre echoed and resounded with "nichts-ts-ts
ts!" like spitting cats. There never was anything less
musical.
"Heavens, Alfred," said I to Fischoff, who was with
me at the time, "can't they change it to
'
Nein?"
But he regarded me in a shocked manner at the very
idea of so sacrilegiously altering the text !
German scores are full of loud ringing passages, built

on guttural, hissing, spitting consonants. But, then, we
must remember that librettists the world over are
apparently men of an inferior quality of intellect who
know little about music or singing. I cannot help
feeling that by nature and cultivation the German
writers of the texts for opera suffer from an additional
handicap of traditional density. Even one of the great-
est of all operas, Faust, suffers from being built upon a
German theme. At least, I should perhaps say, it
suffers in sparkle, vivacity, dramatic glitter. In the
deeper, poetic meanings it remains impervious alike to
Led by the 'Wanderlust 333
time, place, and individual view-point. I never fully

appreciated the role of Marguerite until I met the
German people at close range. Then I learned by
personal observation why she was so dull, and limited,
and unimaginative. Such traits are, as I suddenly
realised, not only individual; they are racial. Any
middle-class girl of sixteen might of course have been
deceivedby Faust with the aid of Mephisto, but that
Gretchen was German made the whole thing a hundred
times simpler.
CHAPTER XXXI
PETERSBURG
I received my
engagement to sing at the
WHEN
Opera in Petersburg I was much pleased. The
opera seasons in Russia had for years been notably fine.

Since then they have, I understand, gone off, and
fewer and fewer stars of the first magnitude go there to
sing. it was a criterion of artistic
In 1880, however,
excellenceand position to have sung in the Petersburg
Opera. My mother and I, a manager to represent me,
my coloured maid Eliza, and some seventeen JT eighteen
trunks set out from Vienna; and we looked forward
with pleasurable anticipation to our winter in the
mysterious White Kingdom, not knowing then that it
was to be one of the dreariest in our lives.
Our troubles began just before we reached Warsaw,
when we had to cross the frontier. We were, of course,
stopped for the examination of passports and luggage
and, although the former were all right, the latter was
not, according to the views of the Russian officials. I
had, personally, fifteen trunks, containing the costumes
for my entire repertoire and to watch those Russians
inspect these trunks was a veritable study in suspicion.
It was late at night. Unpleasant travelling incidents
always happen late at night it would seem, when every-

thing is most inconvenient and one is most tired. The
Russians appeared ten times more official than the
334
Petersburg 335
any other nation ever did, and the lateness

officials of
of the houradded to this impression. Indeed they were
highly picturesque, with their high boots and the long
skirts of their coats. The lanterns threw queer shadows,
and the wind that swept the platform had in it already
the chill of the steppes. I have no idea what they
believed meto be smuggling, bombs or anarchistic
literature,but they were not satisfied until they had
gone through every trunk to its uttermost depths.
Even then, when they had found nothing more danger-
ous than wigs and cloaks and laces, they still seemed
doubtful. The trunks might look all right; but surely
there must be something wrong with a woman who
travelled with fifteen personal trunks! And I do not
know that I altogether blame them. At all events they
were not going to let me cross the frontier without
further investigation, and I was rapidly falling into
despair when, suddenly, I had a brilliant thought. I
gave an order to my maid, who proceeded to scatter
about the entire contents of one trunk and finally
found for me a large, thin, official-looking document,
with seals and signatures attached to it. The Russians
stood about, watchful and mystified. Then I presented
my talisman triumphantly.
"The Czar!" they exclaimed in awed whispers; "the
Czar's signature!"
Whereupon them began bowing, almost
several of
genuflecting, to show anyone who
their respect for
possessed a paper signed by the Czar. It was only my

contract. The
singers at the Russian Opera are not
engaged by an impresario, but by the Czar, and that
document which served us so well on this occasion was a
personal contract with His Imperial Majesty himself.
So we succeeded in eventually crossing the frontier
33 6 -An American Prima Donna
and getting into Russia, and, after that, the espionage

became a regular thing. The spy system in Russia is
beyond belief. One is watched and tracked and fol-
lowed and records are kept of one, and a species of
censorship is maintained of everything that reaches one.
At first, one hardly realises this, for the officials have
had so much practice that it is done with the most
consummate skill. Every letter was opened before it
reached me and then sealed up again so cleverly that
it was impossible to detect it except with the keenest
and most suspicious eye. Every newspaper that I

received, even those mailed to me by friends in Eng-
land and France, had been gone over carefully, and
every paragraph referring to Russia the army, the
government, the diplomacy policy, the Nihilistic agita-
tions had been stamped out in solid black.
We stopped at the Hotel d* Europe, and one might
think one would be free from surveillance there. Not a
bit of it. We soon saw that if we wanted to talk with
any freedom or privacy we should have tohang thick

towels over the keyholes. And this is precisely what
we did !
As soon as we reached Petersburg, I was called for

a rehearsal merely a piano affair. I went to it gar-
mented in a long fur cloak, some flannel-lined boots
that I had once bought in America for a Canadian trip,
and a little bonnet perched, in the awful fashion of the
day, on the very top of my head. It was early in
October at this time and not any colder than our
normal winter climate in the United States of America.
There is but little vibration of temperature in Russia,
but there are days before November when the snow
melts that are very trying. This was one of them. The
first thing that happened to me at that rehearsal, to
Petersburg' 337
which I went in my flannel-lined shoes and my little

bonnet, was that a stern doctor confronted me and
called me to account for the manner in which I was
dressed ! A doctor at a rehearsal was new to me but it
;
seemed that the thoughtful Czar employed two for

this purpose. So many singers pretended to be ill when
they really were not that His Majesty kept medical

men on the spot to prove or disprove any excuses. The
doctor who descended upon me was named Thomas-
chewski. He was the doctor mentioned in Marie
BashkirtsefTs Journal; and he remained my friend and
physician all the time I was in the city. Said he,
brusquely, on this first meeting:
"Never come out dressed like that again! Get some
goloshes immediately, and a hat that comes over your
forehead!"
I did not understand at the moment why he insisted
so strongly on the hat. I soon learned, however, what
so few Americans are aware of, that it is through the
forehead that one generally catches cold. As for the
goloshes, it was self-evident that I needed them, and,
after that morning, I never set foot out of doors in
Russia without the regular protection worn by every-
one in that climate. A big fur cap, tied on with a white
woollen scarf arranged as we now arrange motor veils,
completed the necessary outfit.
Marcella Sembrich and Lillian Nordica were both in
the opera company that year. Sembrich had a small,
high, clear voice at that time; but she was always the
musician and well up in the Italian vocal tricks.
Scalchi was there, too, and Cotogni, the famous bari-
tone. He was a masterful singer and an amusing man,
with a quaint way of putting things. He is still living
in Rome and has, I am sorry to say, fallen from his
338 j\n .American Prima Donna
great estate upon hard times. The tenors were Masini

and a Russian named Petrovitch, with whom I sang
the Ballo in Maschera. They were all very frankly
1 '
curious about "the American prima donna and about
everything concerning her. The Intendant of the
Imperial Opera was a man with the title of Baron
Ktister, the son of one of the Czar's gardeners. No one
could understand why he had been made a Baron, but,
for somereason, he was in high favour.
My debut was in Traviata, as Violetta. There was an
enormous audience and the American Minister was in
a stage box. Throughout the performance I never lost
a sense of isolation and of chill. The strangeness, the
watchfulness, the sense of apprehension with which the
air seemed charged, were all on my nerves. It was said
that the Opera-House had been undermined by the
Nihilists and was ready to explode if the Czar entered.
This idea was hardly conducive to ease of mind or
cheerfulness of manner. I was glad that it was not
sufficiently a gala occasion for the Czar to be present.

Never before had I ever sung without having friends
in front, friends who could come behind the scenes
between the acts and tell me how I was doing and, if
need be, cheer me up a bit. I knew nobody in the
audience that first night, which gave me a most forlorn
feeling, as if the place were filled with unfriendliness as
well as with strangers. At last I thought of the
American Minister, Mr. Foster (our legation in Russia
had not yet attained the dignity of an embassy). I
sent my agent to the Fosters' box, asking them to
call upon me in my loge at the end of the opera.
When he delivered the message, he was met by blank
astonishment.
"Of course we should be delighted and it is very
Petersburg 339
kind of Miss Kellogg," said Mr. Foster, "but there is
not a chance that we should be allowed to do so!"

And
they were not.
The vigilance, even on the stage, was something
appalling. Every scene shifter and stage carpenter had
a big brass number fastened conspicuously on his arm,
strapped on, in fact, over his flannel shirt so that
he could be easily checked off and kept track of.
Everything in Russia is numbered. There are no
individuals there only units. I used to feel as if I
must have a number myself; as if I, too, must soon be
absorbed into that grim Monster System, and my
feeling of helplessness and oppression steadily increased,
I had over twenty curtain calls that evening the
largest number I ever had. But they did not entirely
repay me for the heaviness of heart from which I
suffered. Never before or since was I so unhappy
during a performance. The house had been un-
doubtedly cold at first. As an American correspondent
to one of the newspapers wrote home: "The house had
small confidence in an operatic singer from America,
for all history of that country is silent on the subject of
prime donne, while there is no lack of account of such

other persons as Indians, Aztecs, and emigrants from
the lower orders of Europe!"
In Russia they still reserve the right of hissing a
singer that they do not like. It is lucky that I did not
know this then, for it would have made me even more
nervous than I was. My curtain calls were a real
triumph. Even the ladies of the audience arose and
waved their handkerchiefs, calling out many times:
"Kellogg, sola!" They wanted me to receive the

honours alone; and the gentlemen joined in their calls,
' ' ' '
Kellogg Kellogg
!
Kellogg
! until they were hoarse.
!
34 An. American Prima Donna
The subscribers to the opera were divided into three

classes in Petersburg; and, as a singerwho was popu-
lar was demanded by all the subscribers for each of the
three nights, it was a novel sensation to conquer an
entirely new audience each night.
In the Opera-House, as in every other house in
Petersburg, one had to go through innumerable doors,
one after the other. This architectural peculiarity is
what makes the buildings so warm. Russians build for
the cold weather as Italians build for warm. The result
is that one can be colder in an Italian house than any-
where else on earth, and more correspondingly com-
fortable in a Russian. Even the Petersburg public
Post-Office had to be approached through eight separate
doorways. There were a number of other unusual
features about that theatre. One was the custom of
permitting the isvoshiks (drivers) and mujiks (servants)
to come inside to stay while the opera was going on. It
struck me as most inconsistent with the general strict-
ness and red tape; but it was entertaining to see them
stowed away in layers on ledges along the walls, sleep-

ing peacefully until the people who had engaged them
were ready to go home. Another odd thing was the
odour that permeated the house. It was not an un-
pleasant odour; it seemed to me a little like Russia
leather. I could not imagine what it was at first.
Afterwards I found that it did come from the sheep-
skinsworn by the isvoshiks. The skins are cured in
some peculiar way which leaves them with this faint
smell.
The
thing I particularly appreciated that first night
was the honour and good fortune of making my debut
with Masini, who, according to my opinion, was without
exception the best tenor of his time. He would have
Petersburg 341
pleased the most exacting of modern critics, for he was

the true bel canto. It is told of him that, in the early
years of his career, he sang so badly out of tune that no
impresario would bother with him. So he retired, and
worked, until he had not only overcome it but had also
made himself into a very great artist. The night before
I sang with him, I went to hear him. At first I thought
his voice a trifle husky, but, before the evening was
over, I did not know if it were husky or not, he sang
so beautifully, his method was so perfect, his breath-
control was so wonderful It was a naturally enchanting
.
voice besides. have never heard a length of breath

I
like his. No phrase ever troubled him; he had the

necessary wind for anything. In L' Africaine there
is a passage in the big tenor solo needing very careful
breathing. Masini did s .mply what he liked with it,
:
swelling it out roundly and generously when it seemed

as if his breath must be exhausted. When the breath
of other tenors gave out, Masini only just began to
draw on his. I am placing all this emphasis on his
method because I know breathing to be the whole
secret of singing and of living, too! Masini was a
grave, kind man, not a great actor, but with a stage
presence of complete repose and dignity. His manner
to me was charmingly thoughtful and considerate dur-
ing our work together. Yet he was a man who never
spoke. I mean this literally: I cannot recall the sound
of his speaking voice, although I rehearsed with him for
a whole season. His greatest role was the Duke in
Rigoletto and there was no one I ever heard who could
compare with him in it.
Nordica was a young singer doing minor roles that
season and, both being Americans, we saw a good deal
of each other and exchanged sympathies, for we equally
34 2 -A.n American Prima Donna
disliked Russia. Our Yankee independence was being
constantly outraged by the Russian spy system, and
we were always at odds with it. One night, when we
were not singing ourselves, we had a box together to
hear our fellow-artists, and invited Sir Frederick Hamil-
ton to share it with us. As we knew there was sure to
be a crowd after the opera, Nordica suggested that we
should leave our wraps in an empty dressing-room
behind the scenes and go out by that way when the
performance was over. This we accordingly did, going
behind through the house by the back door of the
boxes, and as a matter of course we took Sir Frederick
with us. We had momentarily forgotten that in Russia
one never does what one wants to, or what seems the
natural thing to do. When we were discovered bring-
ing an Englishman behind the scenes, there was nearly
a revolution in that theatre!
I sang in Traviata four or five times in Petersburg

and in Don Giovanni and in Semiramide. This last was
the forty-fifth role of my repertoire. The Russian Opera
season was less brilliant than usual that year because
the Czarina had recently died and the Court was in
mourning. The situation was one that afforded me
some amusement. The Czar, Alexander, who was
killed that same winter, had for a long time lived with
the Princess Dolgoruki, as is well known, and, when
the Czarina died, he married the Dolgoruki within a
few weeks. To be sure, the marriage did not really
count, for she could never be a Czarina because she
was not royal, but she was determined to establish her
social position as his wife and insisted on keeping him
in the country with her at one of the out-of-the-way
places. And all the time the Czar went right on with
his official mourning for the Czarina! There was some-
Petersburg 343
thing about this that strongly appealed to my American

sense of humour. When the Czar did finally leave the
country palace and come back to Petersburg, he was in
such fear of the Nihilists that he did not dare come in
state, but got off the train at a way-station and drove
in. Fancy the Czar of all the Russias having to sneak
into his own city like that ! And the worst of it was that
all that vigilance was proved soon after to have been
justified. Because of the situation of affairs, the Royal
Box at the Opera was never occupied. Even the
Czarevitch and his wife (Dagmar of Denmark, sister
of Alexandra of England) could not appear. I am
inclined to believe that, on the whole, Petersburg

society was rather glad of the dull season. As there
were no Court functions, the individual social leaders
did not have to keep up their end either, and it must
have been a relief, for times were hard, owing to the
recent Nihilistic panic, and Russians do not know how
to entertain unless they can do it magnificently. As a
result of the dull social season, I did not go out much
in society. But I was much interested in such glimpses
as I had of it, for "smart" Russia is most gorgeously
picturesque. Many Americans visit
Petersburg in sum-
mer when everyone is away and so never see the true
Russian life. Indeed, it is a very stunning spectacle.
The sleighs, the splendid liveries, the beautiful horses,
the harnesses, the superb furs it is all like a pageant.
I loved to see the troikas drawn by three horses, with
great gold ornaments on the harnesses and the drozhkis ;
in which the isvoshiks drive standing up. The third

horse of the troika is one of the typically Russian
features. He is attached to the pair that does the work,
and his part is to play the fool.
I remember a famous sleigh ride I had in a very
344 -A- n American Prima Donna
smart drozhki, behind a horse belonging to one of the

English secretaries.
Embassy The horse was an ex-
traordinarily fastone and the drozhki was exceptionally
light and small. The seat was so narrow that the
secretary and I had to be literally buttoned into it to
keep us from falling out. The isvoshik's seat was so

high that he was practically standing erect and nearly
leaning back against it. Evidently the man's directions
were to show off the horse's gait to the best advantage ;
and I know that the speed of that frail sleigh upon the
icy snow crust became so terrific that I had to grip the
sash of the isvoshik in front of me to stay in the sleigh
at all.
And, oh, the flatness and mournfulness of those chill

wastes of snow outside the city! It was of course
bitterly cold, but one did not feel that so much on
account of the fine dryness of the air. For me the
light or, rather, the lack of it, was the most difficult
thing to become accustomed to. But if I did not
altogether realise the cold for myself, I certainly real-
ised it for my poor horses. I had a splendid pair of
blacks that winter and, when I was driven down to the
theatre, they would be lathered with sweat. When I
came out they would be covered with ice and as white
as snow. There would be ice on the harness too, and
the other horses we passed were in the same condition.
I was much distressed at first, but it appeared that
Russian horses were quite used to it and, so I was told,
actually throve on it.
Petersburg is full of little squares and in every
square were heaps of logs, laid one across another like a
funeral pyre, which were frequently lighted as a place
for the isvoshiks to warm themselves. The leaping
flames and the men crowded about, in such contrast to
Petersburg 345
the white snow, seemed so startling and theatrical in

the heart of the city that nothing could have more
sharply reminded us that we were in a strange and
unknown land.
The fact that
the days were so unbelievably, gloomily
short (dawn and bright noonday and the afternoon
were unknown) grew to be very depressing. Coasting
on the great ice-hills is a favourite Russian amusement,
and it is a fine winter sport. But that, too, is shadowed
by the strange half-light, which, to anyone accus-
tomed to the long, bright days of more temperate
lands, is always conducive to melancholy. There was
no sun to speak of. Such as there was moved around
in almost one place and stopped shining at four in the
afternoon. I never had the least idea of the time;
hardly knowing, in fact, whether it was day or night.

CHAPTER XXXII
GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA AND THEN?
OLDENBURG, the Czar's cousin, was the

PRINCE
only member Royal Family who could be
of the
called a patron of music and had himself composed
more or less. On his seventy-fifth birthday the Imper-
ial Opera organised a concert in his honour, that took
place at the Winter Palace; and we were really quite

intriguee, having heard of the Winter Palace for years.
I said to Nordica:
"If you '11 how we get there, I '11 send my
find out
"
carriage for you and we will go together.
She found out, and we arranged to have the hotel
people instruct the coachman as to the particular
entrance of the palace to which he was to drive us, for
he was a Russian and did not understand any other
language. Once started, he had to go according to
instructions or else turn around and take me back to
the hotel for new directions and a fresh start. More
than once have I found myself in such a dilemma.
However, on this occasion, he seemed to be fairly clear
as to our destination and showed gleams of intelligence
when reminded that he must make no mistake, since
there were only certain doors by which we could enter.
The others were open only to the Royal Family and the
nobility.
Among the five prime donne who had been invited,
346
Good-bye to Russia and THen? 347
or, rather, commanded, to appear at this function,

there had been some discussion as to our costumes.
All of them except myself sent for special gowns, one
to Paris, one to Vienna, one to Berlin, one to Dresden
for this concert was to be before members of the
Imperial Family and extra preparations had to be

made.
"What are wear?" Nordica asked me.
you going to
"Well," said I,never be in Russia again God
"I '11
permitting and I shall wear a gown that I have, a

creation of Worth's, made some years ago, without
period or date." It was really a gorgeous affair and
quite good enough, of an odd, warm, rust colour that
was always very becoming to me.
We arrived at the palace before anyone else and
were driven to the door indicated. There we were not
permitted to enter, but were directed to yet another
entrance. Again we met with the same refusal and
were sent on to another door. At last we drove in
under a porte-cochere and an endless stream of lackeys
came out and took charge of us. When they had es-
corted us inside, one took one golosh, and one took
another, and then they took off our furs and wraps, and
there was no escape for us except by mounting the
beautiful red-carpeted marble staircase. At the top
of it we were met by two very good-looking young men
in uniform, who received us cordially and escorted us
to the ballroom, leaving us only when the other artists
arrived. The other artists looked cross, I thought.
At any rate, they looked somewhat ill at ease and
conscious of their elegant new clothes. It was the
crackling,ample period, in which it was difficult to be
graceful. About the middle of the evening Dr. Thomas-
chewski came up to me and said:
"The Grand Duchess Olga desires me to ask who
made Mile. Kellogg's gown. She finds it the hand-
somest she ever saw!"
So much for my old clothes! I was thankful to be
able to say the gown was a creation of Worth's; and I
did not add how many years before! The next day,
after the affair of the concert was pleasantly over,
Nordica came intomy room like a whirlwind.
"There's the d to pay down in the theatre!"
she exclaimed breathlessly. "All the other prime donne
are threatening to resign! And, apparently, it is our
fault!"
"What have we done?"
"
It seems," she went on with an appreciative chuckle,
"that we came up the Royal Staircase and were received
asmembers of the Imperial Family, while they had to
come in the back way as befitted poor dogs of artists!"
"Nordica," said I, "isn't that just plain American
luck! Such a thing could never happen to anybody but
an American!"
We learned in due course that our handsome young
men, who had been so agreeable and courteous, were
Grand Dukes! But the other prime donne recovered
from their mortification and thought better of their
project of resigning.
Webegan to be frightfully tired of Russian food.
The Russian arrangement for cold storage was very
primitive. They merely froze solid anything they
wanted to keep and unfroze it when itwas needed
for use. The staple for every day, and all day, was
gelinotte, some sort of game. We lived on it until we
were ready to starve rather than ever taste it again. It
was not so bad, really, in its way, if there had not been
so much of it. Some of the Russian food was possible
Good-bye to Russia and THen? 349
enough, however. The famous sour milk soup, for

instance, made and cabbage and, I
of curdled milk
think, a little fish, was rather nice and they had a pretty
;
way of serving Vouchers between the soup and fish

courses. But my mother and I began to feel that we
should die if we did not have some plain American
food. In fact, we both developed a vulgar craving for
corned-beef. And, wonder of wonders! by inquiring
at a little shop where garden tools were sold, we found
the thing we longed for. As it turned out, the shop was
kept by an American and his wife; so we got our
corned-beef and my mother made delicious hash of it
over our alcohol lamp. She was famous for getting up
all manner of dainty and delicious food with a minute
saucepan and a tiny spirit flame.

The water everywhere was horrid and we were
obliged to boil it always before we dared to take a
swallow. And all these things told on my poor mother,
whose health was becoming very wretched. She came
to hate Russia and pined to get away. So I tried to
break my contract and leave (considering my mother's
health a sufficiently valid reason), but, although money
was due me that I was willing to forfeit, I found I could
not go until I had sung out the full term of my engage-
ment. I was so wrathful at this that I went to see
the American Minister about leaving in spite of every-
thing but even he was powerless to help us. Apparently
;
the Russians were accustomed to having their country

prove too much for foreign singers, for the Minister
remarked meditatively:
"Finland used to be open, but so many artists
escaped that way that it is now closed!"

It proved to be even harder to get out of Russia than
it had been to get in. One mother and daughter whom
35 .A.n American Prime Donna
I knew went to five hotels in twenty-four hours, trying
to evade the officials, so as to leave without the usual
red tape; but they were kept merciless track of every-
where and their passports sent for at every one of the
five. Such proceedings must be rather expensive for
the government. Some Russian friends of mine once
came to Aix without notifying their governmental
powers and were sent for to come back within twenty-
four hours. Fancy being kept track of like that! I
am devoutly thankful that I do not live under a paternal
government. In time, however, we did succeed in
obtaining permission to leave Russia; and profoundly
glad were we of it. I had but one desire before we left
that dark and frigid land forever, and that was to see
the Czar just once. My
friends of the English Embassy
told me that my best chance would be on the route
between the Winter Palace and the Military Riding
Academy, where the Czar went every Sunday to stimu-
late horsemanship. So I started out the following
Sunday, alone, in my brougham.
There were crowds of the faithful blocking the way
everywhere well interspersed with Nihilists, I have
little doubt. Russian men are, on the whole, impressive
in appearance; big and fierce and immensely virile.
They are half-savage, anyway. The better class wear

coats lined and trimmed with black or silver fur; while
a crowd of soldiers and peasants make a most pictur-
esque sight. On this occasion the cavalry and mounted
police patrolled the route, and ranks of soldiers were
drawn up on either side. Yet there was such a surging
populace that, in spite of all the military surveillance,
there was some confusion. I was driven up and down
very slowly. Then I grew cold and got out of the car-
riage to walk for a short distance. I had gone but a
Good-bye to IVussia and XKen? 351
little way and was turning back when I felt a hand on

my shoulder. It was an official who informed me that
I might drive but could not be permitted to walk! So
I brougham and was driven again, up and
re-entered the
down, bowing sweetly each time to the officer who had
halted me and dared to take me by the shoulder. And,
finally, I caught only a glimpse of the Czar, through
the hosts of guardians that surrounded him like a
cloud. I could not believe that he cared for all that
pomp and ceremony, for he was a weary-looking man
and I felt sorry for him. I believe that he would have
been as democratic as anyone could well be if he could
only have had half a chance. The wife of the shop-
keeper who sold garden tools told me that the Czar
was perfectly accessible to them and very friendly.
He new
inventions and patents and ingenious
liked
farming implements and American machine inven-

tions. A man I
once knew had been trying for months
to obtain an official introduction at Court in order to
exploit a patent which he thought would interest His
Majesty, and in vain. But, when he chanced to meet a
friend of the Czar's in a picture gallery and told him
about his idea, he had no further difficulty. His
Minister, who had told him it was hopeless to try to
get access to the Czar, was amazed to find him going
about at the Court balls in the most intimate manner.
How did you do it ? " he demanded. How did you
' ' ' '
manage to reach the Czar?"

"Just met him through a friend as I would any other
"
fellow, was the reply.
We were in Petersburg at the Christmas and New
Year's celebrations, which are held two weeks later than
ours are. The customs were odd and interesting
notably the one of driving out in a sleigh to "meet the
S52 .An American Prima Donna
New Year coming in. " This pretty custom was always
observed by Mme. Helena Modjeska and her husband,
Count Bozenta, even in America. I went to services
in several of the churches, where I heard divine singing,
unaccompanied by any instrument. The vibrations

were very slow and throbbed like the tones of an organ.
Nothing can be more splendid than bass voices. The
decorations of the churches were strange and barbaric
to eyes accustomed to the Italian and French cathe-
drals. The savagery as well as the orientalism of the
Russians comes out in a curious way in their ecclesias-
tical architecture. The walls were often inlaid with
lapis and malachite, like the decorations of some
Eastern temple, and the ikons were painted gaudily
upon metals. There were no pews of any sort; the
populace dropped upon its knees and stayed there.
The little wayside shrines erected over every spot
where anything tragic had ever happened to a royal
person are an interesting feature of worship in Russia.
As the rulers of Russia have usually passed rather
calamitous lives, there are plenty of these shrines, and
loyal subjects always kneel and make them reverence.
I could see one of these shrines from my window in
the Hotel d' Europe and marvelled at the devout

fervour of the kneeling men in their picturesque cloaks,
praying for this or some other Emperor, with the

thermometer far below zero. It was always the men
who prayed. I do not remember ever seeing a woman
on her knees in the snow.
Our experiences in the shops of Petersburg were
sometimes interesting. Of course in the larger ones
French was spoken, and also German, but in the small
places where "notions" were sold, or writing materials,
only Russian was understood. To facilitate the shop-
Good-bye to Russia and TKen? 353
ping of foreigners, little pictures of every conceivable

thing for sale were hung outside the shops. All one
had to do was to point to the reproduction of a spool,
or a safety pin, or an egg, or a trunk, and produce a
pocketbook. One day my mother wanted some shoe
buttons and we wagered that she could not buy them
unaided. I felt sure there would be no painting of a
shoe button on the shop wall. But she came back
victoriously with the buttons, quite proud of herself
because she had thought of pointing to her own boots
instead of wasting time hunting among the pictures.
It was the collection of Colonel Villiers that first
awakened in me an interest in old silver, and the
beginning I made in Russia that winter ended in my
possessing a collection of value and beauty. Villiers
was a member of the Duke of Buckingham's family
and was a Queen's Messenger, a position of responsibil-
ity and trust. And I had several other friends at the
British Embassy. Lord and Lady Dufferin I knew;
and one of the secretaries, Mr. Alan, now Sir Alan
Johnston, who married Miss Antoinette Pinchot, sister
of Gifford Pinchot, I had first met in Vienna. The
night that Villiers arrived in Petersburg (before I had
met him) some of the English attaches had been invited
to dine with us; but the First Secretary arrived at the
lastmoment to explain that the Queen's Messenger was
expected with private letters and that they had to be
received in person and handed in at Court promptly.
"It's the only way they have of sending really
private letters, you "Alexandra
see," he explained.
probably wants to Dagmar
tell about the children's
last attacks of indigestion, so we have to stay at home
to receive the letters!"
Well the glad day did finally come when my mother
23
354 An American. Prima Donna
and turned our backs on Russia and its eternal twi-

I
light and repaired

to Nice for a little amusement and
recuperation after the Petersburg season. A number of
our friends were there, and it was unusually gay. I
was warmly welcomed and congratulated, for Peters-
burg had put the final cachet upon my success. Although
I might win other honours, I could win none that the
world appraised more highly than those that had come
to me that year. In a letter to my father, from Nice,
my mother says:
The Grand Duke Nicholas has been here in our hotel
a month, and his two sons and suite, doctor, Aide-de-camp,
and servants. There is an inside balcony running two sides
of the hotel which is lovely; but the whole is square with
other rooms this width carpeted sofa chairs table a
glass roof. We all assemble there after dinner, and sit
around and talk, take cafe and tea on little tables. . . .
We sat every day after dinner close to the Grand Duke (the
Czar's brother) and his suite; knew his doctor and finally
the Duke and his sons. I was sitting on the balcony,
because I could see everybody who came in or who went out,
and I was looking down and saw the Grand Duke receive
the despatch of the assassination and the commotion and
emotion was the most exciting thing I ever witnessed. The
Grand Duke is a most amiable gentleman, sweet and good
as a mancan be; his son, sixteen, was the loveliest and

most gentle and affectionate of sons. I looked at the Duke
all the time. I was almost upset myself by the excitement.
Despatches came every twenty minutes. I looked on sat

there seven hours. As the Russians outside heard of it they
would come in I saw two women cry the Duke stayed
in his room I heard that he had fainted he is in somewhat
delicate health. ... It seemed as if the others were
looking around for their friends and for sympathy, as was
natural. I had not talked much with the Doctor because
Good-bye to IVxissia and THen? 355
I never felt equal to it in French especially on ordinary

subjects of conversation but he looked up and saw me on
the balcony and came directly to me. I took both his
hands the tears came into his eyes and we talked the
words came to me, enough to show him we were his friends.
I said America would sympathise with Russia. He seemed
' ' "
pleased and said, Yes but Angleterre,
;
no I did not have !
much to say to that. But did him good. He told Louise

I
and me the particulars. We both knew the very spot near
the bridge where the Czar had fallen. Our sympathy was
mostly with the man whose brother had been murdered
and his friends. There was a long book downstairs in which
people who came in wrote their names from time to- time.
I do not understand it exactly, but Louise says it contains
the names of those who feel an allegiance. Many Russians
came in the day of the assassination and wrote their names.
Our Consul wrote his, and a beautiful sentence of sympathy.
He wanted to lower our flag, but dared not, quite. Louise
and I went down and wrote ours and, while standing, the
Duke's physician said to us that there had not been one
English name signed. The hotel is all English, nearly. It
was an interesting, eventful day. The Duke was pleased
when Louise told him his people had been very kind to her
in Russia at Petersburg. They all left day before yesterday
at 6 P.M.
The assassination of the Czar took place three weeks

to the day from that Sunday when I had seen him. It
all came back to me very clearly, of course the troops,
the crowding people, and the snow. No wonder they
were watchful of him, poor man!
The bottom dropped out of the season at Nice and
people began to away. flit The tragedy of the Czar's
death spread a shadow over everything. Nobody felt
much merry-making or recreation, and, again, I
like
was becoming restless restless in a new way.
"Mother," I said, "let's go back to America. I
have had enough of Nice and Petersburg and Paris
and Vienna and London. I 'm tired to death of foreign
countries and foreign ways and foreign audiences and
foreign honours. I want to go home!"
"Thank God!" said my mother.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LAST YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER
on our way to Nice, I had been

Villefranche,
AT given a formal reception by the officers of the
flagship Trenton, that was then lying in the harbour.
Admiral Dahlgren was in command, and the reception
was more of a tribute to the prima donna than a per-
sonal tribute. It was arranged under the auspices of
Lieutenant Emory and Lieutenant Clover; and I did
not sing. Emory was a natural social leader and the
whole affair was perfect in detail. A much more inter-
esting reception, however, by Lieutenant
arranged
Emory, was the informal one given me by
the same
hosts not long after. Although informal, it was con-
ducted on the same lines of elegance that marked every
social function with which Emory was ever connected.
As soon as we appeared on the gun deck, accompanied
by Lieutenant-Commander Gridley, to be presented to
Captain Ramsay, the orchestra greeted us with the
familiar strains of Hail, Columbia! At the end of the
dejeuner the whole crew contemplated us from afar as I

conversed with our hosts, and, realising what might be
expected of me, I sang, as soon as the orchestra had
adjusted their instruments, the solo of Violetta from
Traviata: Ah force e lui che I 'anima. As an encore I
sang Down on the Suwanee River. The orchestra not
being able to accompany me, I accompanied myself
357
An .American Prima Donna
on a banjo that happened to be handy. I was told

afterwards that "the one sweet, familiar plantation
melody was better to us than a dozen Italian cava-
"
tinas. After the Suwanee River, I sang yet another
negro melody, The Yaller Gal Dressed in Blue, which was
received with much appreciative laughter.
On ourway from Nice we went to Milan to visit the
Exposition, which was an artistically interesting one,
and at which we happened to see the father and mother
of the present King of Italy. From Milan we went to
Aix-les-Bains and from there to Paris.
;
I returned to America without an engagement; but

on October 5th the Kellogg Concert Company, under
the management of Messrs. Pond and Bachert, gave
the first concert of a series in Music Hall, Boston. I
"
was supported by Brignoli, the silver- voiced tenor,"
Signer Tagliapietra, and Miss Alta Pease, contralto.

With us, also, were Timothie Adamowski, the Polish
violinist; Liebling, the pianist, and the Weber Quartette.
My reception in America, after nearly two years'
absence abroad, was, really, almost an ovation. But
I want to say that Boston has always been particularly
gracious and cordial to me. By way of showing how

appreciative was my reception, I cannot resist giving
an extract from the Boston Transcript of the following
morning :
Her singing of her opening number, Filina's Polonaise in

Mignon, showed at once that she had brought back to us
unimpaired both her voice and her exquisite art that she is
;
now, as formerly, the wonderfully finished singer with the

absolutely beautiful and true soprano voice. Her stage
experience during the past few years, singing taxing grand
soprano parts, so different and more trying to the vocal
Close of my Professional Career 359
physique than the light the Aminas, Zerlinas,

florid parts,
and Elviras, she began by singing, seems to have had no
injurious effectupon the quality and trueness of her voice,
which has ever been fine and delicate; just the sort of
beautiful voice which one would fear to expose to much
intense dramatic wear and tear. Its present perfect purity
only proves how much may be dared by a singer who can
trust to a thoroughly good method.
In the following Maysang with Max Strakosch's

I
opera company in Providence to an exceptionally large

audience. One of the daily newspapers of the city said,
in reference to this occasion:
Miss Kellogg must take it as a compliment to herself
personally, for the other artists were unknown here, and

therefore it must have been her name that attracted so
many. She has always been popular here, and has made
many personal as well as professional friends. She must
have added many more of the latter last night, for she never
appeared to better advantage. She was well supported by
Signer Giannini as Faust [we gave Faust and I was Mar-
guerite] and Signer Mancini as Mephistopheles.
This same year, 1882, 1 went on a concert trip through

the South. In New Orleans I had a peep into the
wonderful pawnshops, large, spacious, all filled with
beautiful things. I had long been a collector of pewter
and silver and old furniture and, on this trip, took
advantage of some of my opportunities. For instance,
I bought the bureau that had belonged to Barbara
Frietchie, and a milk jug and some spoons that had

belonged to Henry Clay. Also, I visited Libby Prison
and various other prisons, a battle-field, and several
cemeteries. One cemetery was half filled with the
graves of boys of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen
years of age, showing that in the Civil War the South

could not have kept it up much longer. The sight was
pitiful!
In 1884 went on a concert tour with Major Pond
I
in the West, making of it so far as we could, as Pond
said, something of a picnic. We crossed by the North-
ern Pacific, seeing, I remember, the ranch of the Due de
Morney, son of the Due de Morney who was one of
Louis Philippe's creations, and who had married the
daughter of a wealthy ranchman, Baron von Hoffman.
The house of his ancestor in the Champs Elysees and
the house next door that he built for his mistress were
points of interest in Paris when I first went there. In
Miles City, on the way to Helena, Montana, we visited
some of the gambling dens, and were interested in
learning that the wildest and worst one in the place
was run by a Harvard graduate. The streets of the
town were strangely deserted and this we did not
understand until a woman said to me:
"Umph! they don't show themselves when respect-
able people come along!"
My memory of the trip and of the Yellowstone Park
consists of a series of strangely beautiful and primitive
pictures. We passed through a prairie fire, when the
atmosphere was so hot and dense that extra pressure
of steam was put on our locomotive to rush our train
through it. Never before had I seen Indian women

carrying their papooses. I particularly recall one settle-
ment of wigwams on a still, wonderful evening, the
chiefs gorgeous in their blankets, when the fires were
being lighted and the spirals of smoke were ascending

straight up into the clear atmosphere. One day a
couple of Indians ran after the train. They looked
very fine as they ran and finally succeeded in getting
on to the rear platform, where they rode for some dis-

tance. At Deer Lodge I sang all of one evening to two
fine specimens of Indian manhood. We went down the
Columbia River in a boat, greatly enjoying the im-
pressive scenery. One of my most vivid mental im-
pressions was that of an Indian fisherman, standing
high out over the rushing waters, at least forty feet up,
on a projection of some kind that had been built for the
purpose of salmon bronze
fishing, his graceful, vigorous
form clearly silhouetted against the background of rock
and foliage and sky. On the banks of the river farther
along we saw a circus troupe boiling their supper in a
huge caldron and smoking the kalama or peace pipe.
I was so hungry I wanted to eat of the caldron's con-
tents but, on second thoughts, refrained. And we
stopped at Astoria where the canning of salmon was
done, a town built out over the river on piles. The
forest fires had caused some confusion and, for one
while, we could hardly breathe because of the smoke.
Indeed we travelled days and days through that smoke.
The first cowboy I ever saw drove me from the station
of Livingston through Yellowstone Park. In Butte
City my company went down into the Clarke Copper
Mine, but I did not care to join them in the undertak-
ing. Our first sight of Puget Sound was very beautiful.
And was at Puget Sound that I first saw half-, or,
it
rather, quarter-breeds. I remember Pond saying how

quickly the half-breeds die of consumption.
Later, that same year, I went South again on another
concert tour. All through the State of Mississippi there
was a strange, horrible flavour to the food, I recall, and,
so all -pervading was this flavour that finally I could
hardly eat anything. The contralto and I were talking
about it one day on the train and saying how glad we
362 y\n .American Prixna Donna
should be to get away from
it. There being no parlour-
cars, we were an ordinary coach, and a woman who
in
sat in front of me and overheard us, turned around and
said:
"I know what you mean! I can tell you what it is.
It 's cotton seed. Everything tastes of cotton seed in

this country. They feed their cows on it, and their
chickens. Everything tastes of it ; eggs, butter, biscuits,
milk!"
This was true. The only thing, it seems, that could
not be raised on cotton seed was fruit; and unfortu-
nately it was not a fruit season when I was there.
Therecollection of this trip necessitates saying my
a something of Southern hospitality. I was not
little
satisfied with any of the arrangements that had been

made for me. I had also taken a severe cold, and, when
we reached Charlottesville, where we were to give a
concert, I said I would not go on. This brought matters
to a climax. I simply would not and could not sing in
the condition I was; and declared I would not be sub-
jected to any such treatment as the insistence of the
management. The end of it was that I took my maid
and started for New York.
The promised to be a very uncomfortable
trip at first
one. Travelling accommodations were poor; food was
difficult to obtain, and I was nearly ill. At one point,
where the opening of a new bridge had just taken place,
we stopped, and I noticed a private car attached to our
train, which I coveted. Imagine my gratitude and
pleasure, therefore, when the porter presently came to
me and said courteously that "Colonel Cawyter" sent
his compliments and invited me into his private car. I
accepted, of course. But this was not As I was

all.
making inquiries about train connections and facilities

for food, of one of the gentlemen in the car, he realised

what was before me, and said that I could go to his
home where his wife would care for me. I protested, but
he insisted and gave me his card. When we reached the
station, I took a carriage and drove to the house, where
I was received very courteously. It was a simple house-
hold of a mother, grandmother, and children, and they
had already lunched when I got there. But they piled
on more coal, and in a very short time made me a lunch
that was simply delicious all so easily, simply, and
naturally, in spite of the haphazard fashion in which
they seemed to live, as to quite win my admiration.
And this incident ofSouthern hospitality enabled me
to proceed on my way nourished and restored.
Another incident that I recall was of a similar nature
in its fundamental kindness. I had no money with
which to pay for my berth, and was asking the conduc-

tor if there was anyone who would cash a check for me,
when a perfect stranger offered me the amount I
needed. At first I refused, but finally consented to
accept the loan in the same spirit in which it had been
offered.
On the reorganised version of this trip we went down
into Texas, giving concerts in Waco, Dallas, Cheyenne,
San Antonio, and Galveston, among other places. This
was before the wonderful railroad had been built that
runs for miles through the water; and before the tidal
wave that wiped the old Galveston out of existence.
At Cheyenne, I remember, we had to ford a river to
keep our engagement. At Waco a negro was found
under the bed of one of the company; a bridge was
burning; and a posse of men, with bloodhounds, was
starting out to track the incendiaries. I remember
speaking there with a negro woman who had a white

364 An .American Frima Donna
child in her charge. The was busily chewing gum

child
and the woman told me that often the child would put
her hand on her jaw saying, "Oh, I 'm so tired!" But
she could not be induced to stop chewing! At Dallas
we sang in a hall that had a tin roof, and, during the
concert, a terrific thunderstorm came on, so that I had
to stop singing. This is the only time, I believe, that
the elements ever succeeded in drowning me out. I
never before had seen adobe houses, and I found San
Antonio very interesting, and drove as far as I could
along the road of the old Spanish Missions that main-
tain the traditions and aspects of the Spanish in the
New World. The Southern theatres are the dirtiest
places that can be imagined; and I recall eating opos-
sum that was served to us with great pride by my
waiter.
From this time on I did not contemplate any long
engagements. I did not care for them, although I
sometimes went to places to sing and to collect
pewter!
I never formally retired from public life, but quietly
stopped when it seemed to me the time had come. It

was a Kansas City newspaper reporter who incidentally
brought home to me the fact that I was no longer very
young. I had a few grey hairs, and, after an interview
granted to this representative of the press a woman,
by the way I found, on reading the interview in
print the next day, that my grey hairs had been
mentioned.
"They '11 find that my voice is getting grey next,"
I said to myself.
I reallywanted to stop before everybody would be
saying, "You ought to have heard her sing ten years
ago!"
Carl Strakosch
From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
The last time I saw Patti I said to her:

"
Adelina, have you got through singing?"
"Oh, I still sing for mes pauvres in London," she
replied but she did n't explain who were her poor.
;
On my last western concert tour I sang at Oshkosh.

A special train of three cars on the Central brought
down a large delegation for the occasion from Fond du
Lac, Ripon, Neenah and Menasha, Appleton and other
neighbouring towns. The audience was in the best of
humour and a particularly sympathetic one. At the
close of the concert I remarked that it was one of the
finest audiences I ever sang to. And I added, by way
of pleasantry, that, having sung at Oshkosh, I was now
indeed ready to leave the stage !
But were even more serious reasons that

there
influenced me in my decision,
one of which was that my
mother had for some time past been in a poor state of
health. More than once, when I went to the theatre,
I had the feeling that she might not be alive when I
returned home; and this was a nervous strain to me
that, combined with a severe attack of bronchitis,
brought about a physical condition which might have
had seriously lasting results if I had not taken care of
myself in time.
It was not easy to stop. When each autumn came
around, it was very difficult not to go back to the public.
I had an empty feeling. no sensation in the
There is
world like singing to an audience and knowing that you

have it with you. I would not change my experience
for that of any crowned head. The singer and the
actor have, at least, the advantage over all other
artists of a personal recognition of
success; their
although, of course, the painter and writer live in their

work while the singer and the actor become only
366 -A.n American Frima Donna
traditions. But such traditions! On the subject of the
actor's traditions Edwin Booth has written :
In the main, tradition to the actor is as true as that

which the sculptor perceives in Angelo, the painter in
Raphael, and the musician in Beethoven. .
Tradition,
. .
if it be traced through pure channels and to the fountain-
head, leads one as near to Nature as can be followed by her

servant, Art. Whatever Quinn, Barton Booth, Garrick,
and Cooke gave to stagecraft, or as we now term it, "busi-
ness," they received from their predecessors from Betterton
;
and perhaps from Shakespeare himself, who, though not

distinguished as an actor, well knew what acting should be ;
and what they inherited in this way they bequeathed in

turn to their art and we should not despise it. Kean knew
without seeing Cooke, who in turn knew from Macklin, and
so back to Betterton, just what to do and how to do it.
Their great Mother Nature, who reiterates her teachings
and preserves her monotone in motion, form and sound,
taught them. There must be some similitude in all things
that are True!
The traditions of singing are not what they used to be,

however, for the new school of opera does not require
great finish, although it does demand greater dramatic
art. It used to be that Tetrazzinis could make suc-
cesses through coloratura singing alone; but to-day
coloratura singing has no great hold on the public after
the novelty has worn off. But it does very well in
combination with heavier music, as in Mozart's Magic
Flute or The Huguenots, and so modern singers have to
be both coloraturists and dramaticists. A propos of
singing and methods, I append a newspaper interview
that a reporter had with me in Paris, 1887. He had
been shown a new dinner dress of white moire with ivy
leaves woven into the tissue, and writes:
-^^
s~^< ^^_ ^<^ -
_^2_-
/*-> ^ 'x^l_
z^-
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg

I examined the rustling treasure critically and decided it
was a complete success. The train was long, the stuff rich,
the taste perfect, and yet the great essential was wanting,
I could not but reflect on the transformation which would
come over that regal robe were it once hung on the shapely
shoulders of the famous prima donna.
"
You see, there is nothing like singing to fill out dresses
where they should be filled out, and conversely," said
Sbriglia, who happened to be present as we came back into
"
the salon; consequently my advice to all ladies who wish
to improve their figure is to take vocal lessons."
"Yes," agreed Miss Kellogg, "if they can only find right
instruction. But, unfortunately good teachers nowadays
are rarer than good voices. Even the famous Paris Con-
servatory does n't contain good vocal instruction. If there
be any teaching in the world which is thoroughly worthless,
it is precisely that given in the Rue Bergre. But I cannot
do justice to the subject. Do give us your ideas, Professor,
about the Paris Conservatory and the French School of
voice culture."
"As to any French vocal school," replied Sbriglia,
"there is none. Each professor has a system of his own
that is only less bad than the system of some rival professor.
One man tells you to breathe up and down and another
in and out. One claims that the musical tones are formed
in the head, while another locates them in the throat.
And when these gentlemen receive a fresh, untrained voice,
their first careis to split it up into three distinct parts
which they call registers, and for the arrangement of which

they lay down three distinct sets of rules.
"As to the Conservatory, it is a national disgrace; and I
have no hesitation in saying that it not only does no good,
but is actually the means of ruining hundreds of fine
voices. Look at the results. It is from the Conservatory
that the Grand Opera chooses its French singers, and the
simple fact is that in the entire personnel there are no great
French artists. There are artists from Russia, Italy, Ger-
368 A.n .American Prirna Donna
many, and America, but there are none from France. And
yet the most talented students of the Conservatory make
their debuts there every year with fine voices and brilliant
prospects; but, as a famous critic has well said, 'after

singing for three years under the system which they have
been taught, they acquire a perfect "style" and lose their
'
voice.
"You ask me what
I consider to be the correct method.
very much
'
I dislike the use of the word 'method, because
it seems to imply something artificial; whereas in all the
vocal processes, there is only a single logical method and

that is the one taught us all by nature at our birth. Watch
a baby crying. How does he breathe? Simply by pushing
the abdomen forward, thus drawing air into the lungs, to
fill the vacuum produced, and then bringing it back again,
which expels the air. And every one breathes that way,
except certain advocates of theoretical nonsense, who
have learned with great difficulty to exactly reverse this
operation. Such singers make a bellows o f the chest,
instead of the abdomen, and, as the strain to produce long
sounds is evidently greater in forcing the air out than in
simply drawing it in, their inevitable tendency is to unduly
contract the chest and to distend the abdomen."
"Let me give you an illustration of the truth of M.
Sbriglia's argument," said Miss Kellogg, rising from her
seat. "Now watch me as I utter a musical note." And
immediately the rich voice that has charmed so many
thousands filled the apartment with a clear "a-a-a-a" as
the note grew in volume.
"You see Miss Kellogg has little to fear from consump-
tion!" exclaimed Sbriglia. "And I am convinced that
invalids with disorders of the chest would do well to stop
taking drugs and study the art of breathing and singing."
"And even those who have no voice, " said Miss Kellogg,
"would by this means not only improve in health and
looks, but would also learn to read and speak correctly,
for the same principles apply to all the vocal processes. It
isastonishing how few people use the voice properly. For

instance I could read in this tone all the afternoon without
"
fatigue, but if I were to do this (making a perceptible
"
change in the position of her head) I should begin to cough
,
before finishing a column. Don't you notice the difference?

In the one case the sounds come from here" (touching her
chest) "and are free and musical but in the other, I seem to
;
speak in my throat, and soon feel an irritation there which

makes me want the traditional glass of sugar and water."
"The irritation which accompanies what you call 'speak-
ing in the throat,'" explained Sbriglia, "is caused by
pressing too hard upon the vocal cords, that become, in
consequence, congested with blood, instead of remaining
white as they should be. Persons who have this habit
grow hoarse after very brief vocal exertion, and it is largely
for that reason that American men rarely make fine singers.
On the other hand, look at Salvini,who, by simply knowing
how to place his voice, is able to play a tremendous part
like Othellowithout the slightest sense of fatigue.
"About the American 'twang'? Oh, no, it does not
injure the voice. On the contrary, this nasal peculiarity,
especially common among your women, is of positive value
in a proper production of certain tones."
24
CODA
Coda in music
is, literally, the tail of the
THEcomposition, the finishing off of the piece. The
influence of Wagner did away with the Coda: yet, as
my place in the history of opera is that of an exponent
of the Italian rather than the German form, I feel that
a Coda, or a last few words of farewell, is admissible.
In some ways the Italian opera of my day seems
banal. Yet Italian opera is not altogether the thing
of the past that it is sometimes supposed to be. More
and more, I believe, is it coming back into public favour
as people experience a renewed realisation that melody
is the perfect thing, in art as in life. I believe that
Mignon would draw at the present time, if a good cast

could be found. But it would be difficult to find a good
cast.
Italian opera did what it was intended to do: it
showed the art of singing. It was never supposed to be
but an accompaniment to the orchestra as German
opera often is an idea not very gratifying to a singer,
;
and sometimes not to the public. Yet we can hardly

make comparisons. Personally, I like German opera
and many forms of music beside the Italian very much,
even while convinced of the fact that German critics
are not the whole audience. At least, the opera could
not long be preserved on them alone.
It seems to me as I look back over the preceding
pages that I have put into them all the irrelevant

370
!
Coda 371
matter of my life and left out much that was impor-

tant. Many of my dearest roles I have forgotten to
mention, and many of my most illustrious acquaint-
ances I have omitted to honour. But when one has
lived a great many years, the past becomes a good deal
like an attic one goes there to hunt for some particular
:
thing, but the chances are that one finds anything and
everything except what one went to find. So, out of my
attic, I have unearthed ever so many unimportant
heirlooms of the past, leaving others, perhaps more
valuable and more interesting, to be eaten by moths
and corrupted by rust for all time.
There is very little more for me to say. I do not
want to write of my last appearances in public. Even
though I did leave the operatic stage at the height of
my success, there is yet something melancholy in the
end of anything. As Richard Hovey says:
There is a sadness in all things that pass;

We love the moonlight better for the sun,
And the day better when the night is near.
The on a place where we have dwelt
last look
Reveals more beauty than we dreamed before,
When it was daily . . .
In our big, America there are the

young country of
possibilities of many another singer greater than I have

been. I shall be proud and grateful if the story of my
high ambitions, hard work, and kindly treatment should
chance to encourage one of these. For, while it is true
that there is nothing that should be chosen less lightly
than an artistic career, it is also true that, having
chosen it, there is nothing too great to be given up for
it. I have no other message to give; no further lesson
to teach. I have lived and sung, and, in these memories,
have tried to something of the living and the
tell
singing: but when I seek for a salient and moving word

as a last one, I find that I am dumb. Yet I feel as I
used to feel when I sang before a large audience.
Somewhere out in the audience of the world there must
be those who are in instinctive sympathy with me.
My thoughts go wandering toward them as, long ago,
my thoughts would wander toward the unknown
friends sitting before me in the theatre and listening.
So poignant is this sense within me that, halting as my
message may have been, I feel quite sure that somehow,
here and there, some one will hear it, responsive in the
heart.
INDEX
Abbott, Emma, in Camille, 70; Banjo, first mention of, 8, music
meeting with, 272-275; 320 of, 9; old man and the, 217, 218;
Academy of Music, the, debut of accompaniment of, 358
Kellogg at, 33 stage conditions
; Barbiere, II, realistic performance
a t, 37; director of, 40; winter of, .38; 56, 91, 97, 167, 277,
season at, 91; benefit at, 92; Barbizon School, 306
return to, 201 258, 259, 263
; Barlow, Judge Peter, 102
Adam, Mme., 304 Barlow, Mrs. Samuel, 276-279
Adamowski, Timothie, 358 Bateman concerts, 101
Adams, Charles, 298 Beecher, Henry Ward, 214
Adams, Maud, in Joan of Arc, 66 Beethoven, 78; Jubilee, 209;
Aida, 292, 301, 302, 307 Okakura and music of, 219;
Albani, Mme., 235 reference to, 366
Albertini, 294 Behrens, Siegfried, 263, 264,
Albites, suggestion of, 102 267
Alboni, Mme., Rovere and, 94; Bellini, 54; traditions of, 67;
anecdote of, 175 music of, 80
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 47, 48 Benedict, Sir Jules, 6, 197, 261,
Alexander, John, 281 262
Amina, the role of, 64; the opera Bennett, James Gordon, 251,
of, 65; Murska as, 296 303
Amodio, 13; personal appearance Bennett, Mr., 164, 174, 238
of, 14; in Don Giovanni, 74 Bentinck, Mrs. Cavendish, 190
Amonasro, 307 Bernhardt, 208
Andrede, Joseph, 300 Beware, Longfellow and, 46;
Annetta, 91; contrast between singing of, 175, 178, 197
Marguerite and, 93; Malibran Bey, Khalil, 156, 157
as, 94; Grisi as, 94; Kellogg as, Biachi as Mephistopheles, 86
93.94,96 Bianchi, Mile., 329
Anschutz, Faust and, 78 Bierstadt, Albert, 160
Appleton, Tom, 46, 47 Bizet, 305
Arditi, 135, 138, 162-164, 168, Black, Valentine, 305
171, 173 Boheme, La, 91
Armitage, Sir George, 195-198 Bohemian Girl, The, 257, 259
Association, Peace Jubilee, 235 Booth, Edwin, letter from, 16;
Azucena, 249 on stage traditions, 366
Booth, Wilkes, i n
Babcock, William, 7 Borde, Mme. de la, in 1 c-s
Bachert, Pond and, 358 Huguenots, 13; voice of, 13
Balfe, 261,262 Borgia, Lucretia, Grisi as, 159
Ballo in Maschera, 55, 62, 329, Bososio, Mile., as Prascovia, 102
338 Boucicault, Dion, 15, 262
373
374 Index
Brignoli, 13, 14; tour with, 22; Concerts, private, 168; Bucking-
temper of, 22, 23; origin of, 24: ham Palace, 179-186, 302;
mascot of, 24, 165; point of Benedict's, 197; tours, 200-203,
view of, 24; anecdote of, 25; 208, 227-230; trials of, 232-234;
death of, 25; in I Puritani, 29; in Russia, 346
in opera with, 36; difficulties Conklin, Ellen, effect of slavery
with, 41; in Boston with, 44; on, 58, 59
farewell performance for, 64; Conly, George, 256, 258, 275
Americanisation of, 71; in Connaught, Duke of, 183, 184
Poliuto, 72; Gottschalk and, Contessa, incident in Titjien's
107; mention of, 294, 358 rdle of, 169, 170, 239
Brougham, John, 15 Cook, W. H., 124
Bulow, Von, 298 Coquelin, 304
Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, Costa, Sir Michael, 169, 170, 194,
281 238, 267
Burroughs, John, reference to, 288 Cotogni, 235, 337
Butterfly, Madame, 255 Coulsen, 294
Crinkle, Nym, see Wheeler
Cabanel, 306 Crispino e la Comare, 91, 94;
Cable, George, 281 Cobbler in, 94; mention of,
Callender, May, 276, 277 97, 249
Calvd, 81; as Carmen, 291 Curiose, Le Donne, 91
Camitte, Matilda Heron in, 15; Cushman, Charlotte, attendance
public attitude toward, 69; at theatre by, 33; evening in
mention of, 70; libretto of, 135 Boston with, 50, 52; in Rome
Campanini,Italo,236,237,26i,295 with, 160; as Queen Katherine,
Capoul, 184, 236, 237, 295 270, 271
Carlton, William, 258-261, 265, Cusins, 176, 178
268, 275; Marie Roze and, 290 Custcr, 57, 58
Carmen, 73, 91; Minnie Hauck Czar, the, Ronconi and, 95;
as, 102; Kellogg in, 231, 236; daughter of, 182, 183; signa-
in English, 254; Marie Roze as, ture of, 335; physician of, 337;
1
290; the rdle of, 291; Calve as, Nihilists and, 338, 343; mourn-
291; music of, 305 ing of, 342; sight of, 350, 351;
Carvalho, Mme. Miolan-, 77; wig assassination of, 354, 355
of, 82, 140; as Marguerite, 84
Cary, Annie Louise, 193; Kellogg Dahlgren, Admiral, 183, 357
and, 289, 292-294, 298, 304 Dame Blanche, La, 96
Castitte,The Rose of, 257 D'Angri, 13
Castle, 257, 269, 270 Daniel Deronda, quotation from,
Catherine, in Star of the North, 315-316
102; jewels for, 104; incident Davidson, 167, 190, 195
when singing, 267 Davis, Jefferson, at West Point,
Chatelet, Theatre, 140 19; son of, 19; wife of, 20
Christina, ex-Queen, 143, 144 Davis, Will, 256
Clarke, James Freeman, 50 Debussy, 79
Clarkson, Bishop, 300 Deland, Conly as, 258
Clover, Lieutenant, 357 de Reszke, Jean, in L'Africaine,
Club, Stanley, 305 40; Sbriglia and, 313, 314
Colson, Pauline, tour with, 22; de Reszke, Josephine, 306
advice of, 26; example in Diavolo, Fra, 16, 91; benefit per-
costuming of, 27; illness of, 27 formance of, 92, 93 fondness for, ;
Combermere, Viscountess, 125; 97; scenes from, 159; Lucca in,

anecdote of, 128 174, 249; Conly in, 256; mention
Comedie Francaise, 15 of, 261; Habelmann as, 269
Index 375
Dickens, house of, 241 Fechter, Mr., 168

Donizetti, 56; opera of Betly Federici as Marguerite, 80
by, 68; Poliuto by, 71; music Felina, 251-253, 331, 358
of, 80 Ferri, tour with, 22 as Rigoletto,
;
Donna Anna, role of, 74, 137; 33; blindness of, 33, 41
Titjiens as, 169, 170, 173; Fidelio, Titjiens as, 169
Kellogg as, 249 Field, Eugene, 271
Doria, Clara, 246 Field, Mrs. Marshall, 279
Douglass, William, 126, 203 Fields, James T., home of, 45;
Due de Morney, 360 anecdote of, 46; friends of, 47,
Dudley, Lord, 189 48; opinion of "copy" of Mrs.
Dufferin, Lord and Lady, 353 Stowe, 49; hospitality of, 50;
Dukas, 79 letter to, 89
Duse, 208 Fioretti, 195
Dutchman, The Flying, 257, 258, Fischoff, 326,332
263-265 Flotow, opera of Martha by, 73
Flute, playing of, 2; Lanier and,
Eames, Mme., 83 51; Wagner's use of, 52
Edinburgh, Duchess of, 182, 183 Flute, The Magic, 74, 146, 366; song
Edward, Miss, 121, 137 from The Star in, 173
Ehn, Mme., 329 Foley, Walter, 131, 167, 236
Elssler, Fanny, 330 Foster, Mr., 338, 339
Elvira, Donna, 137, 170, 173 Franceschetti, 322
Emerson, 45, 221 Frapoli, 299
Emory, Lieutenant, 357 Freischutz, Der, 254
Ernani, Patti in, 148, 155 French, art of the, 140
Errani, 1 1 Fursch-Nadi, 310
Eugenie, Empress, 149, 150
Evans, Dr., 150 Gaiety, 93, 94; Italian, 160
Gannon, Mary, 15
Fabri, Count, 244 Garden, Covent, 129, 135, 167,
Falstaff, 91 171, 172, 178, 194-196, 235
Farragut, Admiral, 157, 158 Garden, Mary, artistic spirit of,
Farrar, Gerakline, as Marguerite, 40; English opera and, 255
81,83,89 Gazza Ladra, La, 166-168, 173
Faure, 145, 147, 178, 179, 184, Gazzaniga, Mme., 294
235,323 Gerster, 303, 329
Faust, first suggestion of Kellogg Giatano, Nita, 242, 243
in, 40; anecdote about, 46; Gilda, study of the role of, 29;
public attitude toward, 68; appearance in, 34, 35, 63;
decision of Maretzek about, comparison with Marguerite of,
75; on the Continent, 77; 79; Kellogg as, 8l
criticism of 78; estimate of 79; Gilder, Jeannette, 193, 280, 282;
early effect on public of, 81, Ellen Terry and, 283
89; Alice Neilson in 82; Poliuto Gilder, Richard Watson, 192,
and, 88; liberties with score 219,221; Mrs., 279, 281; studio
of, 88, 89; Santley in, 132; of, 280-282
French treatment of, 140; in Gilder, Rodman, 281
America, 240; mention of, 244, Gilder, William H., 280
307; Lucca in, 249, 250; Carlton Gilmore, Patrick, 309
in, 260; Drury Lane and, 132, Giovanni, Don, 62 under Grau in,
;
135, 137. 162, 174, 189, 261; 74; at Her Majesty's, 137, 167,
Mike and, 266; Emma Abbott 170, 173, 174, 197, 198; mention
in, 274; testimonial, 298; lib- of, 249, 296, 342
retto of, 333; mention of, 359 Godard, 305
376 Index
Goddard, Mr., 190 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 48
Goethe, 254 Helene, La Belle, 254
Goodwin, 168, 197 Heron, Matilda, 15
Gotterdammerung, Die, 91 Hess, C. D., 256-259 benefit of
Gottschalk, 106, 107, 295 Kellogg-, 275
Gounod, new opera by, 75; as Heurtly, Mrs., 190
revolutionist, 78, 79; mention Hinckley, Isabella, 41 ; in //
of, 132; reference to, 133; in Barbiere, 56; in Betly, 68,
London, 140, 240-244; Gounod, Hissing, custom of, in Spain, 145
Madame, 243 Hoey, Mrs. John, 15
Grange, Mme. de la, in Les Hoffman, Baron, 329, 330
Huguenots, 13; in Sonnambula, Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 46;
38; in The Star of the North, breakfasts with, 52; opinion
102 of English women of, 53
Grant, General, in Chicago, 114, Hosmer, Harriet, 160
115; President and Mrs., 266 Howe, Julia Ward, 46, 49, 61
Grau, Maurice, 67; Traviata and, Huger, General Isaac, son of,
69; in Boston with, 74, 258, 18,57
259; mention of, 300; Opera Huguenots, Les, 91, 174, 295, 366
House, 307
Greeley, Horace, funeral of, 209 logo, 307
Greenough, Lillie, 277 Irving, Henry, great strength of,
Gridley, Lieutenant- Commander, 40; repose of, 234, 248, first
35.7 meeting with, 282; complaint
Grisi, opportunity to hear, 14; of, 284; reforms of, 284, 285
opera costumier and, 85; as
Annetta, 94; family of, 158; Jackson, Helen Hunt, 281
story of, 159 Jaffray, E. S., 322
Grove, Sir George, 262 Jarrett, 120, 162, 16,3; daughter of,
Gye, Mr., 129, 135, 171, 172 163, 164, 168, 173, 198; Colonel
Stebbinsand, 173; Gounod and,
Habelmann, Theodor, in Fra 241; mention of, 249, 250, 251,
Diavolo, 96, 269, 270 252, 253, 294, 300, 331
Hall, Dr. John, 300 Jerome, Leonard, 188
Hamilton, Sir Frederick, 342 Johnston, Sir Alan, 353
Hamilton, Gail, 50 Jordan, Jules, 206, 207
Hamlet, in French, 141; Nilsson Juliet, saying of Modjeska about,
in, 145; Faure as, 147; Mc- 70; Patti as, 194, 198; Romeo
Cullough as, 282; mad scene in, and, 240; Gounod and, 244
292,329
Handel, Festival, 172; Messiah Karl, Tom, 298
of, 209; and Haydn Society, Katherine, Queen, 270, 271
298 Keene, Laura, 15
Hanslick, Dr., 195; complimented Kellogg, Clara Louise, first ap-
by, 329-331 pearance of, 6; description as
Harrington, Earl of, 126; ice-box a child of, 7; dress of, 8, 25, 26,
of, 127; daughter of, 127; at the 39, 40, 70, 84, 85, 135, 136, 137,
opera, 198 210, 265, 347; Muzio and, n,
Harte, Bret, niece of, 319 12, 13; early singers heard by,
Hauck, Minnie, as Prascovia, 13; histrionic skill of, 15, 16;
102, 103; characterisation of, resemblance to Rachel of, 16;
103; mention of, 303 debut as Gilda of, 33; as Mar-
Haute, M. De la, 159 guerite, 40, 75-92; hospitalities
Hawaii, King 266
of, toward, 44, 45, 93, 100, 101,
Hawthorne, Julian, 49 278, 279, 362, 363; wig of, 82-
Index 377
Kellogg Continued Littlejohn, Bishop, 300

84; in Opera Comique, 91-98; Lohengrin, 292
jewelry of, 93, 104, 105, 298; as Longfellow, 46, 47; poems of,
Flower Prima Donna, 103, 202; 46, 47; anecdote of, 47; letter,
Lucca and, 245-252; in English by, 89; reference to, 221
Opera, 254-270; favourite flower Lorenzo, Conly as, 256
of, 266; in "Three Graces" Loveday, Mme., 261
Tour, 289-304 Lowell, 46, 47
Kellogg, George, flute of, 2 failure
; Lucca, Pauline, Piccolomini's
of, 9; Irish servants and, 61; in resemblance to, 14; travelling
New Hartford with, 67; story of, 28; as Marguerite, 82; in
of, 231 Fra Diavolo, 174; at rehearsal,
Keppel, Colonel, 133 178, 179; at Buckingham
Korbay, Francis, 219 Palace, 184, 185; at Covent
Krauss, 307 Garden, 196, 235; in America,
Kuster, Baron, 338 240; Kellogg and, 245-250; as
Mignon, 251; mention of, 294,
La Farge, John, 219, 221, 280 329
L'Africaine, de Reszke in, 40; Lucia, Patti in, 15, 62; compari-
Lucca in, 249; Masini in, 341 son with Linda of, 73, standing
Lang, 190, 198 of, 73; Kellogg in Chicago as,
Lanier, Sidney, 50; anecdote of, 113, 237; role of, 292; Kellogg
5i as, 329
306
Lascelle,
Lawrence, Alberto, 258 Maas, Joseph, 256-582, 261
Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 282 Macci, Victor, opera by, 68
Leonora, Marie Willt as, 152; Macmillan, Lady, 284
Lucca as, 179; Morgan and, Maddox, 194, 195, 246, 247
269 Maeterlinck, Mme., saying of,
Le Page, Bastien, 281 103
Leporello, Rockitanski as, 170 Malibran, 94
Le Roi de Lahore, 306 Manchester, Consuelo, Duchess of,
Librettos, inartistic, 255; Emma 184
Abbott and, 274; texts of, 332 Mancini, 359
Liebling, 358 Mansfield, Richard, mother of,
Lily o' KiUarney, 261, 262 165
Lincoln, Abraham, call for volun- Manzocchi, n
teers by, 54; anecdote of no; Mapleson, Col. J. M., 120, 139,
death of, in; lying-in-state of 162, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173,
112-114, n8 174, 198, 200, 235, 236, 241,
Lind, Jenny, 5,
6, 294 301,302
Linda di Chamounix, first public Mapleson, Henry, 289, 290, 292-
appearance of Kellogg in, 25; 294, 303
Boston's attitude toward, 36; Maretzek, Max, at the Academy,
origin of, 36; story of, 36, 37; 40; during the war, 55; deci-
costuming of, 38, 39; Susini, sion with regard to Faust of, 75,
in, 42; Mme. Medori as, 42; 77, 78; Colonel Stebbins and,
Kellogg in Boston as, 43, 50, 85; Mazzoleni and, 86; Faust
54, 62; teaching of, 63; com- and, 87, 88; benefit custom
parison with Marguerite of, 79; and, 91, 92, 119; in Philadelphia
Clara Louise Polka and, 88; with, 201; saying of, 215;
Patti in, 129; mention of, 132, management of, 240
249; at Her Majesty's, 135, Marguerite, interpretation of,
167, 236, 238 42; estimate of, 80-84, 333;
Liszt, saying of, 234 Xilsson as, 82, 129; costume
378 Index
Marguerite Continued Lecouvreur, 59; in Camille 69;
of, 84, 85; Patti as, in France, saying of, 70; Okakura and,
140, 141; reference to, 243, 263; 281; Kellogg and, 282, 283;
Lucca as, 249, 250; Kellogg custom of, 352
as, 359 Moncrieff, Mrs., 243
Maria de Rohan, Rovere in, 95 Morelli, 294
Mario, Grisi 14; mention
and, Morgan, Wilfred, 258, 259, 269
of, 147, 167, 185, 195, 196 Mother, first mention of, 2, 3, 4;
Martha, 62, 73, 74; comparison attitude toward theatre of,
with Marguerite of, 79; 30, 3 1 presence at performance
;
Faust and, 88; as Opera of Gilda of, 35; in Boston with,

Comique, 91; at Her Majesty's, 44, 52; in New Hartford with,
135; Nilsson as, 145; Kellogg 67; Faust and, 81; character
as, 249, 261, 329 of, 108; anecdote
128; in of,
Martin, Mrs., 202-207 England, 137; in
Paris, 139,
Masaniello, 96 143; diary of, I54- I 57, 163, 164,
Masini, 338, 340, 341 166-168, 173, 174, 178, 197, 198,
Materna, Mme., 329, 331 308, 326; mention of, 186, 188,
Matthews, Brander, wife of, 69; 307, 190, 194, 195, 200, 252, 259,
reception by father of, 100, 101 286, 304, 334; Eugene Field and,
Maurel, 141, 295, 306, 307 271; in Russia, 349, 35 2 -356;
Mazzoleni as Faust, 86, 87 health of, 365
McCook, Alec, 18, 57 Moulton, melody of Beware by,
McCreary, Lieutenant, 1 8, 57 175
McCullough, John, 282, 300 Moulton, Mrs., 277
McHenry, 143, 145, 148, 158, 167, Mowbray, J. P., see Wheeler
190, 197, 198 Mozart, operas 74; English
of,
McKenzie, Sir Edward, 190, 300, and, 136; arias of, 146; with
301 Titjiens in operas of, 169; all-
McVickar, Commodore, 121, 126 star casts of, 170; music of, 366
Medori, Mme., as Linda, 42; Munkacsy, 219
in Don Giovanni, 74 Murska, Mile., lima de, 296
Meister, Wilhelm, 251, 252 Muzio, n ; appearance of, 12;
Meistersinger, Die, 91 opinion of, 17; concert tour of
Melodies, negro, i, 9, 117, 146, 305, Kellogg with, 22; Italian tradi-
357 tions and, 66; concert tour
Menier, Chocolat, 243, 309 under, 72; polka by, 88
Meyerbeer, 90; craze for, 101;
a song of, 102; son-in-law of,
328 Napoleon III, 148, 149
Mignon, effect on audience of, 59; Negroes; treatment of, 58; in New
Polonaise from, 183, 229, 305, York during the war, 60; discus-
358; Lucca and Kellogg in, sions regarding the, 60; anti-
251; in English, 257, 260; negro riots, 323
Gary as, 293; cast of, 298; Neilson, Adelaide, 247
Kellogg as, 329, 330, 331; Neilson, Alice, in Faust, 82
reference to, 370 Nevin, 322
Mike, 266 Newcastle, Duchess of, 184, 188,
Millet, 1 1 ;
son of, 282 197
Mind, sub-conscious, 13; workings Newcastle, Duke of, 100, 125;
of the, 35, 169, 216 in box of, 146, 167, 168, 173,
Minstrels, negro, 8 174, 188, 189, 191, 192; pin of
Mireille, 240, 245 the, 193, 194, 197, 198, 235
Mistral, 240 Newson, 6, 7
Modjeska, Helena, in Adrienne Nicolini, 130, 148, 184, 185
Index 379
Night, Queen of the, Nilsson as, Palmer, Anna, 1 1

146 Paloma, La, 249
Nilsson, Christine, as Marguerite, Parker, Minnie, 276, 277
82; in London, 129, 131, 132, Parodi, 294
137, 169, 173. 235; as Martha, Pasquale, Don, 96
145; voice of, 146, 147; super- Patey, Mme., 174
stition of, 165, 1 66; in opera Patti, Adelina, 5 early appearance
;
with, 169; Sir Michael Costa of, 15; as Marguerite, 82; voice
and, 170; at Buckingham of, 129, 130, 132, 323; in London
Palace, 184; friend of, 190; 77, 129, 132, 135, 184, 185,
reference to, 196, 239, 252, 261, I 95~ I 98, 235; sister of, 129; in
294, 295, 326, 329 Paris with, 308; comparison
Noces de Jeannette, Les, 29, 62; with, 330; questioning of, 365
libretto of, 68 Patti, Carlotta, 295
Nordica, Lillian, 309, 310; Nevin's. Paul and Virginia, 295
song and, 322; in Russia with, Peakes, 257
337 34 I 347> 34&
> Pease, Miss Alta, 358
Norma, Grisi as, 158; reference to, Pergolese, opera of La Serva
252 Padrona by, 14
Nozze di Figaro, Le, 170, 171, 174, Peto, Sir Morton, banquet of, 99
197, 198, 249, 261 Petrelli, 272
Petrovitch, 338
Oh, had I Jubal's Lyre! 172 Phillips, Adelaide, as Maddalena,
Okakura, 219-222, 281 41; as Pierotto, 41, 248
Oldenburg, Prince, 346 Photography, new effects in, 208
Olin, Mrs. Stephen Henry, 276, Piccolomini, 14, 74
277 Pinchot, Gifford, sister of, 353
Opera, The Beggar's, 258 Pine, Louisa, 13
Opera bouffe, 90 Pitch, absolute, 4, 165, 267;
Op6ra comique, 90, 91, 97; of standard of, 231
Paris, 236 Plancon, 312
Opera, traditions of, 12, 77, 79, Plantagenet, Lady Edith, 297
263, 277; necessities of, 34; Poliuto, 62; plot of, 71; Faust
war on, 55, 56; houses
effect of and, 88
in America for, 68; early cus- Polka, Clara Louise, 88
toms of, 84; innovations of, Pond, Major, 360, 361
87; benefit custom of, 91; Pope Pius IX., 160
Her Majesty's, 120, 129, 136, Porter, Ella, 1 1 in Paris, 84
;
171, 178, 235; French, 140, Porter, General Horace, 19, 20, 57
141; English, 254-258, 260-303; Prascovia, Minnie Hauck as, 102,
translations of, 255, 256, 260, 103
261; Strakosch and, 303; Press, criticisms of the, 27, 35,
Imperial, 326: in Petersburg, 39, 42, 68, 70, 75, 78, 88, 89, 94,
334-342; preparation for, 367; 97, 133. !35, 164, 200, 211, 215,
province of Italian, 370 239, 240, 250, 252, 256, 258, 271,
Ophelia, Modjeska as, 282; Kel- 279, 291, 358; standing of the,
logg as, 293 328; in Vienna, 331; censorship
Othello, Salvini as, 283; in Munich in Russia of the, 336; interview,
37 366
Oudin, Eugene, 277 Public, English, 136, 194, 237;
Oxenford, 262 American, 229, 230, 238; rival
factions of the, 250; character-
Palace, Buckingham, 176-179; istics of the, 264, 296; Peters-
concerts at, 179-186, 302 burg, 339; Boston, 358; charm
Palace, Crystal, 172, 174, 209 of the, 365, 372
38o Index
Puritani, I, Brignoli in, 29; Kel- Salome, suppression of, 69, 254
logg in, 54, 62, 63 Salvini, 283
Sampson, Mr., 190, 198
Quinn, Dr., 168, 191, 235 Sandford, Wright, 126, 203
Santley, Ronconi and, 95; as
Rachel, 16 Valentine, 132; kindness of,
Racine, 306 134; as Almaviva, 137, 167, 168,
Rampolla, Cardinal, 161 170, 173, 174, 184, 198
Ramsay, Captain, 357 Sanz, 248, 249
Ramsay, Col., 300 Sargent, 281
Randegger, 195 310-313; Jean de Reszke
Sbriglia,
Rathbone, General, 300 and, 313, 314, 367-369
Reed, Miss Fanny, in Boston, 45; Scalchi, Sofia, 172, 185; in Peters-
in New York, 277, 278 burg, 33 7
Reeves, Sims, 174, 175 Scarborough, Bishop, 300
Reggimento, La
Figlia del, 56, 58, Scola, lessons in acting from, 29,
62; at close of Civil War, 114; 38
Lucca in, 249 Scott, Sir Walter, 261
Renaud in opera, 40, 265 Sebasti, 161
Rice brothers, 94 Seguin, Stella, 257, 258
Rigoletto, 29, 34, 36; opinion of Seguin, Ted, 258
Boston of, 36; origin of, 36, 62; Sembrich, Marcella, 337
meaning of, 81, 167; Masini as, Semiramide, 171, 277, 342
341 Senta, 263-265, 292
Riston, 1 6 Serenade, The Persian, 223
Rivarde, 1 1 Shakespeare in music, 141
Robert le Diable, 86, 201, 332 Sherman, General, in Chicago, 114
Robertson, Agnes, 15 Siebel, Miss Sulzer as, 87
Robertson, Madge (Mrs. Ken- Singing, methods of, 5; Grisi and,
dall), 284 I 58, 159; prime donne and, 231;
Robin, Theodore, 304-306 early, 307; Nordica and, 310;

Rockitanski, 170 Sbriglia and, 311-321, 367-369;
Ronalds, Mrs. Peter, 276, 277, traditions of, 366
279 Sinico, Mme., 137
Ronconi, 94; The Czar and, 95; Sinnett, A. P., 189
in Fra Diavolo, 95; anecdote Slezak, 312
of, 96 Smith, Mark, 246
Rosa, Carl, 101 Society, Arion, 206
Rosa, Euphrosyne Parepa, 101, Somerset, Duchess of, 121-124;
209, 262 letters by, 125; beadwork of,
Rosina, 91, 93, 96, 97, 137 126, 137, 144, 197, 168, 188, 197
Rossini, 13, 97; reference to, 133; Sonnambula, La, 54, 62-64; teach-
English and, 136; traditions ing of, 65, 66; aria from 67;
of,277; Nordica and, 310 Murska 296
in,
Rossmore, Lady, 192, 198 Sonnenthal, 330
Rota, 261 Southern, the elder, 15
Rothschild, Baron Alfred de, 194, Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 50
198,235 Stabat Mater, 310
Rovere, 94 Stackpoole, Major, 192, 197, 198
Roze, Marie, 236, 261, 289, 290, Stage, attitude toward, 1 1 Italian
;
292, 293,298 attitude toward, 12; English

Rubenstein, 246, 248 precedent of, 12; superstitions
Rudersdorf, Mme. Erminie, 165 of, 24, 36, 165; primitive con-
Ryan, Mr., 305 ditions of, 25, 27, 28, 37, 38, 87;
Ryloff, 269 in France, 140
Index 381
Stanley, 189 Thomas, Theodore, at the

Star of the North, The, 102; Academy, 40; in Chicago, 321
flute song of, 173; in English, Thomaschewski, Dr., 337, 347
257, 266; quartette in, 267 Thompson troupe, Lydia, 69
Star, The Evening, 230 Thorough-base, 2
Stebbins, Colonel Henry G., 10; Thursby, Emma, 298
daughters of, n; home of, 16; Til ton, 'Mrs. Elizabeth, 214
sister of, 33; Faust and, 85; Titjiens, in London, 77, 129, 132,
in England, 122-124, 1 37< m 137, 139, l?o, 173; Pet of, 168,
Scotland, 131; in France, 155, 169, 178, 179, 185, 196, 235,
158; daughter of, 160; friendship 239, 302
of, 171, 173, 174, 197, 198 Traviata, Piccolomini in, 14; the
Stevens, Mrs. Paran, in Boston, part of Violetta in, 15, 62;
44,45, 278; sister of, 277 libretto of, 68; public opinion
Stewart, Jules, 306 of, 69, 70; Patti in, 130; at Her
Stigelli.33,71,294 Majesty's, 135, 164; costume in,
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 46, 49 136; rehearsal of, 163; successof,
Strakosch, Maurice, 130, 148; 164; Lucca in, 249; interpreta-
Napoleon and, 149; at Coven t tion of, 291; Kellogg in 329,
Garden with, 194, 198; Patti 338, 342; solo from, 357
and, advice of, 294; methods Trebelli-Bettini, 236
of, 302 Trentini, Emma, superstition of,
Strakosch, Max, 200, 201, 204, 166
205, 240, 289, 292, 294-296, 300, Trobriand, Baron de, opinions
303, 359 and stories of, 16
Strauss, 79, 254 Trollope, Anthony, 46, 48
Sulzer, Miss, 87 Trovatore, Mme. de la Grange in,
Summer, The Last Rose of, 135 13; Marie Willt in, 153; Lucca
Susanna, Kellogg as, 170, 240 in, 179; Kellogg in, 201, 249,
Susini, name of, 22; as the Baron 260, 261, 329; Carlton in 268;
in Linda, 41; wife of, 41; sense Tschaikowsky, 306
of humour of, 42 salute of Grant
; Turner, Charles, 261
and Sherman by, 115; mention
of, 294 Valentine, Carlton as, 260; Kel-
logg as, 295
Vanderbilt, Frederick W., 300
Tadema, Alma, 191 Vanderbilt, William H., 197,
Tagliapietra, 358 285, 286
Talisman, The, 261,297 Vane-Tempest, Lady Susan, 192,
Talleyrand, Marquis de, 157, 158 197
Tannhduser, 140, 230 Van Zandt, Miss, 307
Tennants, 189 Van Zandt, Mrs., 257
Terry, Ellen, 234, 248; opinion Verdi, mention of, n; Falstaff of,
of, 283, 284 91; reference to, 133, 292, 298;
Thalberg, 106; Strakosch and, meeting with, 307, 308; criticism
294 of, 33 1
Theatre, in England, 131; in Vernon, Mrs., 15
France, 140, 141 Her Majesty's
; Victoria, Queen, 177, 186, 301
!89, 235; traditions of the, Villiers, Colonel, 353
366 Violetta, 15; character of, 70;
Theatre, Booth's, 267 gowns of 70; jewels for, 104;
Theatre Comique, 307 Patti as, 130; costume of, 135;
Theatre Francais, 265, 306 Kellogg as, 338; solo of, 357
Theatre Lyrique, 145 Vogel, 307
Thomas, Ambrose, 146 Voltaire, house of, 143
Index
Wagner, fondness o! Kellogg for Werther, 91
music of, 30; use of flute by, 52; West Point, primitive conditions
as a revolutionist, 78, 263, 264, of, 17;conspiracies at, 18
265; reviewers and, 88; mention Wheeler, A. C., 42, 75
of, 90, 292; French idea of, White, Stanford, 280
140, 253; von Bulow and, 298; Whitney, M. W., 298
Hanslick and, 329, 330 Widor, 305
Walcot, Charles, 15 Wieniawski, 246
Wales, Prince of, 133, 164, 177, Wig, for Marguerite, 82-84, 140;
178, 180-183; daughter of, 190, of Leuta, 265
192, 301.302 Wilde, Oscar, 254, 255
Wales, Princess of, 178, 180-183, Willt, Marie, anecdote of, 153
302 Witherspoon, Herbert, in Norfolk,
Wallack, John, exclamation of, 16 9; in NewHartford, 67
Wallack, Lester, 300 Wood, Mrs. John, 15
Waltz, The Kellogg, 135, 138 Worth, creations of, 136, 278, 279,
War, Civil, West Point before 347, 348
the, 19; beginning of the, 54; Wyckoff, Chevalier, 148, 188
attitude of public toward, 55;
riots in New York during, 59- Yeats, Edmund, 246, 247
61; opera during the, 74, 75; Young, Brigham, 298
close of, no; after the, 201;
reference to, 233, 359, 360 Zerlina, Piccolomini as, 14; Kel-
Wehli, James M., 201 logg as, 74, 9^-93, 97, 137, 170;
Welldon, Georgina, 241-243 country of, 159; Lucca as, 249
Jl Selection from the
Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogue
on application
"A grab'bag of fascinations, for open the pages
where one wilt, each chapter has its racy anecdote
and astonishing story."
My Autobiography
Madame Judith
of the Comedie Francaise
Edited by Paul G'Sell
Translated by Mrs. Arthur Bull
With Photogravure Frontispiece. $3.50 net

By mail, $3.75
Madame Judith was not only a stage rival but a close friend
of the greatFrench actress, Rachel, and the intimate of Victor
Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Alexandre Dumas, Prince Napoleon,
and many other men of letters and rank.
Madame Judith's memories extend over an intensely in-
teresting period of French history, commencing with the
Revolution that ushered in the Second Empire, and ending with
the foundation of the Republic after the Franco-Prussian War.
Famous actors and actresses, poets, novelists, dramatists,
members of the imperial family, statesmen, and minor actors in
the drama of life flit across the canvas, their personalities being
vividly realized by some significant anecdotes or telling charac-
terizations.
Kind-hearted, clear-headed, and brilliantly gifted, Madame
Judith led an active and fascinating life, and it is to her credit
that while she does not hesitate to tell of the weaknesses of
others, she is equally ready to acknowledge her own.
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London

The Life of
Henry Labouchere
By Algar Labouchere Thorold
Authorized Edition. 2 vols. With 6 Photo-
gravure Illustrations
The authorized edition has been prepared by the
nephew of Mr. Labouchere, who for the last ten years

has been a close neighbor of, and in intimate and
personal relation with him. Mr. Labouchere frequently
communicated Mr. Thorold many details of his early
to
life, and discussed with him his numerous activities with

great freedom. Mr. Thorold has, furthermore, sole
access to a voluminous correspondence, including letters

from King Edward VII. when Prince of Wales, Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Morley, Sir William Harcourt, Mr.
Parnell, Lord
Randolph Churchill, and Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, which shed a new ard un-
expected light upon his political and personal relations
with the events and people of his time, in particular his

connection with the Radical Party over a period of a
considerable number of years. His life as a war cor-
respondent during the siege of Paris and his action in
connection with the Pamell Commission, culminating in

the dramatic confession of Pigott, will be treated in full
detail. As is well-known Mr. Labouchere was the

founder and first editor of Truth, that unique produc-
tion of modern journalism; and much new and interesting
information concerning the foundation and early days of
this remarkable journal will be brought before the
public.

Woman's Defense
My Own Story
Louisa of Tuscany
Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony
With 19 Illustrations from Original Photographs

8. $3.50 net. (By mail, $3.75)
In this volume Princess Louisa gives for the

firsttime the authentic inside history of the events
that led to her sensational escape from the Court
of Saxony and her meeting with Monsieur Giron,
with whom the tongue of scandal had associated her
name. It is a story of Court intrigue that reads
like romance.
"
As the story of a woman's life, as a descrip-
Royal houses, we have
tion of the private affairs of
had nothing more intimate, more scandalous, or
more readable than this very frank story."
Miss Jeannette L. Gilder in " The Reader."
'
Frank, free, amazingly intimate, refreshing.

. . She has spared nobody from kings and
.
kaisers to valets and chambermaids."

London Morning Post.
"
The Princess is a decidedly vivacious writer,
and she does not mince words in describing the
various royalties by whom she was surrounded.
Some of her pictures of Court life will prove a
decided revelation to most readers." N. Y. Times.

A STARTLING BOOK!
My Past
Reminiscences of the Courts of Austria and of Bavaria
By the Countess Marie Larisch

Nee Baroness Von Wallersee
Daughter of Duke Ludwig and Niece of the Late Empress Elizabeth of
Austria
8. With 21 Illustrations from Original Photographs

$3.50 net. By mail, $3.75
The True Story of the Tragic Death of Qudolph,

Crown Prince of Austria
The author was the favourite niece of the Empress
Elizabeth of Austria and enjoyed her aunt's complete
trust. The Empress confided to her mauy circum-
stances which this cautious ruler withheld from others
close to her person. Her station at the Austrian Court
has enabled her to tell many intimate and curiosity-
arousing anecdotes concerning the noble families of
Europe.
Interesting and full of glamour as her life was,
however, her place in history is assured primarily
through her inadvertent connection with the amour
which Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria carried on
with the Baroness Mary Vetsera, and which culminated
in the tragic death of the lovers at Meyerling.
"Jin amazing chronicle of imperial and

royal scandals, which spares no member of the
two august houses to which she is related."
N. Y. Tribune.

l.LZ
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
305 De Neve Drive -
Parking Lot 17 Box 951388
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388
Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
Music
Library
A 000146768 7

Kellogg Memoirs

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Kellogg Memoirs

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Kellogg Memoirs

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE LIBRARY

American Prima Donna

Clara Louise Kellogg

Ube UnCcfecrbocfeec pteas, flew Sorb

AS BOTH A RARE WOMAN AND A RARER FRIEND

and nowhere in the world would a biography of her be

singer's best creations can live but in the hearts of a

Clara Louise Kellogg came from New England stock

was educated in America, and her career, both in Amer-

umphs. When Gounod's Faust was a musical and an

ties, and friends came from miles away to offer their

congratulations. Perhaps the most pleasant incident of

II. GIRLHOOD . . . . . .11

IV. A YOUTHFUL REALIST .... 33

V. LITERARY BOSTON ..... 43

VI. WAR TIMES 55

VII. STEPS OF THE LADDER .... 62

VIII. MARGUERITE ...... 77

IX. OPERA COMIQUE ..... 90

X. ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE

XI. THE END OF THE WAR . . . .no

XVI. FELLOW- ARTISTS . . . .

XX. "YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER" .212

XXI. ON THE ROAD 227

XXII. LONDON AGAIN ..... 235

XXIII. THE SEASON WITH LUCCA . . .

XXIV. ENGLISH OPERA ..... 254

XXV. ENGLISH OPERA Continued . . . 266

XXVI. AMATEURS AND OTHERS . .

XXIX. TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED .

XXXII. GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA AND THEN ? .

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH

GEORGE KELLOGG. . . . . . .10

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED THREE . . 12

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED SEVEN . . 14

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A GIRL

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A YOUNG LADY . 28

BRIGNOLI, 1865 .......

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN 1861

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS FIGLIA

GENERAL HORACE PORTER

From a photograph by Gurney & Son

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LUCIA

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARTHA

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1865 . 82

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1864 . 88

JANE ELIZABETH CROSBY 108

HENRY G. STEBBINS . . . . . .122

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LINDA, 1868 . .

MR. JAMES MCHENRY 138

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE . . . . . .188

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS CARMEN . .

SIR HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY AS THE VICAR

FIRST EDITION OF THE "FAUST" SCORE, PUBLISHED

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG IN MIGNON . . .

ELLEN TERRY 284

COLONEL HENRY MAPLESON

CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS AIDA

LETTER FROM EDWIN BOOTH TO CLARA LOUISE

"ELPSTONE," NEW HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT . 370