“Herself, and not her music”: Emily Dickinson goes to a Jenny Lind concert, 3 July 1851

On 3 July 1851, twenty-year-old Emily Dickinson went to a concert in Northampton, Massachusetts, by the Swedish singer Jenny Lind (1820-1887). Three days later, she wrote about it to her brother Austin, who was then living in Boston: The singer, not her singing, was what captured Dickinson's attention: "Herself, and not her music, was what we seemed to love – she has an air of exile in her mild blue eyes, and a something sweet and touching in her native accent which charms her many friends." Yet Dickinson could not name what charmed her about Lind: she "seemed to love" her, with that vague "air of exile" and "something" about her accent. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 November 2024)