Jenny Lind sang at Castle Garden, where I had sat nearly twenty years before, when New York had about half the population.  The crowds pressed around the entrances.  Those who could not afford to enter hoped to get a glimpse of her anyway.  It was an enormous audience, and all of distinguished New York was there.  Senator Webster had been one of those to receive her at the pier, and he was in the audience too.  We were all deeply moved by this wonderful voice.  Poor Dorothy was frequently drying her eyes.  And when she sang one of her own national airs, Webster sat entranced.  At its close she courtesied to him.  He arose and bowed to her with the majestic manner of a great monarch.  The audience went into a fury of applause.  Every one spoke of her as good of heart, sweet and natural of manner.  She had given her share of the proceeds of this concert to various charities in New York City.  A feeling of uplifted life spread over the metropolis.  She melted the souls of thousands, and purged the craft of money getting.  We came away from her as from a higher realm.  “What,” said Abigail, “is anything in the world, money or statesmanship, what, of all these things of which we have talked to-day can be compared to an art like that, a divine influence like song?”

After this we started on a round of the theaters.  I prevailed upon our friends to prolong their stay, to be our guests.  We saw Burton and Edwin Booth.  We went to the Opera, saw the ballet which Fannie Ellsler had previously inaugurated.  The Independent was denouncing the theater as an unmitigated evil; the ballet was a shocking exhibition of legs.  Still they had come, and New York had them.

We dined at Niblo’s, at Castle Garden.  We drove about the city.  We went out to see Trenton Falls where Jenny Lind had been taken as part of her entertainment, and where she had sung in the woods and been answered by the birds.

I began to notice that Dorothy was unusually quiet.  She complained of fatigue, of pain.  We had done too much perhaps.  One morning she could not arise.  Abigail and Aldington were returning to Chicago.  We had expected to go with them.  But Dorothy could not travel now—­she could not stand that terrible journey of boats and cars, of changes and delays.  So we bade adieu to our friends.

Dorothy did not rally, as I had expected.  She grew weaker day by day.  She became gravely ill.  In the midst of the extra labor thrown upon Mammy, she too was compelled to take to her bed.  I was forced to look about for servants, finding two Irish girls at last.  Then quite suddenly Mammy died.  She was very old.  And thus we were cut off from all our past, Nashville, the old days.  And I stayed almost constantly by Dorothy’s side, trying to bring back her strength.  It entered my mind at times that after all I was not as tender a husband to Dorothy as I should have been.  I was with her a good deal, to be sure.  At the same time, I was much preoccupied.  She did not like politics, and could not share my interest in that direction.  The condition of the country really distressed her.  She had seen slavery in its benign aspect, and she was impatient with any criticism of the institution.