Part 14

“You are very kind to remember me so generously, and I appreciate it. The time has been when wild horses could not have held me back from an exhibition of the ‘Tissot Paintings,’ nor from the admirable lectures of Dean Stubbs. But I am an old woman now--I shall be eighty on my next birthday, and while I am in remarkable health, and rarely know a sick day, yet since my husband’s death the heart has gone out of me forever. I keep steadily at work, omitting nothing that I ought to do, but it is the stern compulsion of duty now that moves me. I rarely get beyond what I ought to do, and that consumes my time very thoroughly. The joy of work, the pleasure of doing, the delight in seeing and hearing new things have gone from me. I am not sorrowful, nor desolate, and I thank God that I was permitted to accompany my husband to the very verge of the life beyond, and that he was conscious and serene to the last moment. I have only a hand’s breadth of life before me, and shall not live long enough to get once more into my old touch with the life of to-day.

“I sent two of my pretty granddaughters to the Exhibition of Paintings, who took with them a picture of you, to help them identify you, if you were present. They came home, declaring that ‘they had stared every man at the show out of countenance,’ but they did not find you. They would have introduced themselves to you, if they had found ‘a man to match their picture.’ They were enthusiastic over the paintings. ‘They were as exquisite as miniatures,’ they said. Yesterday, my oldest granddaughter and namesake, just graduated from Wellesley, went with her betrothed to see the paintings. I haven’t yet heard their report.

“Oh, my dear friend, nobody dies of ‘rheumatism,’ nor of asthma. People afflicted with those perennial ailments live to kill everybody that helps take care of them. So, buy a cane, or a pair of crutches, according to the sort of rheumatism you have, and keep on hobbling round. I thought I had rheumatism for two years, and doctored for it, and anathematized it--when it turned out to be a broken tendon. I had neglected it so long that it was past cure when I consulted a specialist, and now--now I wear a cane, and all my friends add to my collection of canes on my birthdays and at Christmas.

“Once more thanking you for your kindness, I remain,

“Yours very truly, “MARY A. LIVERMORE.”

* * * * *

Miss Lucy Stone was to address a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, of Maiden, Mass., of which William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker were the presiding geniuses, in the autumn of 1847. The following announcement was made by the pastor of the Congregational Church: “I am requested by Mr. Mowey to say that a hen will undertake to crow like a cock at the Town Hall this afternoon at five o’clock. Anybody who wants to hear that kind of music will, of course, attend.”

Everybody besieged Mr. Mowey to learn what kind of hen it was. He told them, it was Miss Lucy Stone, a young woman who was graduated from a college in an Ohio town called Oberlin, where women were allowed the same educational privileges as men. This remarkable announcement was a great advertisement, and brought together a large meeting.

It was the first time in the lives of the people that a woman’s voice was heard from the rostrum in the cause of freedom. From that time onward for many years Lucy Stone travelled and lectured in behalf of “woman suffrage” and the slave, suffering the same persecutions as did Phillips and other lecturers.

One night, while speaking in New England, a pane of glass was removed from a window behind the speaker, and a hose put through it. The little woman lecturer was deluged with ice water. Wrapping her shawl closely about her, she calmly finished her address. Again, at Cape Cod the Anti-Slavery Society held a meeting in a grove. The mob surrounded the speakers and roughly handled Mr. Foster and Miss Stone. The bravery of the latter so won the admiration of the leader of the mob that he defended her with a club, and stood by her while from a stump she addressed the multitude. The listeners were so moved by her speech that they subsided into quiet, and at its conclusion a collection of $20 was taken up to pay Foster for his coat.

“When Lucy Stone died, at Dorchester, Mass., October, 1893, the entire press of America and the civilized world eulogized her. The Boston _Herald_ said: “She goes to her grave honored, beloved, and mourned by the whole American people.” The New York _Independent_: “The death of Lucy Stone removes one of the world’s greatest benefactors.” _Harper’s Weekly_: “Her life was full of earnestness, goodness, blessedness, and the world is better that she lived.” I knew Lucy Stone only slightly during the last decade of her life. She was small in stature, dainty in dress, and possessed a voice of singular sweetness. Hers was a sympathetic and charming personality. Never again will there be a woman orator of her type. Conditions are wanting. She was a product of the times.

Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, born and educated in America, gifted with one of the sweetest voices ever heard, endowed with common sense, energy, and character above reproach--of American lyric artists of this generation there is no name that has carried more weight. She was educated not only in her own, but also in the French, German, and Italian languages. Her musical talent amounted to genius, and she translated a repertoire of standard Italian operas into English. Making her début in the Academy of Music, in New York, in 1862, she became a favorite at once and held first place as an American prima donna for twenty years without a peer. Without a peer in that field she was also a thoroughly sensible business woman. Sought after in society more than any other of our singers, she was always a sincere and devoted lover of her art. Her personal friends were among the choicest people we have; she was never in any company that was not the best. She read the newspapers, and took an active part in all important national issues. She was a brilliant conversationalist. She never wanted a great guarantee for singing where there was no cash in the house. She made money for herself and her manager. She made a fortune and retired. She owns a pretty summer home in New Hartford, Connecticut.

She has been an honor to her profession, her sex, and her country. She possesses all the qualifications that the word lady implies. Her associate artists respected, admired, and loved her. Miss Kellogg is an expert on the banjo, and is very fond of negro songs.

Many and many an evening when we had an off night, or were spending Sunday in some poor hotel, she would get the company together in the parlor, and if there happened to be a piano, she would give us an evening of song and music in which the principals of the company would join, and the doors would be thrown open and the corridors and adjoining rooms thronged with guests, who were delighted with an entertainment that wealth and managerial skill could never produce.

Her speaking voice was almost as agreeable to listen to as her singing voice, and thus she was an admired attraction wherever she happened to be. In the hotel parlors, or in a box at the opera, she was invariably surrounded by groups of charmed listeners. She was a Good Samaritan, too. Having studied medicine, she carried a little case of standard remedies. If one of the singers was threatened with a cold she could always nip it in the bud. If an accident occurred, she had bandages and necessary supplies to bring relief.

She could comfort the distressed. Here is an instance: On our arrival at St. Paul, while waiting in the hotel parlors to be assigned to our rooms, William, our piano-tuner, came to me with tears running down his face. He was in deep distress; he must leave us at once and go back to New York. His brother had died. Miss Kellogg, seeing the poor fellow, immediately came to his relief.

“What is it, William?” she asked.

“My brother is dead. I must go home.”

“When did he die?” asked Miss Kellogg.

“I did not get the letter until just now. It has been forwarded from Omaha. He has been buried two weeks.”

Miss Kellogg tried to persuade him that he could be of no assistance in hurrying home now, that in a short time we would all be back, and he would be better off to remain with the company. Besides, we could not spare him, as there was no one to take his place. He was persistent, being a superstitious young German.

Miss Kellogg said at last, “Now, William, come with me.”

She walked out with him to a dry-goods store, bought a piece of black crêpe, and tied it on his arm in a very elaborate bow. She made him get a silk hat and have it trimmed with crêpe. In half an hour William was back among us, decorated in full mourning and completely consoled. The entire company were sympathizing with him. He was almost happy, and the rest of us were satisfied and pleased.

Clara Louise Kellogg knows the way to every human heart, from the most humble to the highest.

Emma Abbott, “honest little Emma” is what George Lake called her. I first knew this child singer in 1867. She was a member of a concert company. It was not a bad company, either, at least, Chicagoans thought so. It consisted of

Mrs. Frank Lombard Soprano. Little Emma Abbott, the child wonder Song and Guitar. L. J. Boutwell Tenor. Tom Corwin Basso.

In Appleton, where I lived, I managed the concerts, which were then considered a great success. The receipts were about $75. Tickets, twenty-five cents. The party spent Sunday in Appleton, and in the afternoon we had the child wonder and her guitar at our house. My critical musical ear was not fully developed at that time. I thought the staccato pyrotechnics, and the deep alto, and all the intermediate notes, mixed with the thunder and lightning and other noises of the instrument, the most wonderful of anything I had yet seen and heard. Everybody present seemed to be affected as severely as I was. Mr. Corwin told me that this girl was certain of becoming one of the world’s greatest opera singers some day. I did not understand all he meant then, any more than I did that some day I should be living in New York or Boston, and would be glad to pay this child wonder $500 for her first concert on her return to America, after having become a “finished artist,” as Emma styled herself.

Miss Abbott’s name found favor all over the country. She made friends with the churches, lodges, and societies of all kinds. Her company was generally known as the attraction for the opening of all new opera houses. No combination ever travelled more miles or endured more hardships than the Abbott Opera Company, and no company of artists ever worked for such pittance of salaries. No artist ever worked harder than Miss Abbott. She would often sing seven and sometimes eight operas a week. She required no artist to do more than she did herself.

She was a conspicuous auditor on every public occasion that gave opportunity. At fairs, races, ball games, athletic tournaments she seldom failed to receive demonstration of recognition, and was invariably noticed in the press the following day. She steered clear of metropolitan cities. Her value was in smaller cities and country opera houses, where she drew large crowds with light expenses. She has done “Martha” with an orchestra of a piano, violin, and cornet, and seldom had an orchestra of over six. I saw and heard her in Louisville, in “Romeo and Juliet,” with an orchestra of seven, and the house packed to its fullest capacity.

Here is a letter of Emma’s which illustrates her managerial care:

* * * * *

“DEAR MR. POND: I write to tell you to be sure to see the second act of Mignon [containing toilet scene of _Styrienne_, etc.], to-night, for that is the important one for me. I know how gentlemen, who are so busy as you are, generally do. They come when the important part is all over.

“In haste, “Yours faithfully, “EMMA ABBOTT.”

“Be sure and let me see your wife.”

* * * * *

This reminds me of an incident in Louisville. I was there with Henry Ward Beecher on a Saturday night. Miss Abbott and her company were at another theatre. I attended the Abbott matinee that afternoon. I wanted to see Miss Abbott as _Juliet_ (Castle as _Romeo_), and to see and hear the “Abbott kiss,” which was their great advertising feature that season. I saw it all. Miss Abbott was in her wonderful, heavy lace _Juliet_ dress, and her blond wig with the two great braids that trailed with her skirt. It was wholly an Abbott occasion, with little to attract attention to any other members of the company. The time arrived for the kiss. It came. It was a success. It was real, and the smack sounded to the remotest nook of the gallery.

After the performance that afternoon I rode to the hotel in a carriage with Miss Abbott and her husband, Eugene Wetherell, to the Gait House, where we three dined together. I had reserved a box for them at the Mercantile Library Hall lecture in the evening, which was crowded to hear Mr. Beecher. I remained near the door until some time after the lecture began, watching for “Honest Little Emma” to appear.

The lecture was about half through when something happened. The attention of the audience was attracted to the front of the house. All of a sudden there came walking down the centre aisle Miss Emma Abbott in her _Juliet_ make-up and wig, the trail fairly sweeping the aisle. Walking down to the orchestra rail, she turned and walked in front of the audience to the box which was on the left of the stage, and which she might easily have reached by the side aisle without observation.

After the great wave of interruption had spent itself, Mr. Beecher continued his lecture to the end, when Miss Abbott leaped from the box, rushed to Mr Beecher, in whose church in Brooklyn she had formerly sung, exclaiming:

“Dear Mr. Beecher, how do you do? You must excuse my _Juliet_ make-up and dress and wig. I felt that I must see you, and I rushed from the opera over here without changing my dress, fearing I should miss you.”

She had not seen the theatre since five o’clock, as she had a double company, and in the evening the opera of “Carmen” was given with Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald (now of the Bostonians) and Tom Karl as tenor. The little fraud! It is reported that she left a fortune of over half a million dollars.

Miss Helen Potter personated favorites of the lyceum to such perfection that she crowded the Music Halls in Boston and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. The entertainment was entirely novel, and eminently popular. It consisted of readings, chiefly humorous and heroic, well chosen, dramatic, and in costume. They were “lyceum personations,” not only of the manner, but of the rhetoric, of distinguished lecturers and elocutionists of that time (the seventies).

Miss Potter’s personations of John B. Gough were so perfect, the wig, beard, and masculine garments so well chosen and so well arranged, and his peculiarities of voice and manner so faithfully represented, that the audience often forgot it was a personation and thought that they were listening to Gough himself.

Miss Potter made a fortune with her entertainment. She cleared over $20,000 in her second season, was a favorite for about eight years, and then retired. She has no successor.

Annie Grey came to America early in the summer of 1898 to give her Scottish song recitals before several of the Chautauqua assemblies. She appeared before a number of these large gatherings, at Monona Lake Assembly, Madison, Wis., at Rock River Assembly, Dixon, Ill., at Bay View Assembly, Mich., and at the Ocean Grove (N. J.) Assembly, where she kept over four thousand people charmed for nearly two hours solely by her singing and recital of the old Scotch ballads. It was a unique entertainment, which captivated and charmed all these assemblies. There had never been anything like them before in this country.

At each recital Annie Grey sang one or two songs in Gaelic, to illustrate the beauty of that language, accompanying herself on the clarsach or ancient Scottish harp, once the national instrument, before it was supplanted by the bagpipes. The instrument she used was made especially for her, and had stops so arranged that the key could be quickly changed. It was a great favorite everywhere she went. Her mother, Madame Ogilvie Grey, an eminent pianist, travelled with her, filling two numbers on the programme with Scotch melodies on the piano and also playing many of her daughter’s accompaniments in a really wonderful way.

The subjects of Annie Grey’s song recitals were: “The Lays, Lilts, and Legends of Scotland,” “Robert Burns: His Pathos and Humor Told in Poetry and Song,” and “The Gathering of the Clans.” In the latter she graphically told in song and story the stirring incidents connected with the Jacobite rising in 1745, to which period Scotland owes many of the best of her ballads.

In the musical world Annie Grey holds a position of unique importance, and enthusiastic audiences and appreciative remembrances are hers by right of conquest in her chosen field of Scottish minstrelsy. Here no one can touch her: she is supreme. In Scotland, in all parts of England, on the Continent, and in the United States, the delightful entertainments of her own devising and her own single-handed performance have brought the wealth of Scottish minstrelsy, with its marvellous power over the emotions of men and women, home to the understanding and hearts of thousands. Being in love with her subject, she carries her audience with her from first to last, making it laugh or thrill or sadden as she wills. Her voice is perfectly modulated for lecturing and reciting purposes, and her singing of Scottish songs stands apart and above anything that has ever been attempted in the same line in this country. Certainly at the present time it would be difficult to name any professional woman who can sing “The Auld Scots Sangs,” grave and gay, patriotic and humorous, with more fervor and feeling than Annie Grey. Her distinct enunciation of the words, and the expression she puts into them, make her singing most enjoyable. Where necessary, she also infuses a good deal of dramatic passion into her performance.

She gave interesting accounts of the composition of various ballads and songs, and told graceful and pathetic details of the lives and circumstances of their authors. Of “Annie Laurie,” which she sang with remarkable expression, she said: “I am surprised to find in America the thought that ‘Annie Laurie’ was written two hundred years ago, for I have the honor of a personal acquaintance with Lady John Scott, its author, who is now in her ninetieth year, and who, I can assure you, has no thought of being an antiquity.”

Annie Grey invariably received ovations at the conclusion of her entertainments, and hundreds flocked to the platform to attest their appreciation of her efforts. Her manner was not in the least bit affected, and she received all praises with the utmost grace.

Annie Grey has sung before Queen Victoria and her court at Balmoral, on which occasion her Majesty presented Miss Grey with a diamond bracelet. She has sung before many other of the crowned heads of Europe, and with many of the Italian opera singers well known to American audiences. She was the original Buttercup in Pinafore when that opera was produced in Edinburgh. For many years she was the favorite pupil of the famous master Randegger.

I had first heard of Annie Grey through Mr. Christy, her London manager, then when I saw her unbroken success and popularity with the refined, and therefore somewhat critical, audiences at the Chautauqua assemblies, where she first appeared in America, I felt confident that she would be a success wherever she went in the United States, and so secured her for a supplementary tour.

After the Chautauquas she gave three recitals before crowded audiences in New York, and received most generous praise from the entire New York press. The Chickering Piano Company showed their friendly interest by offering the gratuitous use of Chickering Hall, and supplied her with a grand piano both at her recitals and in her hotel.

Having captured New York, she laid siege to Boston, where four recitals won a capitulation, as the press notices show. The civic and military authorities appeared in full uniform at her first recital there, the Clan Mackenzie, in Highland costume, was present and made her a Scottish Chief, and the White Rose Society publicly decorated her with their order set in gold.

From Boston she went to Montreal, then to Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Saratoga, and to many of the large cities and towns of the United States. Everywhere she was received with the greatest kindness and enthusiasm, and her admirers made her many presents. The practical wife of a Scottish millionaire handed her a box of oatmeal cakes and a card informing her that she had had them specially baked for Annie Grey and her mother.

Some of her most delightful experiences, as she afterward said, were connected with the recitals she gave at leading colleges for women. She spoke of the students she met there as “such charming girls,” and said she should “never forget the sound of those lovely, fresh American voices, as we all sang together ‘Auld Lang Syne’ before parting.”

Annie Grey and her mother, while in this country, were frequently guests at my house, and there met Hall Caine, Zangwill, Justin McCarthy, Lieut. Herbert Ward, of Stanley expedition fame, and Mr. Le Sage, the New York representative of the London _Daily Telegraph_.

One evening she and her mother gave the Burns Lecture-Song Recital in our drawing-rooms. It was a grand success. One of our neighbors, a well-known critic, who has been a regular attendant at these functions for years, declared in the presence of the audience that it was the most delightful entertainment of all we had ever given.

Zangwill took dinner with us another evening, and gave in our parlors the finest lecture we had yet heard from him. The house was crowded. Mr. W. F. Frame, the celebrated Scotch singing comedian, and Mr. Booth, the musical director, were spending that night with us. After the lecture we had singing by Frame and Annie Grey--a triple bill. At the close of the evening all the company joined hands and danced around a circle, singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Zangwill joined hands with us and entered into the spirit of the whole affair, as much a Scotchman as any of them. It was jolly, indeed.

Her last appearance in America was on the afternoon of February 2, 1899, when she gave her “Lilts, Lays, and Legends of Scotland” for the Winter Memorial Library at the Staten Island Academy. Mr. William Winter declared it one of the best he remembered in all his experience among public gatherings, and shortly afterward referred to it again in the following letter:

* * * * *

“HOME, February 17, 1899.

“MY DEAR MR. POND: I have your kind and welcome letter of February 12, and I am indeed glad to know that Annie Grey was pleased with her visit to Staten Island. Her coming to us was an honor and a benefit, and she made a deep and lasting impression on the minds of her audience. For my own part, I shall always remember her, and also her venerable mother, with the greatest kindness and pleasure.

“Faithfully yours, “WILLIAM WINTER.”

* * * * *

Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth is another great woman, as much in demand at the present time (1900) as any of those before mentioned were in their palmiest days.