Part 4 (2/2)
And then she recited an Italian poem. Next to hearing Patti sing, the sweetest sound was her Italian speech. Presently she said:
”Speaking of languages, Mr. Gladstone paid me a pretty compliment a little while ago--nearly three years ago. I will show you his letter to-morrow, if you care to see it.”
Patti forgot nothing. The next day she brought me Mr. Gladstone's letter. The Grand Old Man had been among her auditors at Edinburgh, and after the performance he went on the stage to thank her for the pleasure she had given him. He complained a little of a cold which had been troubling him, and Patti begged him to try some lozenges which she found useful. That night she sent him a little box of them. The old statesman acknowledged the gift with this letter:
6, Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh.
October 22, 1890.
Dear Madame Patti:
I do not know how to thank you enough for your charming gift. I am afraid, however, that the use {63} of your lozenges will not make me your rival. _Voce quastata di ottante' anni non si ricupera_.
It was a rare treat to hear from your Italian lips last night the songs of my own tongue, rendered with a delicacy of modulation and a fineness of utterance such as no native ever in my hearing had reached or even approached. Believe me,
Faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.
This letter, naturally enough, gave conversation a reminiscent turn.
After some talk of great folk she had known, I asked Madame Patti what had been the proudest experience in her career.
”For a great and unexpected honour most gracefully tendered,” said she, ”I have known nothing that has touched me more deeply than a compliment paid by the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII) and a distinguished company, at a dinner given to the Duke of York and the Princess May (the present King and Queen), a little while before their wedding. The dinner was given by Mr. Alfred Rothschild, one of my oldest and best friends. There were many royalties present and more dukes and d.u.c.h.esses than I can easily remember. During the ceremonies the Prince of Wales arose, and to my astonishment, proposed the health of his 'old and valued friend, Madame Patti.' He made _such_ a pretty speech, and in the course of it said that he had first seen and heard me in Philadelphia in 1860, when I sang in 'Martha', and that since then his own attendance at what he was good enough to call my 'victories in the realm of song' had been among his pleasantest {64} recollections. He recalled the fact that on one of the occasions, when the Princess and himself had invited me to Marlborough House, his wife had held up little Prince George, in whose honour we were this night a.s.sembled, and bade him kiss me, so that in after life he might say that he had 'kissed the famous Madame Patti.' And then, do you know, that whole company of royalty, n.o.bility, and men of genius rose and cheered me and drank my health. Don't you think that any little woman would be proud, and ought to be proud, of a spontaneous tribute like that?”
It is difficult, when repeating in this way such s.n.a.t.c.hes of biography, to suggest the modest tone and manner of the person whose words may be recorded. It is particularly difficult in the case of Madame Patti, who was absolutely unspoiled by praise. Autobiography such as hers must read a little fanciful to most folk; it is so far removed from the common experiences of us all and even from the extraordinary experiences of the renowned persons we hear about usually. But there was not a patch of vanity in Patti's sunny nature. Her life had been a long, unbroken record of success,--success to a degree attained by no other woman. No one else has won and held such homage; no one else had been so wondrously endowed with beauty and genius and sweet simplicity of nature,--a nature unmarred by flattery, by applause, by wealth, by the possession and exercise of power. Patti at fifty was like a girl in her ways, in her thoughts, her spirit, in her disinterestedness, in her enjoyments. {65} Time had dimmed none of her charms, it had not lessened then her superb gifts. She said to me one day:
”They tell me I am getting to be an old woman, but I don't believe it.
I don't feel old. I feel young. I am the youngest person of my acquaintance.”
That was true enough, as they knew who saw Patti from day to day. She had all the enthusiasm and none of the affectations of a young girl.
When she spoke of herself it was with most delicious frankness and lack of self-consciousness. She was perfectly natural.
She promised to show me the programme of that Philadelphia performance before the Prince of Wales so long ago, and the next day she put it before me. It was a satin programme with gilt fringe, and it was topped by the Prince of Wales's feathers. At that Philadelphia performance Patti made her first appearance before royalty. In the next year she made her London debut at Covent Garden, as Amina in ”La Somnambula.” The next morning Europe rang with the fame of the new prima donna from America.
”I tried to show them that the young lady from America was ent.i.tled to a hearing,” said she, as we looked over the old programmes.
”And has 'the young lady from America' kept her national spirit, or has she become so much a citizen of the world that no corner of it has any greater claim than another upon her affections?”
”I love the Italian language, the American people, {66} the English country, and my Welsh home,” she said.
”Good! The national preferences, if you can be said to own any, have reason on their side. Your parents were Italian, you were born in Spain, you made your first professional appearance in America, you first won international fame in England, and among these Welsh hills you have planted a paradise.”
”How nice of you! That evening at Mr. Alfred Rothschild's, the Prince of Wales asked me why I do not stay in London during 'the season', and take some part in its endless social pleasures. 'Because, your Royal Highness,' I replied, 'I have a lovely home in Wales, and whenever I come away from it I leave my heart there.' 'After all,' said the prince, 'why should you stay in London when the whole world is only too glad to make pilgrimages to Craig-y-Nos?' Was n't that nice of him?”
I despair of conveying any impression of the _navete_ with which the last five words were uttered. The tone expressed the most innocent pleasure in the world. When Patti spoke in that way she seemed to be wondering why people should say and do so many pleasant things on her account. There was an air of childish surprise in her look and voice.
I said: ”All good republicans have a pa.s.sion for royalty. I find that an article about a King, or a Queen, or a Prince is in greater demand in the United States than anywhere else in the world. So tell me something more about the Prince and Princess of Wales. I promise, as a zealous democrat, that {67} no one on the far side of the Atlantic will skip a word. Have the Prince and Princess visited Craig-y-Nos?”
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