MARY ANDERSON

by

J. M. FARRAR, M. A. 

1885

CHAPTER I. 

AT HOME. 

Long Branch, one of America's most famous watering-places, in midsummer, its softly-wooded hills dotted here and there with picturesque "frame"villas of dazzling white, and below the purple Atlantic sweeping inrestlessly on to the New Jersey shore. The sultry day has been one ofsummer storm, and the waves are tipped still with crests of snowy foam, though now the sun is sinking peacefully to rest amid banks of cloud, aflame with rose and violet and gold. 

About a mile back from the shore stands a rambling country house embosomedin a small park a few acres in extent, and immediately surrounding itmasses of the magnificent shrub known as Rose of Sharon, in full bloom, inwhich the walls of snowy white, with their windows gleaming in thesunlight, seem set as in a bed of color. The air is full of perfume. Thescent of flower and tree rises gratefully from the rain-laden earth. Thebirds make the air musical with song; and here and there in theneighboring wood, the pretty brown squirrels spring from branch to branch, and dash down with their gambols the rain drops in a diamond spray. Abroad veranda covered with luxuriant honeysuckle and clematis stretchesalong the eastern front of the house, and the wide bay window, thrown openjust now to the summer wind, seems framed in flowers. As we approachnearer, the deep, rich notes of an organ strike upon the ear. Some one, with seeming unconsciousness, is producing a sweet passionate music, whichchanges momentarily with the player's passing mood. We pause an instantand look into the room. Here is a picture which might be called "a dreamof fair women. " Seated at the organ in the subdued light is a young womanof a strange, almost startling beauty. Her graceful figure clad in asimple black robe, unrelieved by a single ornament, is slight, and almostgirlish, though there is a rounded fullness in its line which betrays thatwomanhood has been reached. A small classic head carried with easy grace;finely chiseled features; full, deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealthof auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like ear;these complete a picture which seems to belong to another clime andanother age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of Titian. We are almostsorry to enter the room and break the spell. Mary Anderson's manner as shestarts up from the organ with a light elastic spring to greet her visitorsis singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in thebeautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tendernessand decision in the mouth, with an utter absence of thatself-consciousness and coquetry which often mar the charm of even the mostbeautiful face. This is the artist's study to which she flies back gladly, now and then, for a few weeks' rest and relaxation from the exacting lifeof a strolling player, whose days are spent wandering in pursuit of herprofession over the vast continent which stretches from the Atlantic tothe Pacific. Here she may be found often busy with her part when the faintrose begins to steal over the tree tops at early dawn; or sometimes whenthe world is asleep, and the only sounds are the wind, as it sighsmournfully through the neighboring wood, or the far-off murmur of theAtlantic waves as they dash sullenly upon the beach. On a still summer'snight she will wander sometimes, a fair Rosalind, such as Shakespearewould have loved, in the neighboring grove, and wake its silent echoes asshe recites the Great Master's lines; or she will stand upon theflower-clad veranda, under the moonlight, her hair stirred softly by thesummer wind, and it becomes to her the balcony from which Juliet murmursthe story of her love to a ghostly Romeo beneath. 

A large English deerhound, who was dozing at her feet when we entered theroom, starts up with his mistress, and after a lazy stretch seems to askto join in the welcome. Mary Anderson explains that he is an old favorite, dear from his resemblance to a hound which figures in some of theportraits of Mary Queen of Scots. He has failed ignominiously in anattempted training for a dramatic career, and can do no more than howl adoleful and distracting accompaniment to his mistress' voice in singing. We glance round the room, and see that the walls are covered withportraits of eminent actors, living and dead, with here and therebookcases filled with favorite dramatic authors; in a corner a bust ofShakespeare; and on a velvet stand a stage dagger which once belonged toSarah Siddons. Over the mantelpiece is a huge elk's head, which fell tothe rifle of General Crook, and was presented to Mary Anderson by thatrenowned American hunter; and here, under a glass case, is a stuffed hawk, a deceased actor and former colleague. Dressed in appropriate costume heused to take the part of the Hawk in Sheridan Knowles' comedy of "Love, "in which Mary Anderson played the Countess. The story of this bird'straining is as characteristic of her passion for stage realism as of thatindomitable power of will to overcome obstacles, to which much of hersuccess is due. She determined to have a live hawk for the part instead ofthe conventional stuffed one of the stage, and with some difficultyprocured a half-wild bird from a menagerie. Arming herself with strongspectacles and heavy gauntlets, she spent many a weary day in the painfulprocess of "taming the shrew. " After a long struggle, in which she cameoff sometimes torn and bleeding, the bird was taught to fly from thefalconer's shoulder on to her outstretched finger and stay there while sherecited the lines--

 "How nature fashioned him for his bold trade! Gave him his stars of eyes to range abroad. His wings of glorious spread to mow the air And breast of might to use them!"

and then, by tickling his feet, he would fly off: and flap his wingsappropriately, while she went on--

 "I delight To fly my hawk. The hawk's a glorious bird; Obedient--yet a daring, dauntless bird!"

Here, too, are her guitar and zither, on both which instruments MaryAnderson is a proficient. 

And now that we have seen all her treasures, we must follow her to the topof the house, from which is obtained a fine view of the Atlantic as itraces in mighty waves on to the beach at Long Branch. She declares that inthe offing, among the snowy craft which dance at anchor there, can bedistinguished her pretty steam yacht, the Galatea. 

Night is falling fast, but with that impulsiveness which is socharacteristic of her, Mary Anderson insists upon our paying a visit tothe stables to see her favorite mare, Maggie Logan. Poor Maggie is nowblind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry her mistress, who isa splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five miles across the prairie insixteen minutes. As we enter the box, Maggie turns her pretty head atsound of the familiar voice, and in response to a gentle hint, hermistress produces a piece of sugar from her pocket. As Mary Andersonstrokes the fine thoroughbred head, we think the pair are not very muchunlike. Meanwhile, Maggie's stable companion cranes his beautiful neckover the side of the box, and begs for the caress which is not denied him. 

Night has fallen now in earnest, and the beaming colored boy holds hislantern to guide us along the path, while Maggie whinnies after us heradieu. The grasshoppers chirp merrily in the sodden grass, and now andthen a startled rabbit darts out of the wood and crosses close to ourfeet. The light is almost blinding as we enter the cheerful dining-room, where supper is laid on the snowy cloth, and are introduced to thecharming family circle of the Long Branch villa. Though it is the home nowof an old Southerner, Mary Anderson's step-father, it is a favoritetrysting-place with Grant, the hero of the North, with Sherman, and manyanother famous man, between whom and the South there raged twenty yearsago so deadly and prolonged a feud. While not actually a daughter of theSouth by birth, Mary Anderson is such by early education and associations, and to these grim old soldiers she seems often the emblem of Peace, asthey sit in the pretty drawing-room at Long Branch, and listen, sometimeswith tear-dimmed eyes, to the sweet tones of her voice as she sings forthem their favorite songs. 

CHAPTER II. 

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 

Seldom has a more charming story been written than that of Mary Anderson'schildhood and youth to the time when, a beautiful girl of sixteen, shemade her _debut_ in what has ever since remained her favorite _role_, Juliet--and the only Juliet who has ever played the part at the same agesince Fanny Kemble. 

There was nothing in her home surroundings to guide in the direction of adramatic career; indeed her parents seemed to have entertained the notuncommon dread of the temptations and dangers of a stage life for theirdaughter, and only yielded at last before the earnest passionate purposeto which so much of Mary Anderson's after success is due. They bent wiselyat length before the mysterious power of genius which shone out in thebeautiful child long before she was able fully to understand whither theresistless promptings to tread the "mimic stage of life" were leading her. In the end the New World gained an actress of whom it may be well proud, and the Old World has been fain to confess that it has no monopoly of thehighest types of histrionic genius. 

Mary Anderson was born at Sacramento, on the Pacific slope, on the 28th ofJuly, 1859, but removed with her parents to Kentucky, when but six monthsold. German and English blood are mingled in her veins, her mother beingof German descent, while her father was the grandson of an Englishman. Onthe outbreak of the civil war he joined the ranks of the Southern armies, and fell fighting under the Confederate flag before Mobile. When but threeyears old Mary Anderson was left fatherless, and a year or two afterwardshe and her little brother Joseph found almost more than a father's loveand care in her mother's second husband, Dr. Hamilton Griffin, an oldSouthern planter, who had abandoned his plantations at the outbreak of thewar, and after a successful career as an army surgeon, established himselfin practice at Louisville. 

Mary Anderson's early years were characteristic of her future. She was oneof those children whose wild artist nature chafes under the restraints ofhome and school life. Generous to a fault, the life and soul of hercompanions, yet to control her taxed to their utmost the parentalresources; and it must be admitted she was the torment of her teachers. Her wild exuberant spirits overleaped the bounds of school life, andsometimes made order and discipline difficult of enforcement. She wasnever known to tell an untruth, but at the same time she would neverconfess to a fault. Imprisoned often for punishment in a room, she wouldsteadfastly refuse to admit that she had done wrong, and, maternalpatience exhausted, the mutinous little culprit had commonly to bereleased impenitent and unconfessed. Indeed her wildness acquired for herthe name of "Little Mustang;" as, later on, her fondness for poring overbooks beyond her childish years that of "Little Newspaper. " At school, theconfession must be made, she was refractory and idle. The prosaic routineof school life was dull and distasteful to the child, who, at ten years ofage, found her highest delight in the plays of Shakespeare. Many of herschool hours were spent in a corner, face to the wall, and with a book onher head, to restrain the mischievous habit of making faces at hercompanions, which used to convulse the school with ill-suppressedlaughter. She would sally forth in the morning with her little satchel, fresh and neat as a daisy, to return at night with frock in rents, and allthe buttons, if any way ornamental, given away in an impulsive generosityto her schoolmates. It soon became evident that she would learn little ornothing at school; and on a faithful promise to amend her ways if shemight only leave and pursue her studies at home, Mary Anderson waspermitted, when but thirteen years of age, to terminate her school career. But instead of studying "Magnall's Questions, " or becoming betteracquainted with "The Use of the Globes, " she spent most of her time indevouring the pages of Shakespeare, and committing favorite passages tomemory. To her childish fancy they seemed to open the gates of dreamland, where she could hold converse with a world peopled by heroes, and live alife apart from the prosaic everyday existence which surrounded her in amodern American town. Shakespeare was the teacher who replaced the "schoolmarm, " with her dull and formal lessons. Her quick perceptive mind graspedhis great and noble thoughts, which gave a vigor and robustness to hermental growth. Since those days she has assimilated rather than acquiredknowledge, and there are now few women of her age whose information ismore varied, or whose conversation displays greater mental culture, andhigher intellectual development. Strangely enough, it was the malecharacters of Shakespeare which touched Mary Anderson's youthful fancy;and she studied with a passionate ardor such parts as Hamlet, Romeo, andRichard III. With the wonderful intuition of an art-nature, she seems tohave felt that the cultivation of the voice was a first essential tosuccess. She ransacked her father's library for works on elocution, anddiscovering on one occasion "Rush on the Voice, " proceeded, for many weeksbefore it became known to her parents, to commence under its guidance thetask of building up a somewhat weak and ineffective organ into a voicecapable of expressing with ease the whole gamut of feeling from thefiercest passion to the tenderest sentiment, and which can fill with awhisper the largest theater. 

The passion for a theatrical career seems to have been born in the child. At ten she would recite passages from Shakespeare, and arrange her room torepresent appropriately the stage scene. Her first visit to the theaterwas when she was about twelve, one winter's evening, to see a fairy piececalled "Puck. " The house was only a short distance from her home atLouisville, and she and her little brother presented themselves at theentrance door hours before the time announced for the performance. Thedoor-keeper happened to observe the children, and thinking they wouldfreeze standing outside in the wintry wind, good naturedly opened the doorand admitted Mary Anderson to Paradise--or what seemed like it to her--theempty benches of the dress circle, the dim half-light, the mysterioushorizon of dull green curtain, beyond which lay Fairyland. Here for two orthree hours she sat entranced, till the peanut boy made his appearance toherald the approach of the glories of the evening. From that date the dieof Mary Anderson's destiny was cast. The theater became her world. Shelooked with admiring interest on a super, or even a bill-sticker, as theypassed the windows of her father's house; and an actor seen in the streetsin the flesh filled her with the same reverent awe and admiration asthough the gods had descended from their serene heights to mingle in thedust with common mortals. We are not sure that she still retains thisamong the other illusions of her youth!

The person who seems to have fixed Mary Anderson's theatrical destiny wasone Henry Woude. He had been an actor of some distinction on the Americanstage, which he had, however, abandoned for the pulpit. Mr. Woude happenedto be one of her father's patients, and the conversation turning one dayupon Mary's passion for a theatrical career, the older actor expressed awish to hear her read. He was enthusiastic in praise of the power andpromise displayed by the self-trained girl, and declared to the astonishedfather that in his youthful daughter he possessed a second Rachel. Mr. Woude advised an immediate training for a dramatic career; but theparental repugnance to the stage was not yet overcome, and Mary remained awhile longer to pursue, as best she might, her dramatic studies in her ownhome, and with no other teachers than the artistic instinct which hadalready guided her so far on the path to eventual triumph and success. 

When in her fourteenth year, Mary Anderson saw for the first time a reallygreat actor. Edwin Booth came on a starring tour to Louisville, and shewitnessed his Richard III. , one of the actor's most powerfulimpersonations. That night was a new revelation to her in dramatic art, and she returned home to lie awake for hours, sleepless from excitement, and pondering whether it were possible that she could ever wield the samemagic power. She commenced at once the serious study of "Richard III. " Themanner of Booth was carefully copied, and that great artist woulddoubtless have been as much amused as flattered to note the servility withwhich his rendering of the part was adhered to. A preliminary rehearsaltook place in the kitchen before a little colored girl, some years MaryAnderson's senior, who had that devoted attachment to her young mistressoften found in the colored races to the whites. Dinah was so muchterrified by the fierce declamation that she almost went into hysterics, and rushing up-stairs begged the mother to come down and see what was thematter with "Miss Mami, " as she was affectionately called at home. Consentwas at length obtained to a little drawing-room entertainment at home of"Richard III. , " with Miss Mary Anderson for the first and last time in thetitle _role_. For some months the young _debutante_ had carefully savedher pocket money for the purchase of an appropriate costume, and, resisting, as best she might, the attractions of the sweetmeat shop, managed to accumulate five dollars. With her mother's help a littlecostume was got up--a purple satin tunic, green silk cape, and plumedhat--and wearing the traditional hump, the youthful, representative ofRichard appeared for the first time before an audience in the Tent Scene, preceded by the Cottage Scene from "The Lady of Lyons. " The backdrawing-room was arranged as a stage; her mother acting as prompter, though her help was little needed; and, judged by the enthusiasticapplause of friends and neighbors, the performance was a great success. The young actress received it all with even more apparent coolness than ifshe had trodden the boards for years, and made her exits with the calmdignity which she had observed to be Edwin Booth's manner under similarcircumstances. Indeed, Booth became to her childish fancy the divinity whocould open to her the door of the stage she longed so ardently to reach. She confided to the little colored girl a plan to save their money, andfly to New York to Mr. Booth, and ask him to place her on the stage. Dinahentered heartily into the affair, and at one time they had managed tohoard as much as five dollars for the carrying out of this romanticscheme. Some years afterward when the wish of her heart had been longaccomplished, Mary Anderson made Mr. Booth's acquaintance, and recountingto him her childish fancy asked what he would have done if she hadsucceeded in presenting herself to him in New York. "Why, my child, Ishould have taken you down to the depot, bought a couple of tickets forLouisville, and given you in charge of the conductor, " was the ratherdiscouraging answer of the great tragedian. 

Not long afterward Mary Anderson's dramatic powers were submitted to thecritical judgment of Miss Cushman. That great actress, then in the zenithof her fame, was residing not far distant at Cincinnati. Accompanied byher mother, Mary presented herself at Miss Cushman's hotel. They happenedto meet in the vestibule. The veteran actress took the young aspirant'shand with her accustomed vigorous grasp, to which Mary, not to be outdone, nerved herself to respond in kind; and patting her at the same timeaffectionately on the cheek, invited her to read before her on an earlymorning. When Miss Cushman had entered her waiting carriage, MaryAnderson, with her wonted veneration for what pertained to the stage, begged that she might be allowed to be the first to sit in the chair thathad been occupied for a few moments by the great actress. Miss Cushman'sverdict was highly favorable. "You have, " she said, "three essentialrequisites for the stage; voice, personality, and gesture. With a year'slonger study and some training, you may venture to make an appearancebefore the public. " Miss Cushman recommended that she should take lessonsfrom the younger Vandenhoff, who was at the time a successful dramaticteacher in New York. A year from that date occurred the actress' lamenteddeath, almost on the very day of Mary Anderson's _debut_. 

Returning home thus encouraged, her dramatic studies were resumed withfresh ardor. The question of the New York project was anxiously debated inthe family councils. It was at length decided that Mary Anderson shouldreceive some regular training for the stage; and accompanied by her mothershe was soon afterward on her way to the Empire City, full of happinessand pride that the dream of her life seemed now within reach ofattainment. Vandenhoff was paid a hundred dollars for ten lessons, andtaught his pupil mainly the necessary stage business. This was, strictlyspeaking. Mary Anderson's only professional training for a dramaticcareer. The stories which have been current since her appearance inLondon, as to her having been a pupil of Cushman, or of otherdistinguished American artists, are entirely apocryphal, and have beenevolved by the critics who have given them to the world out of thatfertile soil, their own inner consciousness. There is certainly nocircumstance in her career which reflects more credit on Mary Andersonthan that her success, and the high position as an artist she has won thusearly in life, are due to her own almost unaided efforts. Well may it besaid of her--

 "What merit to be dropped on fortune's hill? The honor is to mount it. "

CHAPTER III. 

EARLY YEARS ON THE STAGE. 

Between eight and nine years ago, Mary Anderson made her _debut_ atLouisville, in the home of her childhood, and before an audience, many ofwhom had known her from a child. This was how it came about. The seasonhad not been very successful at Macaulay's Theater, and one Milnes Levick, an English stock-actor of the company, happened to be in some pecuniarydifficulties, and in need of funds to leave the town. The managerbethought him of Mary Anderson, and conceived the bold idea of producing"Romeo and Juliet, " with the untried young novice in the _role_ of Julietfor poor Levick's benefit. It was on a Thursday that the proposition wasmade to her by the manager at the theater, and the performance was to takeplace on the following Saturday. Mary, almost wild with delight, gave aneager acceptance if she could but obtain her parents' consent. Thepassers-by turned many of them that day to look at the beautiful girl, whoflew almost panting through the streets to reach her home. The bell handleactually broke in her impetuous eager hands. The answer was "Yes, " and atlength the dream of her life was realized. On the following Saturday, the27th of November, 1875, after only a single rehearsal, and wearing theborrowed costume of the manager's wife, who happened to be about the samesize as herself, and without the slightest "make up, " Mary Andersonappeared as one of Shakespeare's favorite heroines. She was announced inthe playbills thus:--

 JULIET . . BY A LOUISVILLE YOUNG LADY. (Her first appearance on any stage. )

The theater was packed from curiosity, and this is what the _LouisvilleCourier_ said of the performance next morning. 

_Louisville Courier_, November 28th, 1875. 

"We can scarcely bring ourselves to speak of the young actress, who camebefore the footlights last night, with the coolness of a critic and aspectator. An interest in native genius and young endeavor, in courage andbrave effort that arrives from so near us--our own city--precludes thepossibility of standing outside of sympathy, and peering in with analyzingand judicial glance. But we do not think that any man of judgment whowitnessed Miss Anderson's acting of Juliet, can doubt that she is a greatactress. In the latter scenes she interpreted the very spirit and soul oftragedy, and thrilled the whole house into silence by the depth of herpassion and her power. She is essentially a tragic genius, and beganreally to act only after the scene in which her nurse tells Juliet of whatshe supposes is her lover's death. The quick gasp, the terrified strickenface, the tottering step, the passionate and heart-rending accents werenature's own marks of affecting overwhelming grief. Miss Anderson hasgreat power over the lower tones of her rich voice. Her whisperelectrifies and penetrates; her hurried words in the passion of the scene, where she drinks the sleeping potion, and afterward in the catastrophe atthe end, although very far below conversational pitch, came to the earwith distinctness and with wonderful effect. In the final scene shereached the climax of her acting, which, from the time of Tybalt's deathto the end, was full of tragic power that we have never seen excelled. Itwill be observed that we have placed the merit of this actress (in ouropinion) for the most part in her deeper and more somber powers, anddespite the high praise that we more gladly offer as her due, we cannot beblind to her faults in the presentation of last evening. She is, undoubtedly, a great actress, and last night evidenced a magnificentgenius, more especially remarkable on account of her extreme youth; butwhether she is a great Juliet is, indeed, more doubtful. We can imagineher as personating Lady Macbeth superbly, and hope soon to witness her inthe part. As Juliet, her conception is almost perfect, as evinced by herrare and exceptional taste and intuitive understanding of the text. Buther enactment of the earlier scenes lacks the exuberance and earnestjoyfulness of the pure and glowing Flower of Italy, with all her fancifulconceits and delightful and loving ardor. 

"We could not, in Miss Anderson's rendition of the balcony scene, helpfeeling in the tones of her voice, an almost stern foreboding of theirsaddening fates--a foreboding stranger than that which falls as a shadowto all ecstatic youthful hope and joy. Other faults--as evident, undoubtedly, to her and to her advisers, as to us--are for the most partsuperficial, and will disappear in a little further experience. A firstappearance, coupled with so much merit and youth, may well excuse manythings. 

"A lack of true interpretation we can never excuse. We give mediocrityfair common-place words, generally of commendation unaccompanied bycensure. But when we come to deal with a divine inspiration, our wordsmust have their full meaning. 

"We do not here want mere commendatory phrases, whose stereotyped facesappear again and again. We want just appreciation, just censure. Thus ourcriticism is not to be considered unkind. Nay, we not only owe it to thetruth and to ourselves in Miss Anderson's case, to state the existence offaults and crudities in her acting, but we owe it to her, for it is thegreatest kindness, and yet we do not speak harshly and are glad to admitthat most of her faults--such for instance as frequently casting up theeyes--are not only slight in themselves, but enhanced if not caused by thetimidity natural on such an occasion. 

"But enough of faults. We know something of the quality of our homeactress. We see with but little further training and experience she willstand among the foremost actresses on the stage. We are charmed by herbeauty and commanding power, and are justified in predicting great futuresuccess. "

In the following February Mary Anderson appeared again at Macaulay'sTheater for a week, when she played, with success, Bianca in "Phasio, "studied by the advice of the manager, who thought she had a vocation forheavy tragedy; also Julia in "The Hunchback, " Evadne, and again Juliet. 

The reputation of the rising young actress began to spread now beyond thebounds of her Kentucky home, and on the 6th of March, 1876, she commenceda week's engagement at the Opera House in St. Louis. Old Ben de Bar, thegreat Falstaff of his time, was manager of this theater. He had known allthe most eminent American actors, and had been manager for many of thestars; and he was quick to discern the brilliant future which awaited theyoung actress. The St. Louis engagement was not altogether successful, though it was brightened by the praises of General Sherman, with whom wasformed then a friendship which remains unbroken till to-day. Indeed, theold veteran can never pass Long Branch in his travels without "stoppingoff to see Mary. " Ben de Bar had a theater in New Orleans known as the St. Charles. It was the Drury Lane of that city, and situated in anunfashionable quarter of the town. Its benches were reported to be almostdeserted and its treasury nearly empty. But an engagement to appear therefor a week was accepted joyfully by Mary Anderson. She played Evadne at aparting _matinee_ in St. Louis on the Saturday, traveled to New Orleansall through Sunday, arriving there at two o'clock on the Monday afternoon, rushed down to the theater to rehearse with a new company, and that nightappeared to a house of only forty-eight dollars! The students of theMilitary College formed a large part of the scanty audience, and firedwith the beauty and talent of the young actress, they sallied forthbetween the acts and bought up all the bouquets in the quarter. The finalact of "Evadne" was played almost knee-deep in flowers, and that nightMary Anderson was compelled to hire a wagon to carry home to her hotel thefloral offerings of her martial admirers. General and Mrs. Tom Thumboccupied the stage box on one of the early nights of the engagement, andthe fame of the beautiful young star soon reached the fashionable quarterof New Orleans, and Upper Tendom flocked to the despised St. Charles. Onthe following Saturday night there was a house packed from floor toceiling, the takings, meanwhile, having risen from 48 to 500 dollars. Anoffer of an engagement at the Varietes, the Lyceum of New Orleans, quicklyfollowed, and the daring feat of appearing as Meg Merrilies was attemptedon its boards. The press predicted failure, and warned the young aspirantagainst essaying a part almost identified with Cushman, then but latelydeceased, who had been a great favorite with the New Orleans public, andone of whose best impersonations it was. The actors too, with whom MaryAnderson rehearsed, looked forward to anything but a success. Nothingdaunted, however, and confident in her own powers, she spent two hours inperfecting a make-up so successful, that even her mother failed torecognize her in the strange, weird disguise; and then, darkening herdressing-room, set herself resolutely to get into the heart of her part. Mary Anderson's Meg Merrilies was an immense success; Cushman herselfnever received greater applause, and the scene was quite an ovation. Hearing, on the fall of the curtain, that General Beauregard, one of theheroes of the civil war, intended to make a presentation, she threw offher disguise, and smoothing her hair rushed back to the stage, to receivethe Badge of the Washington Artillery, a belt enameled in blue, withcrossed cannons in gold with diamond vents, and suspended from the belt atiger's head in gold, with diamond eyes and ruby tongue. The corps hadbeen known through the war as the "Tiger Heads, " and were famed for theirdeeds of daring and bravery. The belt bore the inscription, "To MaryAnderson, from her friends of the Battalion. " She returned thanks in alittle speech, which was received with much enthusiasm, and retired almostovercome with pleasure and pride. The youthful actress, who had then notcompleted her seventeenth year, took by storm the hearts of the impulsiveand chivalrous Southerners. On the morning of her departure, she found toher astonishment that the railway company had placed a fine "Pullman" andspecial engine at her disposal all the way to Louisville. GeneralsBeauregard and Hood, with many distinguished Southerners, were on theplatform to bid her farewell, and she returned home with purse andreputation, both marvelously grown. 

After a brief period spent in diligent study, Mary Anderson fulfilled asecond engagement in New Orleans, which proved a great financial success. The criticisms of this period all admit her histrionic power, though somedescribe her efforts as at times raw and crude, faults hardly to bewondered at in a young girl mainly self-taught, and with barely a year'sexperience of the business of the stage. 

About this time Mary Anderson met with the first serious rebuff in herhitherto so successful career. It happened, too, in California, the Stateof her birth, where she was to have a somewhat rude experience of the oldadage, that "a prophet has no honor in his own country. " John McCulloughwas then managing with great success the principal theater in SanFrancisco, and offered her a two weeks' engagement. But California wouldhave none of her. The public were cold and unsympathetic, the pressactually hostile. The critics declared not only that she could not act, but that she was devoid of all capability of improvement. One, moregallant than his fellows, was gracious enough to remark that, in spite ofher mean capacity as an artist, she possessed a neck like a column ofmarble. It was only when she appeared as Meg Merrilies that theCalifornians thawed a little, and the press relented somewhat. Edwin Boothhappened to be in San Francisco at the time, and it was on the stage ofCalifornia that Mary Anderson first met the distinguished actor who hadbeen her early stage ideal. He told her that for ten years he had neversat through a performance till hers; and the praises of the greattragedian went far to console her for the coldness and want of sympathy inthe general public. It was by Booth's advice, as well as JohnMcCullough's, that she now began to study such parts as Parthenia, asbetter suited to her powers than more somber tragedy. Those were the oldstock theater days in America, when every theater had a fair standingcompany, and relied for its success on the judicious selection of stars. This system, though perhaps a somewhat vicious one, made so manyengagements possible to Mary Anderson, whose means would not have admittedof the costlier system of traveling with a special company. 

The return journey from California was made painfully memorable by adisastrous accident to a railway train which had preceded the party, andthey were compelled to stop for the night at a little roadside town inMissouri. The hotels were full of wounded passengers, and scenes ofdistress were visible on all sides. When they were almost despairing of anight's lodging, a plain countryman approached them, and offered thehospitality of his pretty white cottage hard by, embosomed in its treesand flowers. The offer was thankfully accepted, and soon after theirarrival the wife's sister, a "school mar'm, " came in, and seemed to warmat once to her beautiful young visitor. She proposed a walk, and the twogirls sallied forth into the fields. The stranger turned the subject toShakespeare and the stage, with which Mary Anderson was fain to confessbut a very slight acquaintance, fearing the announcement of her professionwould shock the prejudices of these simple country folk, who might shrinkfrom having "a play actress" under their roof. Some months after the partyhad returned home there came a letter from these kind people saying how, to their delight and astonishment, they had accidentally discovered whohad been their guest. It seemed the sister was an enthusiasticShakespearean student, and all agreed that in entertaining Mary Andersonthey had "entertained an angel unawares. "

The California trip may be said to close the first period of MaryAnderson's dramatic career. With some draw-backs and some rebuffs she hadmade a great success, but she was known thus far only as a Western girl, who had yet to encounter the judgment of the more critical audiences ofthe South and East, as years later, with a reputation second to none allover the States as well as in Canada, she essayed, with a success whichhas been seldom equaled, perhaps never surpassed, the ordeal of facing, atthe Lyceum, an audience, perhaps the most fastidious and critical inLondon. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE CAREER OF AN AMERICAN STAR. 

Mary Anderson returned home from California disheartened and dispirited. To her it had proved anything but a Golden State. Her visit there was thefirst serious rebuff in her brief dramatic career whose opening months hadbeen so full of promise, and even of triumph. She was barely seventeen, and a spirit less brave, or less confident in its own powers, might easilyhave succumbed beneath the storm of adverse criticism. Happily forherself, and happily too for the stage on both sides of the Atlantic, theyoung _debutante_ took the lesson wisely to heart. She saw that theheights of dramatic fame could not be taken by storm; that her pastsuccesses, if brilliant, regard being had to her youth and want oftraining, were far from secure. She was like some fair flower which hadsprung up warmed by the genial sunshine, likely enough to wither and diebefore the first keen blast. Her youth, her beauty, her undoubted dramaticgenius, were points strongly in her favor; but these could illcounterbalance, at first at any rate, the want of systematic training, thealmost total absence of any experience of the representation by others ofthe parts which she sought to make her own. She had seen CharlotteCushman; indeed, in "Meg Merrilies, " but of the true rendering of a partso difficult and complex as Shakespeare's Juliet, she knew absolutelynothing but what she had been taught by the promptings of her own artisticinstinct. She was herself the only Juliet, as she was the only Bianca, andthe only Evadne, she had ever seen upon any stage. In those days she had, perhaps, never heard the remark of Mademoiselle Mars, who was the mostcharming of Juliets at sixty. "Si j'avais ma jeunesse, je n'aurais pas montalent. "

Coming back then to her Kentucky home from the ill-starred Californiantrip, Mary Anderson seems to have determined to essay again the loweststeps of the ladder of fame. She took a summer engagement with a company, which was little else than a band of strolling players. The _repertoire_was of the usual ambitious character, and Mary was able to assume oncemore her favorite _role_ of Juliet. The company was deficient in a Romeo, and the part was consequently undertaken by a lady--a _role_ by the way inwhich Cushman achieved one of her greatest triumphs. In spite, however, ofthe young star, the little band played to sadly empty houses, and thetreasury was so depleted that, in the generosity of her heart, MaryAnderson proposed to organize a benefit _matinee_, and play Juliet. Shewent down to the theater at the appointed hour and dressed for her part. After some delay a man strayed into the pit, then a couple of boys peepedover the rails of the gallery, and, at last, a lady entered thedress-circle. The disheartened manager was compelled at length to appearbefore the curtain and announce that, in consequence of the want of publicsupport, the performance could not take place. That day Mary Andersonwalked home to her hotel through the quiet streets of the little Kentuckytown--which shall be nameless--with a sort of miserable feeling at herheart, that the world had no soul for the great creations of Shakespeare'smaster-mind, which had so entranced her youthful fancy. It all seemed likea descent into some chill valley of darkness, after the sweet incense ofpraise, the perfume of flowers, and the crowded theaters which had beenher earlier experiences. But the dark storm cloud was soon to pass over, and henceforth almost unbroken sunshine was to attend Mary Anderson'scareer. For her there was to be no heart-breaking period of meanobscurity, no years of dull unrequited toil. She burst as a star upon thetheatrical world, and a star she has remained to this day, because, through all her successes, she never for a moment lost sight of the factthat she could only maintain her ground by patient study, and steadypersistent hard work. Failures she had unquestionably. Her rendering of apart was often rough, often unfinished. Not uncommonly she was surpassedin knowledge of stage business by the most obscure member of the companieswith whom she played; but the public recognized instinctively the truelight of genius which shone clear and bright through all defects and allshortcomings. It was a rare experience, whether on the stage, or in otherpaths of art, but not an unknown one. Fanny Kemble, who made her _debut_at Covent Garden at the same age as Mary Anderson, took the town by stormat once, and seemed to burst upon the stage as a finished actress. DavidGarrick was the greatest actor in England after he had been on the boardsless than three months. Shelley was little more than sixteen when he wrote"Queen Mab;" and Beckford's "Vathek" was the production of a youth ofbarely twenty. 

In the year 1876, Mary Anderson received an offer from a distinguishedtheatrical manager, John T. Ford, of Washington and Baltimore, to join hiscompany as a star, but at an ordinary salary. Three hundred dollars aweek, even in those early days, was small pay for the rising youngactress, who was already without a rival in her own line on the Americanstage; but the extended tour through the States which the engagementoffered, the security of a good company, and of able management, led to animmediate acceptance. On this as on every other occasion, through hertheatrical career, Mary Anderson was accompanied by her father and mother, who have ever watched over her welfare with the tenderest solicitude. Allthe arrangements for the trip were _en prince_. Indeed we have small ideain our little sea-girt isle, of the luxury and even splendor with whichAmerican stars travel over the vast distances between one city and anotheron the immense Western continent. The City of Worcester, a new Pullmancar, subsequently used by Sarah Bernhardt, and afterward by Edwin Booth, was chartered for the party, consisting of Mary Anderson, her father, mother, and brother, and the young actress' maid and secretary. A cook andthree colored porters constituted the _personnel_ of the establishment. There was a completely equipped kitchen, a dining-room with commodiousfamily table; a tiny drawing-room with its piano, portraits of favoriteartists, and some choicely-filled bookshelves, as well as capital sleepingquarters. It was literally a splendid home upon wheels. Where the hotelshappened to be inferior at any particular town, the party occupied itthrough the period of the engagement. Visitors were received, friendlyparties arranged, and little of the inconvenience and discomfort of travelexperienced. It was thus that Mary Anderson made her first greattheatrical tour through the States. In spite of now and then a cold, oreven hostile press, her progress was very like a triumph. In many placesshe created an absolute _furore_, hundreds being turned away at thetheater doors. Indeed, it was no uncommon occurrence for an ordinary seatwhose advertised price was seventy-five cents to sell at as high a premiumas twenty-five dollars. The management reaped a rich harvest, and MaryAnderson played on this Southern trip to more money than any previousactor, excepting only Edwin Forrest. There was still one drop of bitter inthis cup of sweetness and success. The company, jealous of the prominencegiven to one whom they regarded as a mere untried girl, proceeded to addwhat they could to her difficulties by "boycotting" her. There were twoexceptions among the gentlemen actors; and we are pleased to be able torecord that one of these was an Englishman. The ladies were unanimous inproclaiming a war to the knife!

Needless to say the impassioned youth of the New World now and thenpursued the wandering star in her travels at immense expenditure of timeand money, as well as of floral decorations. This is young America's wayof showing his admiration for a favorite actress. He is silent andunobtrusive. He makes his presence known by the midnight serenade beneathher windows; by the bouquets which fall at her feet on everyrepresentation, and are sent to the room of her hotel at the same houreach day; by his constant attendance on the departure platform at therailway station. We are not sure that this silent worship which so oftenpersistently followed her path was displeasing to Mary Anderson. Ittouched, if not her heart, yet that poetic vein which runs through hernature, and reminded her sometimes of the vain pursuit with whichEvangeline followed her wandering lover. 

Manager Ford had taken Mary Anderson through the South with great profitto himself. In this she had had no direct pecuniary interest beyond hermodest salary. She had, of course, greatly enriched her reputation if nother purse. She had become at home in her parts, and even added to her_repertoire_, the manager's daughter, with whom she played Juliet and LadyMacbeth alternately, having translated for her "La Fille de Roland, " inwhich she has since appeared with great success. She was then butseventeen and a half, and had never possessed a diamond, when on returninghome from church one Sunday morning, she found a little jewel casecontaining a magnificent diamond cross, an acknowledgment from the managerof her services to his company. The gift was the more appreciated from thefact that it was a very exceptional specimen of managerial generosity inAmerica!

The criticisms of the press during the early years of Mary Anderson'stheatrical career are full of interest, viewed in the light of her afterand firmly established success. They show that the American people werenot slow to recognize the genius of the young girl, who was destinedhereafter to spread a luster on the stage of two continents. At the sametime they are full either of a ridiculous praise which is blind to thepresence of the least fault, and would have turned the head of a younggirl not endowed with the sturdy common sense possessed by Mary Anderson;or they are marked by a vindictive animosity which defeats its veryobject, and practically attracts public notice in favor of an actress itis obviously meant to crush. These newspaper criticisms are furtheramusing as showing the family likeness which exists between the _genus_"dramatic critic" on both sides of the Atlantic. Each seems to believethat he carries the fate of the actor in his inkhorn. Each seems blind tothe fact that _Vox populi vox Dei_; that favorable criticism never yetmade an artist, who had not within him the power to win the popular favor;still more, that adverse criticism can never extinguish the heaven-sentspark of true artistic fire. 

The verdict of Louisville on its home-grown actress has been given in apreceding chapter. The estimate, however, of strangers is of far morevalue than that of friends or acquaintance. The judgment of St. Louis, where Mary Anderson played her earliest engagements away from home is, onthe whole, the most interesting dramatic criticism of her earlyperformances on record. St. Louis is a city of considerable culture, andstands in much the same relation to the South as does its modern rivalChicago to the North-West. Its newspapers are some of the ablest on thecontinent, and its audiences perhaps as critical as any in America if weexcept perhaps such places as Boston or New York. 

The _St. Louis Globe Democrat_ says:--

"A diamond in the rough, but yet a diamond, was the mental verdict of thejury who sat in the Opera House last night to see Miss Mary Anderson onher first appearance here in the character of Juliet. It was in realityher _debut_ upon the stage. She played, a short time since, for one weekin her native city, Louisville, but this is her first effort upon a stageaway from the associations which surround an appearance among friends, andwhich must, to a great extent, influence the general judgment of the_debutante's_ merit. . . . We believe her to be the most promising youngactress who has stepped upon the boards for many a day, and before whomthere is, undoubtedly, a brilliant and successful career. "

The _St. Louis Republican_ has the following very interesting notice:--

"A fresh and beautiful young girl of Juliet's age embodied and presentedJuliet. Beauty often mirrors its type in this beautiful character, butvery rarely does Juliet's youth meet its youthful counterpart on thestage. . . . A great Juliet is not the question here, but the possibility ofa Juliet near the age at which the dramatist presented his heroine. MaryAnderson is untampered by any stage traditions, and she renderedShakespeare's youngest heroine as she felt her pulsing in his lines. . . . She leads a return to the source of poetic inspiration, and exemplifieswhat true artistic instincts and feeling can do on the stage, withouteither the traditions and experience of acting. She colors her ownconceptions and figure of Juliet, and by her work vindicates the master, and proves that Juliet can be presented by a girl of her own age. . . . Thefourth act exhibited great tragic power, and no want was felt in thecelebrated chamber scene, which is the test passage of this _role_. . . . Itstamped the performance as a success, and the actress as a phenomenon. . . . The thought must have gone round the house among those who knew thefacts--Can this be only the seventh performance on the stage of this younggirl?"

Here is another notice a few months later on in Mary Anderson's dramaticcareer from the _Baltimore Gazette_:--

"Miss Anderson's Juliet has the charm which belongs to youth, beauty, andnatural genius. Her fair face, her flexible youth--for she is still in herteens--and her great natural dramatic genius, make her personation of thatsweet creation of Shakespeare successful, in spite of her immaturity as anartist. We have so often seen aged Juliets; stiff, stagey Juliets; fat, roomy Juliets; and ill-featured Juliets, that the sight of a young, lady-like girl with natural dramatic genius, a bright face, an unwornvoice, is truly refreshing. In the scene where the nurse brings her thebad news of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, she acted charmingly. In gesture, attitude, and facial expression she gave evidence of emotionso true and strong, as showed she was capable of losing her own identityin the _role_. "

As an amusing specimen of vindictive criticism, we subjoin a notice in the_Washington Capitol_, under date May 28, 1876. This lengthy noticecontains strong internal evidence of a deadly feud existing betweenManager Ford and the editor of the _Capitol_, and the stab is giventhrough the fair bosom of Mary Anderson, whose immense success inSenatorial Washington, this atrabilious knight of the plume devotes twocolumns of his valuable space to explaining away. 

Washington City _Daily Capitol_, 28th May, 1876. 

"Miss Anderson comes to us on a perfect whirlwind of newspaper puffs. Weuse the words advisedly, for in none of them can be found a paragraph ofcriticism. If Siddons or Cushman had been materialized and restored to thestage in all their pristine excellence, the excitement in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and New Orleans, could not have been more intense. The very firemen of one of those cities seem to have been aroused and losttheir hearts, if not their heads; and not only serenaded the object oftheir adoration, but got up a decoration for her to wear of the mostcostly and gorgeous sort. Under this state of facts we waited with unusualimpatience for sixteen sticks to give the cue that was to fetch on theJuliet. It came at last, and Juliet stalked in. Had Lady Macbeth respondedto the summons we could not have been more amazed. Miss Anderson is heroicin size and manner. The lovely heiress to the house of the Capulets, onthe turn of sixteen, swept in upon the stage as if she were mistress ofthe house, situation, and of fate, and bent on bringing the enemy toterms. Her face is sweet, at times positively beautiful, but incapable ofexpression. Her voice, while clear, is hard, metallic, at intervals nasal, and all the while stagey. She has been trained in the old Kemble tragicpump-handle style of elocution, that runs talk on stilts. Her manner iscrude and awkward. In the balcony scene she only needed a pair of goldrimmed glasses to have made her an excellent schoolmistress, chiding anaughty young man for intruding upon the sacred premises of MadameFevialli's select academy for young ladies. In the love scenes thatfollowed she was cold enough to be broken to pieces for a refrigerator. But who could have warmed up to such a Romeo? That unpleasant youth painedus with his quite unnecessary gyrations and spasmodic noise. We soondiscovered that Miss Anderson had been coached for Juliet withoutpossessing on her part the most distant conception of the character--orcapacity to render it, had she the information. She was not doing Julietfrom end to end. She was as far from Juliet as the North Pole is from theEquator. She was doing something else. We could not make out clearly whatthat character was; but it was something quite different and a good wayoff. Sometimes we thought it was Lady Macbeth, sometimes Meg Merrilies, sometimes Lucretia Borgia, but never for a moment Juliet. We speak thusplainly of Miss Anderson because her injudicious and enthusiastic friendsare injuring, if they are not ruining her. Her fine physique, her dash, her beautiful face, her clear ringing voice, have carried crowds off theirheads--well, they are off at both ends; for on last Thursday night theamount of applauding was based on shoe leather. The lovely Anderson wascalled out at the end of each act. As to that, the active Romeo had hiscall. We never saw before precisely such a house. The north-west was outin full force. Kentucky came to the front like a little man. GeneralSherman, sitting at our elbow, wore out his gloves, blistered his hands, and then borrowed a cotton umbrella from his neighbor. Miss Anderson, withall her natural advantages, added to her love of the art, her indomitablewill as shown in her square prominent jaw, has a career before her, but itis not down the path indicated by these enthusiastic friends. 'The steepswhere Fame's proud temple shines afar' are difficult of access, and geniuswaters them with more tears than sturdy, steady, persevering talent. 

"Charlotte Cushman told us once that the heaviest article she had to carryup was her heart. The divine actress who now leads the English-spokenstage began her professional career as a ballet dancer, and has grown herlaurels from her tears. We suspected Miss Anderson's success. It was tootriumphant, too easy. After years of weary labor, of heart-breakingdisappointments, of dreary obscurity, genius sometimes blazes out for abrief period to dazzle humanity; and quite as often never blazes, butdisappears without a triumph. 

"To such life is not a battle, but a campaign with ten defeats, yea, twenty defeats to one victory. 

"Miss Anderson will think us harsh and unkind in this. She will live, wehope, to consider us her best friend. 

"There is one fact upon which she can comfort herself: she could not gettwo hours and a half of our time and a column in the _Capitol_ were shewithout merit. There is value in her; but to fetch it out she must goback, begin lower, and give years to training, education, and hard work. She can labor ten years for the sake of living five. As for her support, it was of the sort afforded by John T. , the showman, and very funny. Mrs. Germon, God bless her! was properly funny. She is the best old woman onend in the world. 

"Romeo (Mr. Morton) we have spoken of. Lingham is supposed to have doneMercutio. Well, he did do him. That is, he went through the motions. Heseemed to be saying something anent the great case of Capulet _vs. _Montague, but so indistinct that there was a general sense of relief whenhe staggered off to die. Deaths generally had this effect Thursday night, and the house not only applauded the exits, but made itself exceedinglymerry. 

"When Paris went down and a tombstone fell over him, his plaintive cry of'Oh, I am killed!' was received with shouts of laughter. 

"It was the most laughable we ever witnessed. In the first scene one ofthose marble statues, so peculiar to John T. 's mismanagement, thatresemble granite in a bad state of small-pox, fell over. 

"The house was amazed to see it resolve itself into a board, and laughedtumultuously to note how it righted itself up in a mysterious manner, andstood in an easy reclining posture till the curtain fell. 

"The scene that exhibited the balcony affair was a sweet thing. Evidentlythe noble house of the Capulets was in reduced circumstances. The buildingfrom which Juliet issued was a frame structure so frail in material thatwe feared a collapse. 

"If the carpenter who erected that structure for the Capulets charged morethan ten dollars currency he swindled the noble old duffer infamously. Thefront elevation came under that order of architecture known out West asConestoga. It was all of fifteen feet in height, and depended forornamentation on a brilliant horse cover thrown over the corner of thebalcony, and a slop bucket that Juliet was evidently about to empty on thehead of Romeo when that youth made his presence known. The house shook sounder Juliet's substantial tread, that an old lady near us wished to betaken out, declaring that 'that young female would get her neck brokennext thing. '

"In the last scene where the page (Miss Lulu Dickson) was ordered toextinguish the torch, the poor girl made frantic efforts, but failing, walked off with the thing blazing. 

"When Paris entered with his page, a youth in a night shirt, that youthcarried in his countenance the fixed determination of putting out historch at the right moment or dieing in the attempt. We all saw that. 

"Expectancy was worked up to a point of intense interest, so that when atlast the word was given, a puff of wind not only extinguished the torchbut shook the scenery, and made us thankful the young man did wearpantaloons, as the consequences might have been terrible. 

"When Count Paris fell mortally wounded, a tombstone at his side fell overhim in the most convenient and charming manner. The house was so convulsedwith merriment that when poor Juliet was exposed in the tomb she wasgreeted with laughter, much to the poor girl's embarrassment. And this isthe sort of entertainment to which we have been treated throughout ourentire season. But then the showman is a success and pays his bills. "

The great Eastern cities of America are regarded by an American artistmuch in the same light as is the metropolis by a provincial artist athome. Their approval is supposed to stamp as genuine the verdict ofremoter districts. The success which had attended Mary Anderson in herjourneyings West and South was not to desert her when she presentedherself before the presumably more critical audiences of the East. Shemade her Eastern _debut_ at Pittsburg, the Birmingham of America, in theheat of the Presidential election of 1880, and met with a thoroughlyenthusiastic reception, to proceed thence to Philadelphia, where shereaped plenty of honor, but very little money. Boston, the Athens of theNew World, was reached at length. When Mary Anderson was taken down by themanager to see the vast Boston Theater, whose auditorium seats 4000people, and which Henry Irving declared to be the finest in the world, shealmost fainted with apprehension. She opened here in Evadne, and onejournal predicted that she would take Cushman's place. This part wasfollowed by Juliet, Meg Merrilies, and her other chief impersonations. Onone day of her engagement the receipts at a matinee and an eveningperformance amounted together to the large sum of $7000. 

The visit to Boston was made memorable to Mary Anderson by herintroduction to Longfellow. About a week after she had opened, a friend ofthe poet's came to her with a request that she would pay him a visit athis pretty house in the suburbs of Boston, Longfellow being indisposed atthe time, and confined to his quaint old study, overlooking the waters ofthe sluggish Charles, and the scenery made immortal in his verse. Here wascommenced a warm friendship between the beautiful young artist and theaged poet, which continued unbroken to the day of his death. He was seatedwhen she entered, in a richly-carved chair, of which Longfellow told herthis charming story. The "spreading chestnut tree, " immortalized in "TheVillage Blacksmith, " happened to stand in an outlying village near Boston, somewhat inconveniently for the public traffic at some cross roads. Itbecame necessary to cut it down, and remove the forge beneath. But thevillage fathers did not venture to proceed to an act which they regardedas something like sacrilege, without consulting Longfellow. At theirrequest he paid a visit of farewell to the spot, and sanctioned what wasproposed. Not long after, a handsomely carved chair was forwarded to him, made from the wood of the "spreading chestnut tree, " and which bore aninscription commemorative of the circumstances under which it was given. Few of his possessions were dearer to Longfellow than this dumb mementohow deeply his poetry had sunk into the national heart of his countrymen. It stood in the chimney corner of his study, and till the day of his deathwas always his favorite seat. 

The verdict of Longfellow upon Mary Anderson is worth that of a legion ofnewspaper critics, and his judgment of her Juliet deserves to be recordedin letters of gold. The morning after her benefit, he said to her, "I havebeen thinking of Juliet all night. _Last night you were Juliet!_"

At the Boston Theater occurred an accident which shows the marvelouscourage and power of endurance possessed by the young actress. In the playof "Meg Merrilies, " she had to appear suddenly in one scene at the top ofa cliff, some fifteen feet above the stage. To avoid the danger of fallingover, it was necessary to use a staff. Mary Anderson had managed to findone of Cushman's, but the point having become smooth through use, she toldone of the people of the theater to put a small nail at the bottom. Instead of this, he affixed a good-sized spike, and one night MaryAnderson, coming out as usual, drove this right through her foot, in hersudden stop on the cliffs brink. Without flinching, or moving a muscle, with Spartan fortitude she played the scene to the end, though almostfainting with pain, till on the fall of the curtain the spiked staff wasdrawn out, not without force. Longfellow was much concerned at thisaccident, and on nights she did not play would sit by her side in her box, and wrap the furred overcoat he used to wear carefully round her woundedfoot. 

From Boston Mary Anderson proceeded to New York to fulfill a two weeks'engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theater. She opened with a good company in"The Lady of Lyons. " General Sherman had advised her to read no papers, but one morning to her great encouragement, some good friend thrust underher door a very favorable notice in the New York _Herald_. The engagementproved a great success, and was ultimately extended to six weeks, theactress playing two new parts, Juliet and The Daughter of Roland. She hadpassed the last ordeal successfully, and might rejoice as she stood on thecrest of the hill of Fame that the ambition of her young life was atlength realized. Her subsequent theatrical career in the States and Canadaneed not be recorded here. She had become America's representative_tragedienne_; there was none to dispute her claims. Year after year shecontinued to increase an already brilliant reputation, and to amass one ofthe largest fortunes it has ever been the happy lot of any artist tosecure. 

CHAPTER V. 

FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 

In the summer of 1879, was paid Mary Anderson's first visit to Europe. Ithad long been eagerly anticipated. In the lands of the Old World was thecradle of the Art she loved so well, and it was with feelings almost ofawe that she entered their portals. She had few if any introductions, andspent a month in London wandering curiously through the conventionalscenes usually visited by a stranger. Westminster Abbey was among herfavorite haunts; its ancient aisles, its storied windows, its thousandmemories of a past which antedated by so many centuries the civilizationof her native land, appealed deeply to the ardent imagination of theimpassioned girl. Here was a world of which she had read and dreamed, butwhose over-mastering, living influence was now for the first time felt. Itseemed like the first glimpse of verdant forest, of enameled meadow, ofcrystal stream, of pure sky to one who had been blind. It was anotheratmosphere, another life. Brief as was her visit, it gave an impulse tothose germs which lie deep in every poetic soul. She saw there was anillimitable world of Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardlytrodden--and she went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancientfountains of Poetry and Art. From that time an intellectual change seemsto have passed over her. Her studies took new channels, and herimpersonations were mellowed and glorified from her personal contact withthe associations of a great past. 

A visit to Stratford-on-Avon was one of the most delightful events of thetrip. It seemed to Mary Anderson the emblem of peace and contentment andquiet; and though as a stranger she did not then enjoy so many of theprivileges which were willingly accorded her during the present visit tothis country, she still looks back to the day when she knelt by the graveof Shakespeare as one of the most eventful and inspiring of her life. 

Much of the time of Mary Anderson's European visit was spent in Paris. Through the kindness of General Sherman she obtained introductions toRistori and other distinguished artists, and, to her delight, secured alsothe _entree_ behind the scenes of the Theatre Francais. Its magnificentgreen-room, the walls lined with portraits of departed celebrities of thatfamous theater, amazed her by its splendor; and to her it was a strangeand curious sight to see the actors in "Hernani" come in and play cards intheir gorgeous stage costumes at intervals in the performance. On one ofthese occasions she naively asked Sarah Bernhardt why her portrait did notappear on the walls? The great artist replied that she hoped Mary Andersondid not wish her dead, as only under such circumstances could anappearance there be permitted to her. "Behind the scenes" of the TheatreFrancais was a source of never-wearying interest, and Mary Andersonthought the effects of light attained there far surpassed anything she hadwitnessed on the English or American stage. 

The verdict of Ristori, before whom she recited, was highly favorable, andthe great _tragedienne_ predicted a brilliant career for the youngactress, and declared she would be a great success with an English companyin Paris, while the "divine Sarah" affirmed that she had never seengreater originality. On the return journey from Paris a brief stay wasmade at the quaint city of Rouen. Joan of Arc's stake, and the housewhere, tradition has it, she resided, were sacred spots to Mary Anderson;and the ancient towers, the curious old streets, overlooking the fertilevalley through which the Seine wanders like a silver thread, are memorieswhich have since remained to her ever green. During her first visit toEngland Mary Anderson never dreamt of the possibility that she herselfmight appear on the English stage. Indeed the effect of her first Europeantour was depressing and disheartening. She saw only how much there was forher to see, how much to learn in the world of Art. A feeling ofhome-sickness came over her, and she longed to be back at her seaside homewhere she could watch the wild restless Atlantic as it swept in upon theNew Jersey shore, and listen to the sad music of the weary waves. This wasthe instinct of a true artist nature, which had depths capable of beingstirred by the touch of what is great and noble. 

In the following year, however, there came an offer from the manager ofDrury Lane to appear upon its boards. Mary Anderson received it with apleased surprise. It told that her name had spread beyond her native land, and that thus early had been earned a reputation which commended her asworthy to appear on the stage of a great and famous London theater. Buther reply was a refusal. She thought herself hardly finished enough toface such a test of her powers; and the natural ambition of a successfulactress to extend the area of her triumph seemed to have found no place inher heart. 

CHAPTER VI. 

SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. --EXPERIENCES ON THE ENGLISH STAGE. 

The interval of five years which elapsed between Mary Anderson's first andsecond visits to Europe was busily occupied by starring tours in theStates and Canada. Mr. Henry Abbey's first proposal, in 1883, for anengagement at the Lyceum was met with the same negative which had beengiven to that of Mr. Augustus Harris. But, happening some time afterwardto meet her step-father, Dr. Griffin, in Baltimore, Mr. Abbey again urgedhis offer, to which a somewhat reluctant consent was at length given. Themost ambitious moment of her artist-life seemed to have arrived at last. If she attained success, the crown was set on all the previous triumphs ofher art; if failure were the issue, she would return to Americadiscredited, if not disgraced, as an actress. The very crisis of herstage-life had come now in earnest. It found her despondent, almostdespairing; at the last moment she was ready to draw back. She had thennone of the many friends who afterward welcomed her with heartfeltsincerity whenever the curtain rose on her performance. She saw Irving in"Louis XI. " and "Shylock. " The brilliant powers of the great actor filledher at once with admiration and with dread, when she remembered how soonshe too must face the same audiences. She sought to distract herself bymaking a round of the London theaters, but the most amusing of farcescould hardly draw from her a passing smile, or lift for a moment theweight of apprehension which pressed on her heart. The very play in whichshe was destined first to present herself before a London audience wascondemned beforehand. To make a _debut_ as Parthenia was to court certainfailure. The very actors who rehearsed with her were Job's comforters. Shesaw in their faces a dreary vista of empty houses, of hostile critics, ofgeneral disaster. She almost broke down under the trial, and the sight ofher first play-bill which told that the die was irrevocably cast for goodor evil made her heart sink with fear. On going down to the theater uponthe opening night she found, with mingled pleasure and surprise, that onboth sides of the Atlantic fellow artists were regarding her with kindlysympathizing hearts. Her dressing-room was filled with beautiful floralofferings from many distinguished actors in England and America, whiletelegrams from Booth, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, Irving, Ellen Terry, Christine Nilsson, and Lillie Langtry, bade her be of good courage, andwished her success. The overture smote like a dirge on her ear, and whenthe callboy came to announce that the moment of her entrance was at hand, it reminded her of nothing so much as the feeling of mourners when thesable mute appears at the door, as a signal to form the procession to thetomb. But in a moment the ordeal was safely passed, and passed forever sofar as an English audience is concerned. Seldom has any actress receivedso warm and enthusiastic a reception. Mary Anderson confesses now thatnever till that moment did she experience anything so generous and sosympathetic, and offered to one who was then but "a stranger in a strangeland. " Mary Anderson's Parthenia was a brilliant success. Her gloriousyouth, her strange beauty, her admirable impersonation of a part ofexceptional difficulty, won their way to all hearts. A certain amount ofnervousness and timidity was inevitable to a first performance. The suddenrevulsion of feeling, from deep despondency to complete triumphantsuccess, made it difficult, at times, for the actress to master herfeelings sufficiently to make her words audible through the house. Onecandid youth in the gallery endeavored to encourage her with a kindly"Speak up, Mary. " The words recalled her in an instant to herself, and forthe rest of the evening she had regained her wonted self-possession. 

From that time till Mary Anderson's first Lyceum season closed, the worldof London flocked to see her. The house was packed nightly from floor toceiling, and she is said to have played to more money than thedistinguished lessee of the theater himself. Among the visitors with whomMary Anderson was a special favorite were the prince and princess. Theywitnessed each of her performances more than once, and both did her thehonor to make her personal acquaintance, and compliment her on hersuccess. So many absurd stories have been circulated as to Mary Anderson'salleged unwillingness to meet the Prince of Wales, that the true story mayas well be told once for all here. On one of the early performances of"Ingomar, " the prince and princess occupied the royal box, and the princecaused it to be intimated to Mary Anderson that he should be glad to beintroduced to her after the third act. The little republican naivelyresponded that she never saw any one till after the close of theperformance. H. R. H. Promptly rejoined that he always left the theaterimmediately the curtain fell. Meanwhile the manager represented to her theungraciousness of not complying with a request which half the actresses inLondon would have sacrificed their diamonds to receive. And so at theclose of the third act Mary Anderson presented herself, leaning on herfather's arm, in the anteroom of the royal box. Only the prince was there, and "He said to me, " relates Mary Anderson, "more charming things thanwere ever said to me, in a few minutes, in all my life. I was delightedwith his kindness, and with his simple pleasant manner, which put me at myease in a moment; but I was rather surprised that the princess did not seeme as well. " The piece over, and there came a second message, that theprincess also wished to be introduced. With her winning smile she tookMary Anderson's hand in hers, and thanking her for the pleasure she hadafforded by her charming impersonation, graciously presented Mary with herown bouquet. 

The true version of another story, this time as to the Princess of Walesand Mary Anderson, may as well now be given. One evening Count Gleichenhappened to be dining _tete-a-tete_ with the prince and princess atMarlborough House. When they adjourned to the drawing-room, the princessshowed the count some photographs of a young lady, remarking upon hersingular beauty, and suggesting what a charming subject she would make forhis chisel. The count was fain to confess that he did not even know whothe lady was, and had to be informed that she was the new Americanactress, beautiful Mary Anderson. He expressed the pleasure it would givehim to have so charming a model in his studio, and asked the princesswhether he was at liberty to tell Mary Anderson that the suggestion camefrom her, to which the princess replied that he certainly might do so. Three replicas of the bust will be executed, of which Count Gleichenintends to present one to her royal highness, another to Mary Anderson'smother, while the third will be placed in the Grosvenor Gallery. This isreally all the foundation for the story of a royal command to CountGleichen to execute a bust of Mary Anderson for the Princess of Wales. 

Among those who were constant visitors at the Lyceum was Lord Lytton, oras Mary Anderson loves to call him, "Owen Meredith. " Her representation ofhis father's heroine in "The Lady of Lyons" naturally interested himgreatly, and it is possible he may himself write for her a special play. Between them there soon sprung up one of those warm friendships often seenbetween two artist natures, and Lord Lytton paid Mary Anderson thecompliment of lending her an unpublished manuscript play of his father'sto read. Tennyson, too, sought the acquaintance of one who in his versewould make a charming picture. He was invited to meet her at dinner at aLondon house, and was her cavalier on the occasion. The author of "ThePrincess" did not in truth succeed in supplanting in her regard the bardof her native land, Longfellow; but he so won on Mary's heart that sheafterward presented him with the gift--somewhat unpoetic, it must beadmitted--of a bottle of priceless Kentucky whisky, of a fabulous age!

If Mary Anderson was a favorite with the public before the curtain, shewas no less popular with her fellow artists on the stage. Jealousy andill-will not seldom reign among the surroundings of a star. It is a trialto human nature to be but a lesser light revolving round some brilliantluminary--but the setting to adorn the jewel. But Mary Anderson won thehearts of every one on the boards, from actors to scene-shifters. And atChristmas, in which she is a great believer, every one, high or low, connected with the Lyceum, was presented with some kind and thoughtfulmark of her remembrance. And when the season closed, she was presented inturn, on the stage, with a beautiful diamond suit, the gift of the fellowartists who had shared for so long her triumphs and her toils. 

Mary Anderson's success in London was fully indorsed by the verdict of thegreat provincial towns. Everywhere she was received with enthusiasm, andhundreds were nightly turned from the doors of the theaters where sheappeared. In Edinburgh she played to a house of £450, a larger sum thanwas ever taken at the doors of the Lyceum. The receipts of the week inManchester were larger than those of any preceding week in the theatricalhistory of the great Northern town. Taken as a whole, her success has beenwithout a parallel on the English stage. If she has not altogether escapedhostile criticism in the press, she has won the sympathies of the publicin a way which no artist of other than English birth has succeeded indoing before her. They have come and gone, dazzled us for a time, but haveleft behind them no endearing remembrance. Mary Anderson has found her wayto our hearts. It seems almost impossible that she can ever leave us toresume again the old life of a wandering star across the great Americancontinent. It may be rash to venture a prophecy as to what the future maybring forth; but thus much we may say with truth, that, whenever MaryAnderson departs finally from our shores, the name of England will remaingraven on her heart. 

CHAPTER VII. 

IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 

Almost every traveler from either side of the Atlantic, with the faintestpretensions to distinction, bursts forth on his return to his nativeshores in a volume of "Impressions. " Archęologists and philosophers, novelists and divines, apostles of sweetness and light, and star actors, are accustomed thus to favor the public with volumes which the publiccould very often be well content to spare. It is but natural that weshould wish to know what Mary Anderson thinks of the "fast-anchored isle"and the folk who dwell therein. I wish, indeed, that these "Impressions"could have been given in her own words. The work would have been muchbetter done, and far more interesting; but failing this, I must endeavor, following a recent illustrious example, to give them at second hand. During the earlier months of her stay among us, she lived somewhat thelife of a recluse. Shut up in a pretty villa under the shadow of theHampstead Hills, she saw little society but that of a few fellow artists, who found their way to her on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, she almost shrankfrom the idea of entering general society. The English world she wished toknow was a world of the past, peopled by the creations of genius; not themodern world, which crowds London drawing-rooms. She saw the Englishpeople from the stage, and they were to her little more than audienceswhich vanished from her life when the curtain descended. From her earliestyears she had been, in common with many of her countrymen, a passionateadmirer of the great English novelist, Dickens. Much of her leisure wasspent in pilgrimages to the spots round London which he has made immortal. Now and then, with her brother for a protector, she would go to lunch atan ancient hostelry in the Borough, where one of the scenes of Dickens'stories is laid, but which has degenerated now almost to the rank of apublic-house. Here she would try to people the place in fancy with thecharacters of the novel. "To listen to the talk of the people at suchplaces, " she once said to me, "was better than any play I ever saw. "

Stratford-on-Avon too, was, of course, revisited, and many days were spentin lingering lovingly over the memorials of her favorite Shakespeare. Shesoon became well known to the guardians of the spot, and many privilegeswere granted to her not accorded on her first visit, four years before, when she was regarded but as a unit in the crowd of passing visitors whothrong to the shrine of the great master of English dramatic art. On oneoccasion when she was in the church of Stratford-on-Avon, the ancientclerk asked her if she would mind being locked in while he went home tohis tea. Nothing loath she consented, and remained shut up in the stillsolemnity of the place. Kneeling down by the grave of Shakespeare, shetook out a pocket "Romeo and Juliet" and recited Juliet's death sceneclose to the spot where the great master, who created her, lay in his longsleep. But presently the wind rose to a storm, the branches of thesurrounding trees dashed against the windows, darkness spread through theghostly aisles, and terror-stricken, Mary fled to the door, glad enough tobe released by the returning janitor. 

Rural England with its moss-grown farmhouses, its gray steeples, its whitecottages clustering under their shadow, its tiny fields, its greenhedgerows, garrisoned by the mighty elms, charmed Mary Anderson beyondexpression, contrasting so strongly with the vast prairies, the primevalforests, the mighty rivers of her own giant land. These were theboundaries of her horizon in the earlier months of her stay among us; sheknew little but the England of the past, and the England as the strangersees it, who passes on his travels through its smiling landscapes. But achange of residence to Kensington brought Mary Anderson more within reachof those whom she had so charmed upon the stage, and who longed to havethe opportunity of knowing her personally. By degrees her drawing-roomsbecame the scene of an informal Sunday afternoon reception. Artists andnovelists, poets and sculptors, statesmen and divines, journalists andpeople of fashion crowded to see her, and came away wondering at the skilland power with which this young girl, evidently fresh to society, couldhold her own, and converse fluently and intelligently on almost anysubject. If the verdict of London society was that Mary Anderson was asclever in the drawing-room as she was attractive on the stage, she, in herturn, was charmed to speak face to face with many whose names and whoseworks had long been familiar to her. It was a new world of art andintellect and genius to which she was suddenly introduced, and whichseemed to her all the more brilliant after the somewhat prosaic uniformityof society in her own republican land. To say that she admires and lovesEngland with all her heart may be safely asserted. To say that it hasalmost succeeded in stealing away her heart from the land of her birth, she would hardly like to hear said. But we think her mind is somewhat thatof Captain Macheath, in the "Beggars' Opera"--

 "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away. "

One superiority, at least, she confesses England to have over America. Thedreadful "interviewer" who has haunted her steps for the last eight yearsof her life with a dogged pertinacity which would take no denial, was herenowhere to be seen. He exists we know, but she failed to recognize thesame _genus_ in the quite harmless-looking gentleman, who, occasionally onthe stage after a performance, or in her drawing-room, engaged her inconversation, when leading questions were skillfully disguised; and, then, much to her astonishment, afterward produced a picture of her in printwith materials she was quite unconscious of having furnished. She failed, she admits now, to see the conventional "note-book, " so symbolical of thecalling at home, and thus her fears and suspicions were disarmed. 

One instance of Mary Anderson's kind and womanly sympathy to some of thepoorest of London's waifs and strays should not be unrecorded here. It wasrepresented to her at Christmas time that funds were needed for a dinnerto a number of poor boys in Seven Dials. She willingly found them, and agood old-fashioned English dinner was given, at her expense, in the BoardSchool Room to some three hundred hungry little fellows, who crowdedthrough the snow of the wintry New Year's Day to its hospitable roof. Though she is not of our faith, Mary Anderson was true to the precepts ofthat Christian Charity which, at such seasons, knows no distinction ofcreed; and of all the kind acts which she has done quietly andunostentatiously since she came among us, this is one which commends herperhaps most of all to our affection and regard. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE VERDICT OF THE CRITICS. 

"_Quot homines, tot sententię. _"

It may, perhaps, be interesting to record here some of the criticismswhich have appeared in several of the leading London and provincialjournals on Mary Anderson's performances, and especially on her _debut_ atthe Lyceum. Such notices are forgotten almost as soon as read, and exceptfor some biographical purpose like the present, lie buried in the files ofa newspaper office. It is usual to intersperse them with the text; but forthe purpose of more convenient reference they have been included in aseparate chapter. 

_Standard_, 3d September, 1883. 

"The opening of the Lyceum on Saturday evening, was signalized by theassembly of a crowded and fashionable audience to witness the firstappearance in this country of Miss Mary Anderson as Parthenia in MariaLovell's four-act play of 'Ingomar. ' Though young in years, Miss Andersonis evidently a practiced actress. She knows the business of the stageperfectly, is learned in the art of making points, and, what is more, knows how to bide her opportunity. The wise discretion which imposesrestraint upon the performer was somewhat too rigidly observed in theearlier scenes on Saturday night, the consequence being that in one of themost impressive passages of the not very inspired dialogue, the littledistance between the sublime and the ridiculous was bridged by a voicefrom the gallery, which, adopting a tone, ejaculated 'A little louder, Mary. ' A less experienced artist might well have been taken aback by thissudden infraction of dramatic proprieties. Miss Anderson, however, did notloose her nerve, but simply took the hint in good part and acted upon it. There is very little reason to dwell at any length upon the piece. MissAnderson will, doubtless, take a speedy opportunity of appearing in someother work in which her capacity as an actress can be better gauged thanin Maria Lovell's bit of tawdry sentiment. A real power of delineatingpassion was exhibited in the scene where Parthenia repulses the advancesof her too venturesome admirer, and in this direction, to our minds, thebest efforts of the lady tend. All we can do at present is to chronicleMiss Anderson's complete success, the recalls being so numerous as to defyparticularization. "

_The Times_, 3d September, 1883. 

"Miss Mary Anderson, although but three or four and twenty, has forseveral years past occupied a leading position in the United States, andranks as the highest of the American 'stars, ' whose effulgence Mr. Abbeyrelies upon to attract the public at the Lyceum in Mr. Irving's absence. Recommendations of this high order were more than sufficient to insureMiss Anderson a cordial reception. They were such as to dispose asympathetic audience to make the most ample allowance for nervousness onthe part of the _debutante_, and to distrust all impressions they mighthave of an unfavorable kind, or at least to grant the possession of a morecomplete knowledge of the lady's attainments to those who had trumpetedher praise so loudly. That such should have been the mood of the house, was a circumstance not without its influence on the events of the evening. It was manifestly owing in some measure to the critical spirit beingsubordinated for the time being to the hospitable, that Miss Anderson wasable to obtain all the outward and visible signs of a dramatic triumph ina _role_ which intrinsically had little to commend it. . . . Usually it isthe rude manliness, the uncouth virtues, the awkward and childlikesubmissiveness of that tamed Bull of Bashan [Ingomar] that absorbs theattention of a theatrical audience. On Saturday evening the center ofinterest was, of course, transferred to Parthenia. To the interpretationof this character Miss Anderson brings natural gifts of rare excellence, gifts of face and form and action, which suffice almost themselves to playthe part; and the warmth of the applause which greeted her as she firsttripped upon the stage expressed the admiration no less than the welcomeof the house. Her severely simple robes of virgin white, worn with classicgrace, revealed a figure as lissome and perfect of contour as a drapedVenus of Thorwaldsen, her face seen under her mass of dark brown hair, negligently bound with a ribbon, was too _mignonne_, perhaps, to beclassic, but looked pretty and girlish. A performance so graced could notfail to be pleasing. And yet it was impossible not to feel, as the playprogressed, that to the fine embodiment of the romantic heroine, art wasin some degree wanting. The beautiful Parthenia, like a soulless statue, pleased the eye, but left the heart untouched. It became evident thatfaults of training or, perhaps, of temperament, were to be set off againstthe actress' unquestionable merits. The elegant artificiality of theAmerican school, a tendency to pose and be self-conscious, to smirk even, if the word may be permitted, especially when advancing to the footlightsto receive a full measure of applause, were fatal to such sentiment aseven so stilted a play could be made to yield. It was but too evident thatParthenia was at all times more concerned with the fall of her draperythan with the effect of her speeches, and that gesture, action, intonation--everything which constitutes a living individuality were inher case not so much the outcome of the feeling proper to the character, as the manifestation of diligent painstaking art which had not yet learntto conceal itself. The gleam of the smallest spark of genius would havebeen a welcome relief to the monotony of talent. . . . It must not beforgotten, however, that a highly artificial play like 'Ingomar' is by nomeans a favorable medium for the display of an actress' powers, though itmay fairly indicate their nature. Before a definite rank can be assignedto her among English actresses, Miss Anderson must be seen in some of herother characters. "

_Daily News_, 3d September, 1883. 

"It will be recollected that Mr. Irving, in his farewell speech at theLyceum Theater, on the 28th of July, made a point of bespeaking a kindlywelcome for Miss Mary Anderson on her appearance at his theater during hisabsence, as the actress he alluded to was a lady whose beauty and talenthad made her the favorite of America, from Maine to California. It wouldnot perhaps be unfair to attribute to this cordial introduction somethingof the special interest which was evidently aroused by Miss Anderson's_debut_ here on Saturday night. English playgoers recognize but vaguelythe distinguishing characteristics of actors and actresses, whose fame hasbeen won wholly by their performances on the other side of the Atlantic. It was therefore just as well that before Miss Anderson arrived somedefinite claim as to her pretensions should be authoritatively putforward. These would, it must be confessed, have been liable tomisconception if they had been judged solely by her first performance onthe London stage. 'Ingomar' is not a play, and Parthenia is certainly nota character, calculated to call forth the higher powers of an ambitiousactress. As a matter of fact, Miss Anderson, who began her histrion careerat an early age, and is even now of extremely youthful appearance, has hadplenty of experience and success in _roles_ of much more difficulty, andmuch wider possibilities. Her modest enterprise on Saturday night wasquite as successful as could have been anticipated. There is not enoughhuman reality about Parthenia to allow her representative to interest verydeeply the sympathy of her hearers. There is not enough poetry in thedrama to enable the actress to mar our imagination by calling her own intoplay. What Miss Anderson could achieve was this: she was able in the firstplace to prove, by the aid of the Massilian maiden's becoming, yetexacting attire, that her personal advantages have been by no meansoverrated. Her features regular yet full of expression, her figure slightbut not spare, the pose of her small and graceful head, all these, together with a girlish prettiness of manner, and a singularly refinedbearing, are quite enough to account for at least one of the phases ofMiss Anderson's popularity. Her voice is not wanting in melody of acertain kind, though its tones lack variety. Her accent is slight, andseldom unpleasant. Of her elocution it is scarcely fair to judge until shehas caught more accurately the pitch required for the theater. For theaccomplishment of any great things Miss Anderson had not on Saturday nightany opportunity, nor did her treatment of such mild pathos and passion asthe character permitted impress us with the idea that her command of deepfeeling is as yet matured. So far as it goes, however, her method isextremely winning, and her further efforts, especially in the direction ofcomedy and romantic drama, will be watched with interest, and may beanticipated with pleasure. "

_Morning Post_, 3rd September, 1883. 

"LYCEUM THEATER. 

"This theater was reopened under the management of Mr. Henry Abbey onSaturday evening, when was revived Mrs. Lovell's play called 'Ingomar, ' apicturesque but somewhat ponderous work of German origin, first producedsome thirty years ago at Drury Lane with Mr. James Anderson and MissVandenhoff as the principal personages. The interest centers not so muchin the barbarian Ingomar as in his enchantress, Parthenia, of whom MissMary Anderson, an American artist of fine renown, proves a comely andefficient representative. In summing up the qualifications of an actressthe Transatlantic critics never fail to take into account her personalcharms--a fascinating factor. Borne on the wings of an enthusiastic press, the fame of Miss Anderson's loveliness had reached our shores long beforeher own arrival. The Britishers were prepared to see a very handsome lady, and they have not been disappointed. Miss Anderson's beauty is of Greciantype, with a head of classic contour, finely chiseled features, and a tallstatuesque figure, whose Hellenic expression a graceful costume of antiquedesign sets off to the best advantage. You fancy that you have seen herbefore, and so perhaps you have upon the canvas of Angelica Kauffman. Forthe rest, Miss Anderson is very clever and highly accomplished. Hertalents are brilliant and abundant, and they have been carefullycultivated to every perfection of art save one--the concealment of it. Shehas grace, but it is studied, not negligent grace; her action is alwayspicturesque and obviously premeditated; everything she says and does isimpressive, but it speaks a foregone conclusion. Her acting is polishedand in correct taste. What it wants is freshness, spontaneity, _abandon_. Among English artists of a bygone age her style might probably find aparallel in the stately elegance and artificial grandeur of the Kembles. It has nothing in common with the electric _verve_ and romantic ardor ofEdmund Kean. Of the _feu sacre_ which irradiated Rachel and gives toBernhardt splendor ineffable, Miss Anderson has not a spark. She is notinspired. Hers is a pure, bright, steady light; but it lacks mysticeffulgence. It is not empyreal. It is not 'the light that never was on seaor land--the consecration and the poet's dream. ' It is not genius. It istalent. In a word, Miss Anderson is beautiful, winsome, gifted, andaccomplished. To say this is to say much, and it fills to the brim themeasure of legitimate praise. She is an eminently good, but not a greatartist. "

_Daily Telegraph_, 3rd September, 1883. 

"There was a natural desire to see, nay, rather let us say to welcome MissMary Anderson, who made her _debut_ as Parthenia in 'Ingomar' on Saturdayevening last. The fame of this actress had already preceded her. Anenthusiastic climber up the rugged mountain paths of the art she hadelected to serve . . . An earnest volunteer in the almost forlorn cause ofthe poetical drama: a believer in the past, not merely because it is past, but because in it was embodied much of the beautiful and the hopeful thathas been lost to us, Miss Mary Anderson was assured an honest greeting ata theater of cherished memories. . . . It has been said that the friends ofMiss Anderson were very ill-advised to allow her to appear as Parthenia inthe now almost-forgotten play of 'Ingomar. ' We venture to differ entirelywith this opinion. That the American actress interested, moved, and attimes delighted her audience in a play supposed to be unfashionable andout of date, is, in truth, the best feather that can be placed in hercap. . . . There must clearly be something in an actress who cannot only holdher own as Parthenia, but in addition dissipate the dullness of'Ingomar. '. . . And now comes the question, how far Miss Mary Andersonsucceeded in a task that requires both artistic instinct and personalcharm to carry it to a successful issue. The lady has been calledclassical, Greek, and so on, but is, in truth, a very modern reproductionof a classical type--a Venus by Mr. Gibson, rather than a Venus by Milo; aclassic draped figure of a Wedgwood plaque more than an echo from theParthenon. . . . The actress has evidently been well taught, and is both anapt and clever pupil; she speaks clearly, enunciates well, occasionallyconceals the art she has so closely studied, and is at times both tenderand graceful. . . . Her one great fault is insincerity, or, in other words, inability thoroughly to grasp the sympathies of the thoughtful part of heraudience. She is destitute of the supreme gift of sensibility that Talmaconsiders essential, and Diderot maintains is detrimental to the highestacting. Diderot may be right, and Talma may be wrong, but we are convincedthat the art Miss Anderson has practiced is, on the whole, barren andunpersuasive. She does not appear to feel the words she speaks, or to bedeeply moved by the situations in which she is placed. She is foreveracting--thinking of her attitudes, posing very prettily, but still posingfor all that. . . . She weeps, but there are no tears in her eyes; shemurmurs her love verses with charming cadence, but there is no throb ofheart in them. . . . These things, however, did not seem to affect heraudience. They cheered her as if their hearts were really touched. . . . These, however, are but early impressions, and we shall be anxious to seeher in still another delineation. "

_Standard_, 10th December, 1883. 

"LYCEUM THEATER. 

"Miss Mary Anderson has won such favor from audiences at the Lyceum, thatanything she did would attract interest and curiosity. Galatea, in Mr. W. S. Gilbert's mythological comedy, 'Pygmalion and Galatea, ' has, moreover, been spoken of as one of the actress' chief successes, and acrowded house on Saturday evening was the result of the announcement ofits revival. An ideal Galatea could scarcely be realized, for there shouldbe in the triumph of the sculptor's art, endowed by the gods with life, asupernatural grace and beauty. The singular picturesqueness of MissAnderson's poses and gestures, the consequences of careful study of thebest sculpture, has been noted in all that she has done, and this qualityfits her peculiarly for the part of the vivified statue. In this respectit is little to say that Galatea has never before been represented with sonear an approach to perfection. "

_Daily News_, 10th December, 1883. 

"The part of Galatea, in which Miss Anderson made her first appearance inEngland at the Lyceum Theater on Saturday evening, enables this delightfulactress to exhibit in her fullest charms the exquisite grace of form andthe simple elegance of gesture and movement by virtue of which she standswholly without a rival on the stage. Whether in the alcove, where she isfirst discovered motionless upon the pedestal, or when miraculously enduedwith life, she moves, a beautiful yet discordant element in the Atheniansculptor's household. The statuesque outline and the perfect harmonybetween the figure of the actress and her surroundings, were strikingenough to draw more than once from the crowded theater, otherwise hushedand attentive, an audible expression of pleasure. Rarely, indeed, can anattempt to satisfy by actual bodily presentment the ideal of a poeticallegend have approached so nearly to absolute perfection. "

_The Morning Post_, 10th December, 1883. 

"'Pygmalion and Galatea, ' a play in which Miss Mary Anderson is said tohave scored her most generally accepted success in her own country, hasnow taken at the Lyceum the place of 'The Lady of Lyons, ' a dramacertainly not well fitted to the young actress' capabilities. Mr. Gilbert's well-known fairy comedy is in many respects exactly suited tothe display of Miss Anderson's special merits. Its heroine is a statue, and a very beautiful simulation of chiseled marble was sure to be achievedby a lady of Miss Anderson's personal advantages, and of her approvedskill in artistic posing. Moreover, the sub-acid spirit of the piecerarely allows its sentiment to go very deep, and it is in theexpression--perhaps, we should write the experience--of really earnestemotion, that Miss Anderson's chief deficiency lies. Galatea is moreoverby no means the strongest acting part in the comedy, affording few of theopportunities for the exhibition of passion, which fall to the lot of theheart-broken and indignant wife, Cynisca. Although in 1871, on theoriginal production of the play, Mrs. Kendall made much of Galatea'swomanly pathos, there is plenty of room for an effective rendering of thecharacter, which deliberately hides the woman in the statue. Such arendering is, as might have been expected, Miss Anderson's. Even in heringenious scenes of comedy with Leucippe and with Chrysos, there is nomore dramatic vivacity than might be looked for in a temporarily animatedblock of stone. Her love for the sculptor who has given her vitality isperfectly cold in its purity. There is no spontaneity in the accents inwhich it is told, no amorous impulse to which it gives rise. This newGalatea, however, is fair to look upon--so fair in her statuesqueattitudes and her shapely presence, that the infatuation of the man whocreated her is readily understood. By the classic beauty of her featuresand the perfect molding of her figure she is enabled to give all possiblecredibility to the legend of her miraculous birth. Moreover, therefinement of her bearing and manner allows no jarring note to be struck, and although, when Galatea sadly returns to marble not a tear is shed bythe spectator, it is felt that a plausible and consistent interpretationof the character has been given. "

_The Times_, 10th December, 1883. 

"Mr. Gilbert's play 'Pygmalion and Galatea, ' is a perversion of Ovid'sfable of the Sculptor of Cyprus, the main interest of which upon the stageis derived from its cynical contrast between the innocence of thebeautiful nymph of stone whom Pygmalion's love endows with life, and theconventional prudishness of society. Obviously the purpose of such atravesty may be fulfilled without any call upon the deeper emotions--uponthe stress of passion, which springs from that 'knowledge of good andevil' transmitted by Eve to all her daughters. It is sufficient that theliving and breathing Galatea of the play should seem to embody the classicmarble, that she should move about the stage with statuesque grace andthat she should artlessly discuss the relations of the sexes in thelanguage of double intent. Miss Anderson's degree of talent, as shown inthe impersonations she has already given us, and her command of classicalpose, have already suggested this character as one for which she waseminently fitted. It was therefore no surprise to those who have beenleast disposed to admit this lady's claim to greatness as an actress thather Galatea on Saturday night should have been an ideally beautiful andtolerably complete embodiment of the part. If the heart was not touched, as, indeed, in such a play it scarcely ought to be, the eye was enabled torepose upon the finest _tableau vivant_ that the stage has ever seen. Uponthe curtains of the alcove being withdrawn, where the statue stillinanimate rests upon its pedestal, the admiration of the house wasunbounded. Not only was the pose of the figure under the lime-lightartistic in the highest sense, but the tresses and the drapery were mostskillfully arranged to look like the work of the chisel. It is significantof the measure of Miss Anderson's art, that in her animated momentssubsequently she should not have excelled the plastic grace of this firstpicture. At the same time, to her credit it must be said, that she neverfell much below it. Her movements on the stage, her management of herdrapery, her attitudes were full of classic beauty. Actresses there havebeen who have given us much more than this statuesque posing, who havetransformed Galatea into a woman of flesh and blood, animated by truewomanly love for Pygmalion as the first man on whom her eyes alight. Sentiment of this kind, whether intended by the author or not, wouldscarcely harmonize with the satirical spirit of the play, and the innocentprattle which Miss Anderson gives us in place of it meets sufficientlywell the requirements of the case dramatically, leaving the spectator freeto derive pleasure from his sense of the beautiful, here so strikinglyappealed to, from the occasionally audacious turns of the dialogue inrelation to social questions, from the disconcerted airs of Pygmalion atthe contemplation of his own handiwork, and from the real womanly jealousyof Cynisca. "

_The Graphic_, 14th December, 1883. 

"Never, perhaps, have the playgoing public been so much at variance withthe critics as in the case of the young American actress now performing atthe Lyceum Theater. There is no denying the fact that Miss Anderson is, touse a popular expression, 'the rage;' but it is equally certain that sheowes this position in very slight degree to the published accounts of heracting. From the first she has been received, with few exceptions, only ina coldly critical spirit; and yet her reputation has gone on gathering instrength till now, the Lyceum is crowded nightly with fashionable folkwhose carriages block the way; and those who would secure places towitness her performances are met at the box offices with the informationthat all the seats have been taken long in advance. How are we to accountfor the fact that this young lady who came but the other day among us astranger, even her name being scarcely known, and who still refrains fromthose 'bold advertisements, ' which in the case of so many other managersand performers usurp the functions of the trumpet of fame, has made herway in a few short months only to the very highest place in the estimationof our play going public? We can see no possible explanation save thesimple one that her acting affords pleasure in a high degree; for thosewho insinuate that her beauty alone is the attraction may easily beanswered by reference to numerous actresses of unquestionable personalattractions who have failed to arouse anything approaching to the samedegree of interest. As regards the unfavorable critics, we are inclined tothink that they have been unable to shake off the associations of theessentially artificial characters--Parthenia and Pauline--in which MissAnderson has unfortunately chosen to appear. Further complaints ofartificiality and coldness have, it is true, been put forth _a propos_ ofher first appearance on Saturday evening in Mr. Gilbert's beautifulmythological comedy of 'Pygmalion and Galatea;' but protests are beginningto appear in some quarters, and we are much mistaken if this graceful andaccomplished actress is not destined yet to win the favor of her censors. The statuesque beauty of her appearance and the classic grace of all hermovements and attitudes, as the Greek statue suddenly endowed with life, have received general recognition; but not less remarkable were thesimplicity, the tenderness, and, on due occasion, the passionate impulseof her acting, though the impersonation is no doubt in the chastenedclassical vein. It is difficult to imagine how a realization of Mr. Gilbert's conception could be made more perfect. "

_The World_, 12th December, 1883. 

"The revival of 'Pygmalion and Galatea' at the Lyceum on Saturday last, with Miss Mary Anderson in the part of the animated statue, excitedconsiderable interest and drew together a large and enthusiastic audience. Without attempting any comparison between Mrs. Kendal and the youngAmerican actress, it may at once be stated, that the latter gave aninteresting and original rendering of Galatea. As the velvet curtain drawnaside disclosed the snowy statue on its pedestal, in a pose of classicbeauty, it seemed hard to believe that such sculptural forms, the delicatefeatures, the fine arms, the graceful figure, could be of any othermaterial than marble. The gradual awakening to life, the joy and wonder ofthe bright young creature, to whom existence is still a mystery, werecharmingly indicated; and when Miss Anderson stepped forward slowly in hersoft clinging draperies, with her pretty brown hair lightly powdered, shesatisfied the most fastidiously critical sense of beauty. Galatea, as MissAnderson understands her, is statuesque; but Galatea is also a woman, perfect in the purity of ideal womanhood. The chief characteristics of hernature are innate modesty and refinement, which, though, perhaps, notstrictly fashionable attributes, are appropriate enough in a daughter ofthe gods. When she loves, it is without any airs and graces. She has notan atom of self-consciousness; she cannot premeditate; she loves becauseshe _must_, rather than because she will, because it is the condition ofher life. Some of the naive remarks she has to utter, might in clumsy lipsseem coarse. Miss Anderson delivered them with consummate grace andinnocence, but her fine smile, her bright sparkling eye, provedsufficiently, that the innocence was not stupidity. The first long speechat the conclusion of which she kneels to Pygmalion was beautifullyrendered, and elicited a burst of applause, which was repeated atintervals throughout the evening. Her poses were always graceful, sometimes strikingly beautiful. 

"Miss Anderson has the true sense of rhythm and the clearest enunciation;she has a deep and musical voice, which in moments of pathos thrills witha sweet and tender inflection. She has seized, in this instance, upon thetouching rather than the harmonious side of Galatea, the pure and innocentgirl who is not fit to live upon this world. She is only not human becauseshe is superior to human folly; she cannot understand sin because it is sosweet; she asks to be taught a fault; but the womanly love and devotion, and unselfishness, are all there, writ in clear and uncompromisingcharacters. The first and last acts were decidedly the best; in the latterespecially Miss Anderson touched a true pathetic chord, and fairlyelicited the pity and sympathy of the audience. With a gentle wonder andtrue dignity she meets the gradual dropping away of her illusion, thecrumbling of her unreasoning faith, the cruel stings when her spiritualnature is misunderstood, and her actions misinterpreted. She is jarred bythe rough contact of commonplace facts, and ruffled and wounded by thestrange and cynical indifference to her sufferings of the man she loves. At last when she can bear no more, yet uncomplaining to the last, like aflower broken on its stem, shrinking and sensitive, she totters out withone loud cry of woe, the expression of her agony. Miss Anderson is a poet, she brings everything to the level of her own refined and artisticsensibility, and the result is that while she presents us with a pictureof ideal womanhood, she must appeal of necessity rather to ourimaginations than to our senses, and may by some persons be consideredcold. Once or twice she dropped her voice so as to became almostinaudible, and occasionally forced her low tones more than was quiteagreeable; but whether in speech, in gesture, or in delicate suggestivebyplay, her performance is essentially finished. One or two little actionsmay be noted, such as the instinctive recoil of alarmed modesty whenPygmalion blames her for saying 'things that others would reprove, ' or herexpression of troubled wonder to find that it is 'possible to say onething and mean another. '"

_Daily Telegraph_, 10th December, 1883. 

"'PYGMALION AND GALATEA. '

"It is the fashion to judge of Miss Anderson outside her capacity andcompetency as an actress. Ungraciously enough she is regarded and reviewedas the thing of beauty that is a joy forever, and her infatuated admirersview her first as a picture, last as an artist. If, then, public taste wasagitated by the Parthenia who lolled in her mother's lap and twistedflower garlands at the feet of her noble savage Ingomar; if societyfluttered with excitement at the sight of the faultless Pauline gazinginto the fire on the eve of her ill-fated marriage, how much morejubilation there will be now that Miss Mary Anderson, a lovely woman instudied drapery, stands posed at once as a statue, and as a subject forthe photographic pictures which will flood the town. Unquestionably MissAnderson never looked so well as a statue, both lifeless and animated, never comported herself with such grace, never gave such a perfectembodiment of purity and innocence. In marble she was a statue motionless;in life she was a statue half warmed. There are those who believe, or whotry to persuade themselves, that this is all Galatea has to do--to appearbehind a curtain as a '_pose plastique_, ' to make an excellent '_tableauvivant_, ' and to wear Greek drapery, as if she had stepped down from aniche in the Acropolis. All this Miss Mary Anderson does to perfection. She is a living, breathing statue. A more beautiful object in its innocentseverity the stage has seldom seen. But is this all that Galatea has todo? Those who have studied Mr. Gilbert's poem will scarcely say so. Galatea descended from her pedestal has to become human, and has toreconcile her audience to the contradictory position of a woman, who, presumably innocent of the world and its ways, is unconsciously cynicaland exquisitely pathetic. We grant that it is a most difficult part toplay. Only an artist can give effect to the comedy, or touch the truechord of sentiment that underlies the idea of Galatea. But to make Galateaconsistently inhuman, persistently frigid, and monotonously spiritual, is, if not absolutely incorrect, at least glaringly ineffective. If Galateadoes not become a breathing, living woman when she descends from herpedestal, a woman capable of love, a woman with a foreshadowing ofpassion, a woman of tears and tenderness, then the play goes fornothing. . . . Miss Anderson reads Galatea in a severe fashion. She is aGalatea perfectly formed, whose heart has not yet been adjusted. Sheshrinks from humanity. She wants to be classical and severe, and her lastcry to Pygmalion, instead of being the utterance of a tortured soul, is'monotonous and hollow as a ghost's. ' It is with no desire to bediscourteous that we venture any comparison between the Galatea of MissAnderson and of Mrs. Kendal. The comparison should only be made on thepoint of reading. Yet surely there can be no doubt that Mrs. Kendal's ideaof Galatea, while appealing to the heart, is more dramatically effective. It illumines the poem. "

_The Times_, 28th January, 1884. 

"LYCEUM THEATER. 

"Those who have suspected that Miss Mary Anderson was well advised inclinging to the artificial class of character hitherto associated with herengagement at the Lyceum--characters, that is to say, making little callupon the emotional faculties of their exponent--will not be disposed tomodify their opinion from her 'creation' of the new part of distinctlyhigher scope in Mr. Gilbert's one act drama, 'Comedy and Tragedy, 'produced for the first time on Saturday night. Though passing in a singlescene, this piece furnishes a more crucial test of Miss Anderson's powersthan any of her previous assumptions in this country. Unfortunately italso assigns limits to those powers which few actresses of the second oreven third rank need despair of attaining. Such a piece as this, it willbe seen, makes the highest demands upon an actress. Tenderly affectionate, and true with her husband, when she arranges with him the plan upon whichso much depends: heartless and _insouciante_ in manner while she receivesher guests; affectedly gay and vivacious while her husband's fate istrembling in the balance; deeply tragic in her anguish when her fortitudehas broken down; and finally overcome with joy as her husband is restoredto her arms; she has to pass and repass, without a pause, from one extremeof her art to the other. There is probably no actress but Sarah Bernhardtwho could render all the various phases of this character as they shouldbe rendered. There is only one phase of it that comes fairly within MissAnderson's grasp. Of vivacity there is not a spark in her nature; aheavy-footed impassiveness weighs upon all her efforts to be sprightly. The refinement, the subtlety, the animation, the _ton_, of an actress ofthe Comedie Francaise she does not so much as suggest. Womanly sympathy, tenderness, and trust, those qualities which constitute a far deeper andmore abiding charm than statuesque beauty, are equally absent from animpersonation which in its earlier phases is almost distressingly labored. While the actress is entertaining her guests with improvised comedy, moreover, no undercurrent of emotion, no suggestion of suppressed anxietyis perceptible. It is not till this double _role_, which demands a degreeof _finesse_ evidently beyond Miss Anderson's range, is exchanged for theunaffected expression of mental torture that the actress rises to theoccasion, and here it is pleasing to record, she displayed on Saturdaynight an earnestness and an intensity which won her an ungrudging round ofapplause. Miss Anderson's conception of the character is excellent, it isher powers of execution that are defective; and we do not omit from thesethe quality of her voice, which at times sinks into a hard andunsympathetic key. "

_Morning Post_, 28th January, 1884. 

"A change effected in the programme at the Lyceum Theater on Saturdaynight makes Mr. Gilbert responsible for the whole entertainment of theevening. His fairy comedy of 'Pygmalion and Galatea, ' is now supplementedby a new dramatic study in which, under the ambitious title 'Comedy andTragedy, ' he has been at special pains to provide Miss Mary Anderson withan effective _role_. This popular young actress has every reason tocongratulate herself upon the opportunity for distinction thus placed inher way, for Mr. Gilbert has accomplished his task in a thoroughlyworkmanlike manner. In the course of a single act he has demanded from theexponent of his principal character the most varied histrioniccapabilities, for he has asked her to be by turns the consummate actressand the unsophisticated woman, the gracious hostess and the vindictiveenemy, the humorous reciter and the tragedy queen. Nor has he done thismerely by inventing plausible excuses for a succession of consciousassumptions, such as those of the entertainer who appears first in oneguise and then in another, that he may exhibit his deft versatility. Thereis a genuine dramatic motive for the display by the heroine of 'Comedy andTragedy' of quickly changing emotions and accomplishments. She actsbecause circumstances really call upon her to act, and not because theshowman pulls the strings of his puppet as the whim of the moment maysuggest. The question is, how far Miss Anderson is able to realize for usthe mental agony and the characteristic self-command of such a woman asClarice in such a state as hers. The answer, as given on Saturday by ademonstrative audience, was wholly favorable; as it suggests itself to acalmer judgment the kindly verdict must be qualified by reservations manyand serious. We may admit at once that Miss Anderson deserves all praisefor her exhibition of earnest force, and for the nervous spirit with whichshe attacks her work. It is a pleasant surprise to see her depending uponsomething beyond her skill in the art of the _tableau vivant_. The ring ofher deep voice may not always be melodious, but at any rate it is true, and the burst of passionate entreaty carries with it the genuineconviction of distress. What is missing is the distinction of bearing thatshould mark a leading member of the famous _troupe_ of players, grace ofmovement as distinguished from grace of power, lightening of touch inClarice's comedy, and refinement of expression in her tragedy. At presentthe impersonation is rough and almost clumsy whilst, at times, thevigorous elocution almost descends to the level of ranting. Many of thesefaults may, however, have been due to Miss Anderson's evident nervousness, and to the whirlwind of excitement in which she hurried through her task;and we shall be quite prepared to find her performance improve greatlyunder less trying conditions. "

_The Scotsman_, 28th April, 1884. 

"Last night the young American actress, who has, during the past fewmonths, acquired such great popularity in London, made her firstappearance before an Edinburgh audience in the same character she chosefor her Metropolitan _debut_--that of Parthenia in 'Ingomar. ' The pieceitself is essentially old-fashioned. It is one of that category of'sentimental dramas' which were in vogue thirty or forty years ago, butare not sufficiently complex in their intrigue, or subtle in theiranalysis of emotion, to suit the somewhat cloyed palates of the presentgeneration of playgoers. Yet, through two or three among the long list ofplays of this type, there runs like a vein of gold amid the dross, a nobleand true idea that preserves them from the common fate, and one of thesefew pieces is 'Ingomar. ' Its blank verse may be stilted, its action oftenforced and unreal; but the pictures it presents of a daughter's devotion, a maiden's purity, a brave man's love and supreme self-sacrifice, aredrawn with a breadth and a simplicity of outline that make them at onceappreciable, and they are pictures upon which few people can help lookingwith pleasure and sympathy. We do not say that Miss Anderson could notpossibly have chosen a better character in which to introduce herself toan Edinburgh audience; but certainly it would be difficult to conceive amore charming interpretation of Parthenia than she gave last night. Topersonal attractions of the highest order she adds a rich and musicalvoice, capable of a wide range of accent and inflection, a command ofgesture which is abundantly varied, but always graceful and--what is, perhaps, of more moment to the artist than all else--an unmistakablecapacity for grasping the essential significance of a character, andidentifying herself thoroughly with it. Her delineation is not onlyexquisitely picturesque; it leaves behind the impression of a thoughtfulconception wrought out with consistency, and developed with real dramaticpower. The lighter phases of Parthenia's nature were, as they should be, kept generally prominent, but when the demand came for stronger and tenseremotions the actress was always able to respond to it--as for instance inParthenia's defiance of Ingomar, when his love finds its first uncouthutterance, in her bitter anguish when she thinks he has left her forever, and in her final avowal of love and devotion. These are the crucial pointsin the rendering of the part; and they were so played last night by MissAnderson as to prove that she is equal to much more exacting _roles_. Shewas excellently supported by Mr. Barnes as Ingomar, and fairly well by therepresentatives of the numerous minor personages who contribute to thedevelopment of the story, without having individual interest of their own. Miss Anderson won an enthusiastic reception at the hands of a large anddiscriminating audience, being called before the curtain at the close ofeach act. "

_Glasgow Evening Star_, 6th May, 1884. 

"MISS ANDERSON AT THE ROYALTY. 

"No modern actress has created such a _furore_ in this country as MissAnderson. Coming to us from America with the reputation of being theforemost exponent of histrionic art in that country, it was but naturalthat her advent should be regarded with very critical eyes by many whothought that America claimed too much for their charming actress. Thuspredisposed to find as many faults as possible in one who boldlychallenged their verdict on her own merits alone, it is not surprisingthat Metropolitan critics were almost unanimous in their opinion that MissAnderson, although a clever actress and a very beautiful woman, was not byany means a great artist. They did not hesitate to say, moreover, thatmuch of her success as an actress was due to her physical grace andbeauty. We have no hesitation in stating a directly contrary opinion. "

_Glasgow Herald_, 6th May, 1884. 

"MISS ANDERSON AT THE ROYALTY THEATER. 

"Since 'Pygmalion and Galatea' was produced at the Haymarket Theater, fully a dozen years ago, when the part of Galatea was created by Mrs. Kendal, quite a number of actresses have essayed the character. Most ofthem have succeeded in presenting a carefully thought-out andintelligently-executed picture; few have been able to realize in theirintensity, and give adequate embodiment to, the dreamy utterances of theanimated statue. It is a character which only consummate skill canappropriately represent. The play is indeed a cunningly-devised fable; butGalatea is the one central figure on which it hangs. Its humor and itssatire are so exquisitely keen that they must needs be delicately wielded. That a statue should be vivified and endowed with speech and reason is abold conception, and it requires no ordinary artist to depict the emotionof such a mythical being. For this duty Miss Anderson last night provedherself more than capable. Her interpretation of the part is essentiallyher own; it differs in some respects from previous representations of thecharacter, and to none of them is it inferior. In her conception of thepart, the importance of statuesque posing has been studied to the minutestdetail, and in this respect art could not well be linked with greaternatural advantages than are possessed by Miss Anderson. When, in theopening scene, the curtains of the recess in the sculptor's studio werethrown back from the statue, a perfect wealth of art was displayed in itspose; it seemed indeed to be a realization of the author's conception of afigure which all but breathes, yet still is only cold, dull stone. Frombeginning to end, Miss Anderson's Galatea is a captivating study in thehighest sphere of histrionic art. There is no part of it that can besingled out as better than another. It is a compact whole such as only fewactresses may hope to equal. "

_Dublin Evening Mail_, 22d March, 1884. 

"MARY ANDERSON AT THE GAIETY. 

"Notwithstanding all that photography has done for the last few weeks tofamiliarize Dublin with Miss Anderson's counterfeit presentment, theoriginal took the Gaiety audience last night by surprise. Her beautyoutran expectation. It was, moreover, generally different from what thecamera had suggested. It required an effort to recall in the brilliant, mobile, speaking countenance before us the classic regularity and harmonyof the features which we had admired on cardboard. Brilliancy is thesingle word that best sums up the characteristics of Miss Anderson's face, figure and movements on the stage. But it is a brilliancy that isaltogether natural and spontaneous--a natural gift, not acquisition; andit is a brilliancy which, while it is all alive with intelligence andsympathy, is instinct to the core with a virginal sweetness and purity. In'Ingomar' the heroine comes very early and abruptly on the scene beforethe audience is interested in her arrival, or has, indeed, got rid of thegarish realities of the street. But Miss Anderson's appearance spoke foritself without any aid from the playwright. The house, after a moment'shesitation, broke out into sudden and quickly-growing applause, which wasevidently a tribute not to the artist, but to the woman. She understoodthis herself, and evidently enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlishpleasure. She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She isof rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, herwell-shaped head dressed Greek fashion with the simple knot behind, herarms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, white, andof a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her walk and all herattitudes consummately graceful and expressive. A more general form ofdisparagement is that which pretends to account for all Miss Anderson'spopularity by her beauty. It is her beauty, these people say, not heracting, that draws the crowd. We suspect the fact to be that MissAnderson's uncommon beauty is rather a hindrance than a help to theperception of her real dramatic merits. People do not easily believe thatone and the same person can be distinguished in the highest degree bydifferent and independent excellences. They find it easier to make one ofthe excellences do duty for both. Miss Anderson, it may be admitted, isnot a Sarah Bernhardt. At the same time we must observe that attwenty-three the incomparable Sarah was not the consummate artist that sheis now, and has been for many years. We are not at all inclined to rankMiss Anderson as an actress at a lower level than the very high one ofMiss Helen Faucit, of whose Antigone she reminded us in several passageslast night. Miss Faucit was more statuesque in her poses, more classical, and, perhaps, touched occasionally a more profoundly pathetic chord. Butthe balance is redeemed by other qualities of Miss Anderson's acting, quite apart from all consideration of personal beauty. 

"'Ingomar, ' it must be said, is a mere melodrama, and as such does notafford the highest test of an actor's capacity. The wonder is that MissAnderson makes so much of it. In her hands it was really a stirring andvery effective play. "

_Dublin Daily Express_, 28th March, 1884. 

"MISS ANDERSON AS GALATEA. 

"Nothing that the sculptor's art could create could be more beautiful thanthe still figure of Galatea, in classic _pose_, with gracefully flowingrobes, looking down from her pedestal on the hands that have given herform, and it is not too much to say that nothing could be added to rendermore perfect the illusion. The whole _pose_--her aspect, the _contour_ ofher head, the exquisite turn of the stately throat, the faultless symmetryof shoulder and arms--everything is in keeping with the realization of themost perfect, most beautiful, and most illusive figure that has ever beenwitnessed on the stage. Miss Anderson indeed is liberally endowed withphysical charms, so fascinating that we can understand an audience findingit not a little difficult to refrain from giving the rein to enthusiasm inthe presence of this fairest of Galateas. From these remarks, however, itis not intended to be inferred that the young American is merely agraceful creature with a 'pretty face. ' Miss Anderson is unquestionably afine actress, and the high position which she now deservedly occupiesamongst her sister artists, we are inclined to think, has been gainedperhaps less through her personal attractions than by the sterlingcharacteristics of her art. Each of her scenes bears the stamp ofintelligence of an uncommon order, and perhaps not the least remarkablefeature in her portraiture of Galatea is that her effects, one and all, are produced without a suspicion of straining. Those who were present inthe crowded theater last night, and saw the actress in the _role_--said tobe her finest--had, we are sure, no room to qualify the high reputationwhich preceded the impersonation. "

CHAPTER IX. 

MARY ANDERSON AS AN ACTRESS. 

The author approaches this, his concluding chapter, with some degree ofdiffidence. Though he has in the foregoing pages essayed something like aportrait of a very distinguished artist, he is not by profession adramatic critic. He does not belong to that noble band at whose nod theactor is usually supposed to tremble. He is not a "first-nighter, " who, bythe light of the midnight oil, dips his mighty pen in the ink which is toseal on to-morrow's broad-sheet, as he proudly imagines, the professionalfate of the artists who are submitted for his censure or his praise. Notthat he is by any means an implicit believer in the verdict of theprofessional critic. An actor who succeeds, should often fail according tothe recognized canons of dramatic criticism, and the reverse. That thebeautiful harmony of nature and the eternal fitness of things dramatic arenot always preserved, is due to that _profanum vulgus_ which sometimesreverses the decisions of those dramatic divinities who sit enthroned, like the twelve Cęsars, in the sacred temple of criticism, as the inspiredrepresentatives of the press. 

Those who have been at the trouble to read the various and conflictingnotices of the chief London journals upon Mary Anderson'sperformances--for those of the great provincial towns she visited presenta singular unanimity in her favor--must have found it difficult, if notimpossible, to decide either on her merits as an artist, or on the trueplace to be assigned to her in the temple of the drama. The veriestmisogynist among critics was compelled, in spite of himself, to confess tothe charm of her strange beauty. Hers, as all agreed, was the loveliestface and the most graceful figure which had appeared on the London boardswithin the memory of a generation. According to some she was anaccomplished actress, but she lacked that divine spark which stamps thetrue artist. Others attributed her success to nothing but her personalgrace and beauty; while one critic, bolder than his fellows, even went sofar as to declare that whether she wore the attire of a Grecian maid, of afine French lady of a century ago, or of the fabled Galatea, only prettyMiss Anderson, of Louisville, Kentucky, peeped out through every disguise. Several causes, perhaps, combined to this uncertain sound which went forthfrom the trumpet of the dramatic critic. Mary Anderson was an Americanartist, who came here, it is true, with a great American reputation; butso had come others before her, some of whom had wholly failed to stand thefierce test of the London footlights. Then to "damn her with faintpraise, " would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to abecoming _locus penitenię_ would be easy and gradual if the vane should, in spite of the critics, veer round to the point of popular favor. One ofthe most distinguished of English journalists lately observed in the Houseof Commons that certain writers in back parlors were in the habit ofpalming off their effusions as the voice of the great English public, tillthat voice made itself heard. When the voice of the English theater-goingpublic upon Mary Anderson came to make itself heard in the crowded andenthusiastic audiences of the Lyceum, in the friendship of all that wasmost cultivated and best worth knowing in London society, it failedaltogether to echo the trumpet, we will not say of the back parlor criticsonly, but of some critics distinguished in their profession, who canlittle have anticipated how quickly the popular verdict would modify, ifnot reverse their own. 

It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much to thepoint, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable paper readrecently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science Congress. It will hardlybe denied that there are few artists competent to speak with moreauthority on matters theatrical, or better able to form a judgment on thetrue inwardness of that Press criticism to which herself and her fellowartists are so constantly subject:

"Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either over-praise ortoo cruelly condemn. The public, as a matter of course, turn to thenewspapers for information, but how can any judgment be formed when eitherindiscriminate praise or unqualified abuse is given to almost every newpiece and to the actors who interpret it? Criticism, if it is to be worthanything, should surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of apicturesque article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be theaim of the theatrical reviewer. Of course, the influence of the Press uponthe stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers findthat their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy guides. The publicmust, after all, decide the fate of a new play. If it be bad, theEnglishman of to-day will not declare it is good because the newspapershave told him so. He will be disappointed, he will be bored, he will tellhis friends so, and the bad piece will fail to draw audiences. If, on theother hand, the play is a good one, which has been condemned by the Press, it will quicken the pulse and stir the heart of an audience in spite ofadverse criticism. The report that it contains the true ring will goabout, and success must follow. In a word, though the Press can do verymuch to further the interests of the stage, it is powerless to kill goodwork, and cannot galvanize that which is invertebrate into life. "

To determine Mary Anderson's true stage place, and to make a fair andimpartial criticism of her performances is rendered further difficult bythe fact, that the English stage offers in the last generation scarcelyone with whom she can be compared, if we except perhaps Helen Faucit. Between herself and that great artist, middle-aged play-goers seem to finda certain resemblance; but to the present generation of playgoers MaryAnderson is an absolutely new revelation on the London boards. Recallingthe roll of artists who have essayed similar parts for the last five andtwenty years, we can name not one who has given as she did what we maybest describe as a new stage sensation. Never was the pride of a freemaiden of ancient Greece more nobly expressed than in Parthenia: neverwere the gradual steps from fear and abhorrence to love more finelyportrayed than in the stages of her rising passion for the savagechieftain, whose captive hostage she was. Her Pauline was the oldpatrician beauty of France living on the stage, a true woman in spite ofthe selfish veneer of pride and caste with which the traditions of theancient _noblesse_ had covered her; while Galatea found in her certainlythe most poetic and beautiful representation of that fanciful character, ever seen on any stage. This was the verdict of the public who throngedthe Lyceum to its utmost capacity, during the months of the past winter. This was the verdict, too, of the largest provincial towns of the kingdom. The critics, some of them, were willing to concede to Mary Anderson thepossession of every grace which can adorn a woman, and of everyqualification which can make an artist attractive, with a solitary butfatal reservation--_she was devoid of genius_. But what, indeed, is geniusafter all? It is the magic power to touch unerringly a sympathetic chordin the human breast. The novelist, whose characters seem to be living; thepainter, the figures on whose canvas appear to breathe; the actor who, while he treads the stage, is forgotten in the character he assumes; allthese possess it. This was the verdict of the public upon Mary Anderson, and we are fain to believe that--_pace_ the critics--it was the true one. Her Clarice was perhaps the least successful of her impersonations; andgiven as an afterpiece, it taxed unfairly the endurance of an actress, whohad already been some hours upon the stage. But as a striking illustrationof the reality of her performance, we may mention, that, in the scenewhere she is supposed by her guests to be acting, her fellow actors, whoshould have applauded the tragic outburst which the public divine to bereal, were so disconcerted by the vehemence and seeming reality of hergrief and despair, that on the first representation of "Comedy andTragedy" they actually forgot their parts, and had to be called to task bythe author for failing properly to support the star. "No man, " it is said, "is a hero to his _valet de chambre_, " and few indeed are the artists whocan make their fellow artists on the stage forget that the mimic passionwhich convulses them is but consummate art after all. 

Mary Anderson's present Lyceum season will exhibit her in characters whichwill give opportunity for displaying powers of a widely different order tothose called forth in the last. A new Juliet and a new Lady Macbeth willshow the capacity she possesses for the true exhibition of the tenderestas well as the stormiest passions which can agitate the human breast; andshe may perhaps appear in Cushman's famous _role_ of Meg Merrilies. In allthese she invites comparison with great impersonators of these parts whoare familiar to the stage. We will not anticipate the verdict of thepublic, but of this much we are assured that rarely can Shakespeare'sfavorite heroine have been represented by so much youth, and grace, andbeauty, and genuine artistic ability combined. Juliet was her first part, and has always been, regarded by Mary Anderson with the affection due to afirst love. But it may not be generally known that she imagines her_forte_ to lie rather in the exhibition of the stormier passions, and thatshe succeeds better in parts like Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies. Iremember her once saying to me, as she raised her beautiful figure to itsfull height, and stretched her hand to the ceiling, "I am always at mybest when I am uttering maledictions. " Thus far, Mary Anderson has shownherself to us in characters which must give a very incomplete estimate ofher powers. None indeed of the parts she assumed were adapted to bring outthe highest qualities of an artist. That she has succeeded in inspiringthe freshness and glow of life into plays, some of which, at least, weresupposed to be consigned almost to the limbo of disused stage properties, stamps her as possessing genuine histrionic power. She has earneddistinguished fame all over the Western continent. London as well as thegreat cities of the kingdom have hailed her as a Queen of the Stage. Suchan experience as hers is rare indeed, almost solitary, in its annals. Aself-trained girl, born quite out of the circle or influence of stageassociations, she burst, when but sixteen, as a star on the theatricalhorizon; and if her grace, her youth, her beauty, have helped her in theupward flight, they have helped alone, and could not have atoned for thewant of that divine spark, which is the birthright of the artist who makesa mark upon his generation and his time. When the more recent history ofthe English-speaking stage shall once again be written, we do not doubtthat Mary Anderson will take her fitting place, side by side with the manygreat artists who have so adorned it in the last half century; withCharlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, and Fanny Stirling, who represent itsearlier glories; with Mrs. Kendal, Mrs. Bancroft, and Ellen Terry, whosenames are interwoven with the triumphs of later years.