JENNY LIND'S FUNERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8950, 14 January 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

JENNY LIND'S FUNERAL.

HOW THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE WAS LAID TO REST.

A London letter to the Boston Herald states : —Jenny Lind had three wishes on settling in Malvern. One was that when her summons came to go hence, she might have her faculties of speech, reason,* and consciousness to say her farewells to those she most loved. The second wish was that she might die at the place she bad chosen for the autumn of her days: The third wish was that in death she might be beautiful. She loved beauty for its own sweet sake. She was possessed of a refined sensuousness. She always possessed facial magnetism. This atoned for her plainness of countenance. Had she not been religious she would have repined. Let us note the fulfilments of her wishes. Months of illness were hers. Of these, in detail, no one could obtain an account save the surly, meagre words the ungracious Goldschmidt snarled out under persistent pressure. This pressure was brought to bear by those to whom Jenny Lind almost belonged. Hints of her insanity were expressed in print. it transpired that she had acute paralysis and was not insane. Last July she fell ill, but only latterly grew seriously so. Sad to say, she could not speak. But the last day of her life dawned. In that grey dawn she recovered her full faculties. She spoke in wondrous sweet tones. Like the dying swan, ic was the farewell song of superhuman melody. She bade her weeping servants farewell, also her immediate family. This consisted of two sons and a daughter. The latter is a Mrs. Maude, fair-haired and commonplace in looks. One son also is married. The married ones have their mother's complement of children. One son is single. This is Ernest. He is a youth with a "Piccadilly masher" manner and voice and an absence of elegance. The father has the guttural tones of voice of the lower middle' class German. It is a pity "Otto" did not inherit the traditional politeness of God's chosen people. The neighbours generally describe him as a species of "dog in tha manger" in his dealings with people. Certain it is, as the undersized, pompous, Bandy-whiskered, bald-headed Tauton frets and fames about the grounds he is anything rather than the ideal widower of this incomparable diva. The eons and the daughter inherit his mind and manners. They have neither musical nor other talent. I believe the Great Giver of Good who bestowed on ! Jenny Lind her voice did not smile on her marriage. She died in the pretty home she had prepared so few years before, and, last of all, never in life was Jenny Lind so lovely as in death. Her hair, worn in the sweet, oldfashioned smooth bands, lay like a frosted ribbon away from her noble brow. The face was that of a sleeping babe. By her own wish her grave clothes were very simple. Nor were there sable plumes above her hearse nor lugubrious crape weepers about her bearers' hats. . See ! They have brought out the flower-be-decked casket. They place it within the • glass-sided hearse. Then they commence to load up the black festooned dray with flowers made up in every conceivable shape. The air is heavy with their fragrance. It is four miles away to the Abbey. Let as take a shorter route than the cortege selects. Always weeping people, always Sowers. In Malvern the streets are packed, the windows draped in black, the blinds tightly drawn down, the flags at half-mast. All for what ? For love of her who sung her way into world-wide fame. They are so courteous to me at the Abbey Church. A seat is given behind the whiterobed pillar choristers, close to where the casket will soon stand. A hush falls on the vast crowd. Suddenly the congregation rises as one man. The mournful procession has entered the churchyard. The clergy, the choir, the bearers ; then the body ; then more bearers. The mourners number sixteen, be« sides the household servants and nurses. The sixteen included Sir Michael Biddulph, on behalf of Queen Victoria, and the Swedish Consul Eurenburg. The choristers have come from Worcester to join those of Malvern Abbey. Precentor Hall leads them. We remember him so lately at the Three Choirs festival. There are about one hundred in all of choristers. The service is choral, but there aro no solos. It seems thus a ragged service. The anthem Jenny Lind loved from Elijah" is chanted, " He that endureth to the end shall be saved." The people weep at this— all save the widower and the children. The nurses' sobs are heard softly ; the children of the dead lady preserve a stony calm. Even the daughter wears imperfect mourning. A lace dotted veil to her nose, a bonnet with black ribbons in upright bows, an ordinary black gown, a tiny gold bracelet. Not ofice does she lift her handkerchief to her eyes. The procession re-forms. It is a quarter of a mile to the cemetery. In slow solemnity the open grave is reached. "Man that is born of woman," says the priest. Thus the service goes on till the end. The burden is lowered into the cavern dug for the purpose. Each one of the family deposits a wreath or a cross within the space allotted, and thus it all ends I All, at lea3t, for earth. And the rain pours down in cold, cutting torrents; i the sun, shining all the day, droops beneath the black veil of yon grieving cloud, which weeps its silent sympathy for that world's loss which is Heaven's everlasting gain. Will the myrtle flourish henceforth ? "What myrtle?" you ask. Well, when Jenny Lind married a spray of myrtle from her bouquet was planted. It became a sturdy, tree. This presupposes a happy married life. On her death a wreath from the myrtle was placed over her heart. This we do not see. We look at the Queen's wreath, at the Princess Christian's, at the one sent by the Bath Conservatory of Music and the Swedish Minister, the^latter, with others, being made of delicate Dresden china. Scores and scores are lying on the ground. From the Prince of Wales to the peasant of Worcester tributes have arrived to breathe " fond requiescat," Thus endeth the last earthly lesson,