Part 11 (1/2)
I was stopping in the Grand Pacific Hotel when the body was brought to Chicago, and my windows overlooked 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 mult.i.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 pa.s.sing 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 solemnity 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 a.s.sociated 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 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 emotional 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 apprehension. 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 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 ba.s.so, Susini. Susini--himself a soldier of courage and experience, a veteran of the Italian rebellion--made his entrance, walked forward, stood, 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 afterwards 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.
Immediately, 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 unaffected. He bewildered me by apologising courteously for not being able to shake hands with me.
”You have had an accident to your hand!” I exclaimed.
”Not exactly an accident,” he said, smiling. ”I think I may 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_, and that, naturally, was the song he was constantly 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: =General William Tec.u.mseh Sherman, 1877=
From a photograph by Mora]
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-fas.h.i.+oned, plantation-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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Musical notation; In de lit-tle old log cab-in in de lane.]
One night when I was singing in a concert in Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 _Little Old Log Cabin_. My 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 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!
The following season was one of concerts and not remarkably enjoyable.
In retrospect I see but a hurried jumble of work until our decision, in the spring, to go to England.