diff options
Diffstat (limited to '14758-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 14758-h/14758-h.htm | 2537 |
1 files changed, 2537 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/14758-h/14758-h.htm b/14758-h/14758-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7693a4c --- /dev/null +++ b/14758-h/14758-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2537 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mary Anderson, by J. M. Farrar</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[*/ + <!-- + body {font-family:Georgia,serif;margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;font-variant:small-caps;} + h1.pg {font-family: Times Roman, serif; text-align: center;font-variant:normal;} + h4.pg {font-family: Times Roman, serif; text-align: center;font-variant:normal;} + pre {font-family:Courier,monospaced;font-size: 0.7em;} + sup {font-size:0.7em;} + hr {width: 50%;} + + ul {list-style-type:none;margin-left:1em;text-indent:0em;} + + .returnTOC {text-align:right;font-size:.7em;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left:5em;} + .cen {text-align:center;} + .rgt {text-align:right;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + --> +/*]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14758 ***</div> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mary Anderson, by J. M. Farrar</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>Mary Anderson</h1> +<h2>by J. M. Farrar, M.A.</h2> +<h3>1885.</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<!-- Transcriber's Note: Table of Contents added for navigation --> +<h2><a id="Contents" name="Contents">Contents</a></h2> +<ul style="margin:auto;width:50%;"> +<li><a href="#Ch_I">Chapter I.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_II">Chapter II.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_III">Chapter III.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_IV">Chapter IV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_V">Chapter V.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VI">Chapter VI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VII">Chapter VII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_VIII">Chapter VIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Ch_IX">Chapter IX.</a></li> +</ul> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_I" name="Ch_I">Chapter I.</a></h3> +<h2>At Home.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>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 in restlessly on to the New Jersey +shore. The sultry day has been one of summer 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.</p> +<p>About a mile back from the shore stands a rambling country house +embosomed in a small park a few acres in extent, and immediately +surrounding it masses of the magnificent shrub known as Rose of +Sharon, in full bloom, in which the walls of snowy white, with +their windows gleaming in the sunlight, seem set as in a bed of +color. The air is full of perfume. The scent of flower and tree +rises gratefully from the rain-laden earth. The birds make the air +musical with song; and here and there in the neighboring wood, the +pretty brown squirrels spring from branch to branch, and dash down +with their gambols the rain drops in a diamond spray. A broad +veranda covered with luxuriant honeysuckle and clematis stretches +along the eastern front of the house, and the wide bay window, +thrown open just now to the summer wind, seems framed in flowers. +As we approach nearer, the deep, rich notes of an organ strike upon +the ear. Some one, with seeming unconsciousness, is producing a +sweet passionate music, which changes momentarily with the +player’s passing mood. We pause an instant and look into the +room. Here is a picture which might be called “a dream of +fair women.” Seated at the organ in the subdued light is a +young woman of a strange, almost startling beauty. Her graceful +figure clad in a simple black robe, unrelieved by a single +ornament, is slight, and almost girlish, though there is a rounded +fullness in its line which betrays that womanhood has been reached. +A small classic head carried with easy grace; finely chiseled +features; full, deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealth of +auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like +ear; these complete a picture which seems to belong to another +clime and another age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of +Titian. We are almost sorry to enter the room and break the spell. +Mary Anderson’s manner as she starts up from the organ with a +light elastic spring to greet her visitors is singularly gracious +and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the beautiful +speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness and +decision in the mouth, with an utter absence of that +self-consciousness and coquetry which often mar the charm of even +the most beautiful 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 life of a strolling player, whose +days are spent wandering in pursuit of her profession over the vast +continent which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Here +she may be found often busy with her part when the faint rose +begins to steal over the tree tops at early dawn; or sometimes when +the world is asleep, and the only sounds are the wind, as it sighs +mournfully through the neighboring wood, or the far-off murmur of +the Atlantic waves as they dash sullenly upon the beach. On a still +summer’s night she will wander sometimes, a fair Rosalind, +such as Shakespeare would have loved, in the neighboring grove, and +wake its silent echoes as she recites the Great Master’s +lines; or she will stand upon the flower-clad veranda, under the +moonlight, her hair stirred softly by the summer wind, and it +becomes to her the balcony from which Juliet murmurs the story of +her love to a ghostly Romeo beneath.</p> +<p>A large English deerhound, who was dozing at her feet when we +entered the room, starts up with his mistress, and after a lazy +stretch seems to ask to 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 the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. He +has failed ignominiously in an attempted training for a dramatic +career, and can do no more than howl a doleful and distracting +accompaniment to his mistress’ voice in singing. We glance +round the room, and see that the walls are covered with portraits +of eminent actors, living and dead, with here and there bookcases +filled with favorite dramatic authors; in a corner a bust of +Shakespeare; and on a velvet stand a stage dagger which once +belonged to Sarah Siddons. Over the mantelpiece is a huge +elk’s head, which fell to the rifle of General Crook, and was +presented to Mary Anderson by that renowned American hunter; and +here, under a glass case, is a stuffed hawk, a deceased actor and +former colleague. Dressed in appropriate costume he used 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’s training is as characteristic of her +passion for stage realism as of that indomitable power of will to +overcome obstacles, to which much of her success is due. She +determined to have a live hawk for the part instead of the +conventional stuffed one of the stage, and with some difficulty +procured a half-wild bird from a menagerie. Arming herself with +strong spectacles and heavy gauntlets, she spent many a weary day +in the painful process of “taming the shrew.” After a +long struggle, in which she came off sometimes torn and bleeding, +the bird was taught to fly from the falconer’s shoulder on to +her outstretched finger and stay there while she recited the +lines—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“How nature fashioned him for his bold trade!</p> +<p>Gave him his stars of eyes to range abroad.</p> +<p>His wings of glorious spread to mow the air</p> +<p>And breast of might to use them!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>and then, by tickling his feet, he would fly off: and flap his +wings appropriately, while she went on—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10">“I delight</p> +<p>To fly my hawk. The hawk’s a glorious bird;</p> +<p>Obedient—yet a daring, dauntless bird!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Here, too, are her guitar and zither, on both which instruments +Mary Anderson is a proficient.</p> +<p>And now that we have seen all her treasures, we must follow her +to the top of the house, from which is obtained a fine view of the +Atlantic as it races in mighty waves on to the beach at Long +Branch. She declares that in the offing, among the snowy craft +which dance at anchor there, can be distinguished her pretty steam +yacht, the Galatea.</p> +<p>Night is falling fast, but with that impulsiveness which is so +characteristic of her, Mary Anderson insists upon our paying a +visit to the stables to see her favorite mare, Maggie Logan. Poor +Maggie is now blind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry +her mistress, who is a splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five +miles across the prairie in sixteen minutes. As we enter the box, +Maggie turns her pretty head at sound of the familiar voice, and in +response to a gentle hint, her mistress produces a piece of sugar +from her pocket. As Mary Anderson strokes the fine thoroughbred +head, we think the pair are not very much unlike. Meanwhile, +Maggie’s stable companion cranes his beautiful neck over the +side of the box, and begs for the caress which is not denied +him.</p> +<p>Night has fallen now in earnest, and the beaming colored boy +holds his lantern to guide us along the path, while Maggie whinnies +after us her adieu. The grasshoppers chirp merrily in the sodden +grass, and now and then a startled rabbit darts out of the wood and +crosses close to our feet. The light is almost blinding as we enter +the cheerful dining-room, where supper is laid on the snowy cloth, +and are introduced to the charming family circle of the Long Branch +villa. Though it is the home now of an old Southerner, Mary +Anderson’s step-father, it is a favorite trysting-place with +Grant, the hero of the North, with Sherman, and many another famous +man, between whom and the South there raged twenty years ago so +deadly and prolonged a feud. While not actually a daughter of the +South by birth, Mary Anderson is such by early education and +associations, and to these grim old soldiers she seems often the +emblem of Peace, as they sit in the pretty drawing-room at Long +Branch, and listen, sometimes with tear-dimmed eyes, to the sweet +tones of her voice as she sings for them their favorite songs.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_II" name="Ch_II">Chapter II.</a></h3> +<h2>Birth and Education.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Seldom has a more charming story been written than that of Mary +Anderson’s childhood and youth to the time when, a beautiful +girl of sixteen, she made her <em>debut</em> in what has ever since +remained her favorite <em>role</em>, Juliet—and the only +Juliet who has ever played the part at the same age since Fanny +Kemble.</p> +<p>There was nothing in her home surroundings to guide in the +direction of a dramatic career; indeed her parents seemed to have +entertained the not uncommon dread of the temptations and dangers +of a stage life for their daughter, and only yielded at last before +the earnest passionate purpose to which so much of Mary +Anderson’s after success is due. They bent wisely at length +before the mysterious power of genius which shone out in the +beautiful child long before she was able fully to understand +whither the resistless 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 the highest types of +histrionic genius.</p> +<p>Mary Anderson was born at Sacramento, on the Pacific slope, on +the 28th of July, 1859, but removed with her parents to Kentucky, +when but six months old. German and English blood are mingled in +her veins, her mother being of German descent, while her father was +the grandson of an Englishman. On the outbreak of the civil war he +joined the ranks of the Southern armies, and fell fighting under +the Confederate flag before Mobile. When but three years old Mary +Anderson was left fatherless, and a year or two afterward she and +her little brother Joseph found almost more than a father’s +love and care in her mother’s second husband, Dr. Hamilton +Griffin, an old Southern planter, who had abandoned his plantations +at the outbreak of the war, and after a successful career as an +army surgeon, established himself in practice at Louisville.</p> +<p>Mary Anderson’s early years were characteristic of her +future. She was one of those children whose wild artist nature +chafes under the restraints of home and school life. Generous to a +fault, the life and soul of her companions, yet to control her +taxed to their utmost the parental resources; and it must be +admitted she was the torment of her teachers. Her wild exuberant +spirits overleaped the bounds of school life, and sometimes made +order and discipline difficult of enforcement. She was never known +to tell an untruth, but at the same time she would never confess to +a fault. Imprisoned often for punishment in a room, she would +steadfastly refuse to admit that she had done wrong, and, maternal +patience exhausted, the mutinous little culprit had commonly to be +released impenitent and unconfessed. Indeed her wildness acquired +for her the name of “Little Mustang;” as, later on, her +fondness for poring over books beyond her childish years that of +“Little Newspaper.” At school, the confession must be +made, she was refractory and idle. The prosaic routine of school +life was dull and distasteful to the child, who, at ten years of +age, found her highest delight in the plays of Shakespeare. Many of +her school hours were spent in a corner, face to the wall, and with +a book on her head, to restrain the mischievous habit of making +faces at her companions, which used to convulse the school with +ill-suppressed laughter. 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 all the buttons, if any way ornamental, +given away in an impulsive generosity to her schoolmates. It soon +became evident that she would learn little or nothing at school; +and on a faithful promise to amend her ways if she might only leave +and pursue her studies at home, Mary Anderson was permitted, when +but thirteen years of age, to terminate her school career. But +instead of studying “Magnall’s Questions,” or +becoming better acquainted with “The Use of the +Globes,” she spent most of her time in devouring the pages of +Shakespeare, and committing favorite passages to memory. 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 a +life apart from the prosaic everyday existence which surrounded her +in a modern American town. Shakespeare was the teacher who replaced +the “school marm,” with her dull and formal lessons. +Her quick perceptive mind grasped his great and noble thoughts, +which gave a vigor and robustness to her mental growth. Since those +days she has assimilated rather than acquired knowledge, and there +are now few women of her age whose information is more varied, or +whose conversation displays greater mental culture, and higher +intellectual development. Strangely enough, it was the male +characters of Shakespeare which touched Mary Anderson’s +youthful fancy; and she studied with a passionate ardor such parts +as Hamlet, Romeo, and Richard III. With the wonderful intuition of +an art-nature, she seems to have felt that the cultivation of the +voice was a first essential to success. She ransacked her +father’s library for works on elocution, and discovering on +one occasion “Rush on the Voice,” proceeded, for many +weeks before it became known to her parents, to commence under its +guidance the task of building up a somewhat weak and ineffective +organ into a voice capable of expressing with ease the whole gamut +of feeling from the fiercest passion to the tenderest sentiment, +and which can fill with a whisper the largest theater.</p> +<p>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 to represent appropriately the stage scene. Her +first visit to the theater was when she was about twelve, one +winter’s evening, to see a fairy piece called +“Puck.” The house was only a short distance from her +home at Louisville, and she and her little brother presented +themselves at the entrance door hours before the time announced for +the performance. The door-keeper happened to observe the children, +and thinking they would freeze standing outside in the wintry wind, +good naturedly opened the door and admitted Mary Anderson to +Paradise—or what seemed like it to her—the empty +benches of the dress circle, the dim half-light, the mysterious +horizon of dull green curtain, beyond which lay Fairyland. Here for +two or three hours she sat entranced, till the peanut boy made his +appearance to herald the approach of the glories of the evening. +From that date the die of Mary Anderson’s destiny was cast. +The theater became her world. She looked with admiring interest on +a super, or even a bill-sticker, as they passed the windows of her +father’s house; and an actor seen in the streets in the flesh +filled her with the same reverent awe and admiration as though the +gods had descended from their serene heights to mingle in the dust +with common mortals. We are not sure that she still retains this +among the other illusions of her youth!</p> +<p>The person who seems to have fixed Mary Anderson’s +theatrical destiny was one Henry Woude. He had been an actor of +some distinction on the American stage, which he had, however, +abandoned for the pulpit. Mr. Woude happened to be one of her +father’s patients, and the conversation turning one day upon +Mary’s passion for a theatrical career, the older actor +expressed a wish to hear her read. He was enthusiastic in praise of +the power and promise displayed by the self-trained girl, and +declared to the astonished father that in his youthful daughter he +possessed a second Rachel. Mr. Woude advised an immediate training +for a dramatic career; but the parental repugnance to the stage was +not yet overcome, and Mary remained a while longer to pursue, as +best she might, her dramatic studies in her own home, and with no +other teachers than the artistic instinct which had already guided +her so far on the path to eventual triumph and success.</p> +<p>When in her fourteenth year, Mary Anderson saw for the first +time a really great actor. Edwin Booth came on a starring tour to +Louisville, and she witnessed his Richard III., one of the +actor’s most powerful impersonations. 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 same magic power. +She commenced at once the serious study of “Richard +III.” The manner of Booth was carefully copied, and that +great artist would doubtless have been as much amused as flattered +to note the servility with which his rendering of the part was +adhered to. A preliminary rehearsal took place in the kitchen +before a little colored girl, some years Mary Anderson’s +senior, who had that devoted attachment to her young mistress often +found in the colored races to the whites. Dinah was so much +terrified by the fierce declamation that she almost went into +hysterics, and rushing up-stairs begged the mother to come down and +see what was the matter with “Miss Mami,” as she was +affectionately called at home. Consent was 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 +the title <em>role</em>. For some months the young +<em>debutante</em> had carefully saved her 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 little costume was got +up—a purple satin tunic, green silk cape, and plumed +hat—and wearing the traditional hump, the youthful, +representative of Richard appeared for the first time before an +audience in the Tent Scene, preceded by the Cottage Scene from +“The Lady of Lyons.” The back drawing-room was arranged +as a stage; her mother acting as prompter, though her help was +little needed; and, judged by the enthusiastic applause of friends +and neighbors, the performance was a great success. The young +actress received it all with even more apparent coolness than if +she had trodden the boards for years, and made her exits with the +calm dignity which she had observed to be Edwin Booth’s +manner under similar circumstances. Indeed, Booth became to her +childish fancy the divinity who could 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, and fly to New York to Mr. +Booth, and ask him to place her on the stage. Dinah entered +heartily into the affair, and at one time they had managed to hoard +as much as five dollars for the carrying out of this romantic +scheme. Some years afterward when the wish of her heart had been +long accomplished, Mary Anderson made Mr. Booth’s +acquaintance, and recounting to him her childish fancy asked what +he would have done if she had succeeded in presenting herself to +him in New York. “Why, my child, I should have taken you down +to the depot, bought a couple of tickets for Louisville, and given +you in charge of the conductor,” was the rather discouraging +answer of the great tragedian.</p> +<p>Not long afterward Mary Anderson’s dramatic powers were +submitted to the critical judgment of Miss Cushman. That great +actress, then in the zenith of her fame, was residing not far +distant at Cincinnati. Accompanied by her mother, Mary presented +herself at Miss Cushman’s hotel. They happened to meet in the +vestibule. The veteran actress took the young aspirant’s hand +with her accustomed vigorous grasp, to which Mary, not to be +outdone, nerved herself to respond in kind; and patting her at the +same time affectionately on the cheek, invited her to read before +her on an early morning. When Miss Cushman had entered her waiting +carriage, Mary Anderson, 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 that had been occupied for a few moments +by the great actress. Miss Cushman’s verdict was highly +favorable. “You have,” she said, “three essential +requisites for the stage; voice, personality, and gesture. With a +year’s longer study and some training, you may venture to +make an appearance before the public.” Miss Cushman +recommended that she should take lessons from the younger +Vandenhoff, who was at the time a successful dramatic teacher in +New York. A year from that date occurred the actress’ +lamented death, almost on the very day of Mary Anderson’s +<em>debut</em>.</p> +<p>Returning home thus encouraged, her dramatic studies were +resumed with fresh ardor. The question of the New York project was +anxiously debated in the family councils. It was at length decided +that Mary Anderson should receive some regular training for the +stage; and accompanied by her mother she was soon afterward on her +way to the Empire City, full of happiness and pride that the dream +of her life seemed now within reach of attainment. Vandenhoff was +paid a hundred dollars for ten lessons, and taught his pupil mainly +the necessary stage business. This was, strictly speaking. Mary +Anderson’s only professional training for a dramatic career. +The stories which have been current since her appearance in London, +as to her having been a pupil of Cushman, or of other distinguished +American artists, are entirely apocryphal, and have been evolved by +the critics who have given them to the world out of that fertile +soil, their own inner consciousness. There is certainly no +circumstance in her career which reflects more credit on Mary +Anderson than that her success, and the high position as an artist +she has won thus early in life, are due to her own almost unaided +efforts. Well may it be said of her—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“What merit to be dropped on fortune’s hill?</p> +<p>The honor is to mount it.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_III" name="Ch_III">Chapter III.</a></h3> +<h2>Early Years on the Stage.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Between eight and nine years ago, Mary Anderson made her +<em>debut</em> at Louisville, in the home of her childhood, and +before an audience, many of whom had known her from a child. This +was how it came about. The season had not been very successful at +Macaulay’s Theater, and one Milnes Levick, an English +stock-actor of the company, happened to be in some pecuniary +difficulties, and in need of funds to leave the town. The manager +bethought him of Mary Anderson, and conceived the bold idea of +producing “Romeo and Juliet,” with the untried young +novice in the <em>role</em> of Juliet for poor Levick’s +benefit. It was on a Thursday that the proposition was made to her +by the manager at the theater, and the performance was to take +place on the following Saturday. Mary, almost wild with delight, +gave an eager acceptance if she could but obtain her parents’ +consent. The passers-by turned many of them that day to look at the +beautiful girl, who flew almost panting through the streets to +reach her home. The bell handle actually broke in her impetuous +eager hands. The answer was “Yes,” and at length the +dream of her life was realized. On the following Saturday, the 27th +of November, 1875, after only a single rehearsal, and wearing the +borrowed costume of the manager’s wife, who happened to be +about the same size as herself, and without the slightest +“make up,” Mary Anderson appeared as one of +Shakespeare’s favorite heroines. She was announced in the +playbills thus:—</p> +<h4 style="margin-bottom:0em;">JULIET . . By a Louisville Young +Lady.</h4> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top:0em;">(<em>Her first appearance on +any stage.</em>)</p> +<p>The theater was packed from curiosity, and this is what the +<em>Louisville Courier</em> said of the performance next +morning.</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Louisville Courier</em>, November 28th, +1875.</p> +<p>“We can scarcely bring ourselves to speak of the young +actress, who came before the footlights last night, with the +coolness of a critic and a spectator. An interest in native genius +and young endeavor, in courage and brave effort that arrives from +so near us—our own city—precludes the possibility of +standing outside of sympathy, and peering in with analyzing and +judicial glance. But we do not think that any man of judgment who +witnessed Miss Anderson’s acting of Juliet, can doubt that +she is a great actress. In the latter scenes she interpreted the +very spirit and soul of tragedy, and thrilled the whole house into +silence by the depth of her passion and her power. She is +essentially a tragic genius, and began really to act only after the +scene in which her nurse tells Juliet of what she supposes is her +lover’s death. The quick gasp, the terrified stricken face, +the tottering step, the passionate and heart-rending accents were +nature’s own marks of affecting overwhelming grief. Miss +Anderson has great power over the lower tones of her rich voice. +Her whisper electrifies and penetrates; her hurried words in the +passion of the scene, where she drinks the sleeping potion, and +afterward in the catastrophe at the end, although very far below +conversational pitch, came to the ear with distinctness and with +wonderful effect. In the final scene she reached the climax of her +acting, which, from the time of Tybalt’s death to the end, +was full of tragic power that we have never seen excelled. It will +be observed that we have placed the merit of this actress (in our +opinion) for the most part in her deeper and more somber powers, +and despite the high praise that we more gladly offer as her due, +we cannot be blind to her faults in the presentation of last +evening. She is, undoubtedly, a great actress, and last night +evidenced a magnificent genius, more especially remarkable on +account of her extreme youth; but whether she is a great Juliet is, +indeed, more doubtful. We can imagine her as personating Lady +Macbeth superbly, and hope soon to witness her in the part. As +Juliet, her conception is almost perfect, as evinced by her rare +and exceptional taste and intuitive understanding of the text. But +her enactment of the earlier scenes lacks the exuberance and +earnest joyfulness of the pure and glowing Flower of Italy, with +all her fanciful conceits and delightful and loving ardor.</p> +<p>“We could not, in Miss Anderson’s rendition of the +balcony scene, help feeling in the tones of her voice, an almost +stern foreboding of their saddening fates—a foreboding +stranger than that which falls as a shadow to all ecstatic youthful +hope and joy. Other faults—as evident, undoubtedly, to her +and to her advisers, as to us—are for the most part +superficial, and will disappear in a little further experience. A +first appearance, coupled with so much merit and youth, may well +excuse many things.</p> +<p>“A lack of true interpretation we can never excuse. We +give mediocrity fair common-place words, generally of commendation +unaccompanied by censure. But when we come to deal with a divine +inspiration, our words must have their full meaning.</p> +<p>“We do not here want mere commendatory phrases, whose +stereotyped faces appear again and again. We want just +appreciation, just censure. Thus our criticism is not to be +considered unkind. Nay, we not only owe it to the truth and to +ourselves in Miss Anderson’s case, to state the existence of +faults and crudities in her acting, but we owe it to her, for it is +the greatest kindness, and yet we do not speak harshly and are glad +to admit that most of her faults—such for instance as +frequently casting up the eyes—are not only slight in +themselves, but enhanced if not caused by the timidity natural on +such an occasion.</p> +<p>“But enough of faults. We know something of the quality of +our home actress. We see with but little further training and +experience she will stand among the foremost actresses on the +stage. We are charmed by her beauty and commanding power, and are +justified in predicting great future success.”</p> +<p>In the following February Mary Anderson appeared again at +Macaulay’s Theater for a week, when she played, with success, +Bianca in “Phasio,” studied by the advice of the +manager, who thought she had a vocation for heavy tragedy; also +Julia in “The Hunchback,” Evadne, and again Juliet.</p> +<p>The reputation of the rising young actress began to spread now +beyond the bounds of her Kentucky home, and on the 6th of March, +1876, she commenced a week’s engagement at the Opera House in +St. Louis. Old Ben de Bar, the great Falstaff of his time, was +manager of this theater. He had known all the most eminent American +actors, and had been manager for many of the stars; and he was +quick to discern the brilliant future which awaited the young +actress. The St. Louis engagement was not altogether successful, +though it was brightened by the praises of General Sherman, with +whom was formed then a friendship which remains unbroken till +to-day. Indeed, the old veteran can never pass Long Branch in his +travels without “stopping off 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 an unfashionable quarter +of the town. Its benches were reported to be almost deserted and +its treasury nearly empty. But an engagement to appear there for a +week was accepted joyfully by Mary Anderson. She played Evadne at a +parting <em>matinee</em> in St. Louis on the Saturday, traveled to +New Orleans all 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 night appeared to a house of only +forty-eight dollars! The students of the Military College formed a +large part of the scanty audience, and fired with the beauty and +talent of the young actress, they sallied forth between the acts +and bought up all the bouquets in the quarter. The final act of +“Evadne” was played almost knee-deep in flowers, and +that night Mary Anderson was compelled to hire a wagon to carry +home to her hotel the floral offerings of her martial admirers. +General and Mrs. Tom Thumb occupied the stage box on one of the +early nights of the engagement, and the fame of the beautiful young +star soon reached the fashionable quarter of New Orleans, and Upper +Tendom flocked to the despised St. Charles. On the following +Saturday night there was a house packed from floor to ceiling, the +takings, meanwhile, having risen from 48 to 500 dollars. An offer +of an engagement at the Varietes, the Lyceum of New Orleans, +quickly followed, and the daring feat of appearing as Meg Merrilies +was attempted on its boards. The press predicted failure, and +warned the young aspirant against essaying a part almost identified +with Cushman, then but lately deceased, who had been a great +favorite with the New Orleans public, and one of whose best +impersonations it was. The actors too, with whom Mary Anderson +rehearsed, looked forward to anything but a success. Nothing +daunted, however, and confident in her own powers, she spent two +hours in perfecting a make-up so successful, that even her mother +failed to recognize her in the strange, weird disguise; and then, +darkening her dressing-room, set herself resolutely to get into the +heart of her part. Mary Anderson’s Meg Merrilies was an +immense success; Cushman herself never received greater applause, +and the scene was quite an ovation. Hearing, on the fall of the +curtain, that General Beauregard, one of the heroes of the civil +war, intended to make a presentation, she threw off her disguise, +and smoothing her hair rushed back to the stage, to receive the +Badge of the Washington Artillery, a belt enameled in blue, with +crossed cannons in gold with diamond vents, and suspended from the +belt a tiger’s head in gold, with diamond eyes and ruby +tongue. The corps had been known through the war as the +“Tiger Heads,” and were famed for their deeds of daring +and bravery. The belt bore the inscription, “To Mary +Anderson, from her friends of the Battalion.” She returned +thanks in a little speech, which was received with much enthusiasm, +and retired almost overcome with pleasure and pride. The youthful +actress, who had then not completed her seventeenth year, took by +storm the hearts of the impulsive and chivalrous Southerners. On +the morning of her departure, she found to her astonishment that +the railway company had placed a fine “Pullman” and +special engine at her disposal all the way to Louisville. Generals +Beauregard and Hood, with many distinguished Southerners, were on +the platform to bid her farewell, and she returned home with purse +and reputation, both marvelously grown.</p> +<p>After a brief period spent in diligent study, Mary Anderson +fulfilled a second engagement in New Orleans, which proved a great +financial success. The criticisms of this period all admit her +histrionic power, though some describe her efforts as at times raw +and crude, faults hardly to be wondered at in a young girl mainly +self-taught, and with barely a year’s experience of the +business of the stage.</p> +<p>About this time Mary Anderson met with the first serious rebuff +in her hitherto so successful career. It happened, too, in +California, the State of her birth, where she was to have a +somewhat rude experience of the old adage, that “a prophet +has no honor in his own country.” John McCullough was then +managing with great success the principal theater in San Francisco, +and offered her a two weeks’ engagement. But California would +have none of her. The public were cold and unsympathetic, the press +actually hostile. The critics declared not only that she could not +act, but that she was devoid of all capability of improvement. One, +more gallant than his fellows, was gracious enough to remark that, +in spite of her mean capacity as an artist, she possessed a neck +like a column of marble. It was only when she appeared as Meg +Merrilies that the Californians thawed a little, and the press +relented somewhat. Edwin Booth happened to be in San Francisco at +the time, and it was on the stage of California that Mary Anderson +first met the distinguished actor who had been her early stage +ideal. He told her that for ten years he had never sat through a +performance till hers; and the praises of the great tragedian went +far to console her for the coldness and want of sympathy in the +general public. It was by Booth’s advice, as well as John +McCullough’s, that she now began to study such parts as +Parthenia, as better suited to her powers than more somber tragedy. +Those were the old stock theater days in America, when every +theater had a fair standing company, and relied for its success on +the judicious selection of stars. This system, though perhaps a +somewhat vicious one, made so many engagements possible to Mary +Anderson, whose means would not have admitted of the costlier +system of traveling with a special company.</p> +<p>The return journey from California was made painfully memorable +by a disastrous accident to a railway train which had preceded the +party, and they were compelled to stop for the night at a little +roadside town in Missouri. The hotels were full of wounded +passengers, and scenes of distress were visible on all sides. When +they were almost despairing of a night’s lodging, a plain +countryman approached them, and offered the hospitality of his +pretty white cottage hard by, embosomed in its trees and flowers. +The offer was thankfully accepted, and soon after their arrival the +wife’s sister, a “school mar’m,” came in, +and seemed to warm at once to her beautiful young visitor. She +proposed a walk, and the two girls sallied forth into the fields. +The stranger turned the subject to Shakespeare and the stage, with +which Mary Anderson was fain to confess but a very slight +acquaintance, fearing the announcement of her profession would +shock the prejudices of these simple country folk, who might shrink +from having “a play actress” under their roof. Some +months after the party had returned home there came a letter from +these kind people saying how, to their delight and astonishment, +they had accidentally discovered who had been their guest. It +seemed the sister was an enthusiastic Shakespearean student, and +all agreed that in entertaining Mary Anderson they had +“entertained an angel unawares.”</p> +<p>The California trip may be said to close the first period of +Mary Anderson’s dramatic career. With some draw-backs and +some rebuffs she had made 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 of the South and East, as years +later, with a reputation second to none all over the States as well +as in Canada, she essayed, with a success which has been seldom +equaled, perhaps never surpassed, the ordeal of facing, at the +Lyceum, an audience, perhaps the most fastidious and critical in +London.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_IV" name="Ch_IV">Chapter IV.</a></h3> +<h2>The Career of an American Star.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Mary Anderson returned home from California disheartened and +dispirited. To her it had proved anything but a Golden State. Her +visit there was the first serious rebuff in her brief dramatic +career whose opening months had been 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 easily have succumbed +beneath the storm of adverse criticism. Happily for herself, and +happily too for the stage on both sides of the Atlantic, the young +<em>debutante</em> took the lesson wisely to heart. She saw that +the heights of dramatic fame could not be taken by storm; that her +past successes, if brilliant, regard being had to her youth and +want of training, were far from secure. She was like some fair +flower which had sprung up warmed by the genial sunshine, likely +enough to wither and die before the first keen blast. Her youth, +her beauty, her undoubted dramatic genius, were points strongly in +her favor; but these could ill counterbalance, at first at any +rate, the want of systematic training, the almost total absence of +any experience of the representation by others of the parts which +she sought to make her own. She had seen Charlotte Cushman; indeed, +in “Meg Merrilies,” but of the true rendering of a part +so difficult and complex as Shakespeare’s Juliet, she knew +absolutely nothing but what she had been taught by the promptings +of her own artistic instinct. She was herself the only Juliet, as +she was the only Bianca, and the 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 most charming of Juliets +at sixty. “Si j’avais ma jeunesse, je n’aurais +pas mon talent.”</p> +<p>Coming back then to her Kentucky home from the ill-starred +Californian trip, Mary Anderson seems to have determined to essay +again the lowest steps of the ladder of fame. She took a summer +engagement with a company, which was little else than a band of +strolling players. The <em>repertoire</em> was of the usual +ambitious character, and Mary was able to assume once more her +favorite <em>role</em> of Juliet. The company was deficient in a +Romeo, and the part was consequently undertaken by a lady—a +<em>role</em> by the way in which Cushman achieved one of her +greatest triumphs. In spite, however, of the young star, the little +band played to sadly empty houses, and the treasury was so depleted +that, in the generosity of her heart, Mary Anderson proposed to +organize a benefit <em>matinee</em>, and play Juliet. She went 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 +peeped over the rails of the gallery, and, at last, a lady entered +the dress-circle. The disheartened manager was compelled at length +to appear before the curtain and announce that, in consequence of +the want of public support, the performance could not take place. +That day Mary Anderson walked home to her hotel through the quiet +streets of the little Kentucky town—which shall be +nameless—with a sort of miserable feeling at her heart, that +the world had no soul for the great creations of +Shakespeare’s master-mind, which had so entranced her +youthful fancy. It all seemed like a descent into some chill valley +of darkness, after the sweet incense of praise, the perfume of +flowers, and the crowded theaters which had been her earlier +experiences. But the dark storm cloud was soon to pass over, and +henceforth almost unbroken sunshine was to attend Mary +Anderson’s career. For her there was to be no heart-breaking +period of mean obscurity, no years of dull unrequited toil. She +burst as a star upon the theatrical world, and a star she has +remained to this day, because, through all her successes, she never +for a moment lost sight of the fact that she could only maintain +her ground by patient study, and steady persistent hard work. +Failures she had unquestionably. Her rendering of a part was often +rough, often unfinished. Not uncommonly she was surpassed in +knowledge of stage business by the most obscure member of the +companies with whom she played; but the public recognized +instinctively the true light of genius which shone clear and bright +through all defects and all shortcomings. It was a rare experience, +whether on the stage, or in other paths of art, but not an unknown +one. Fanny Kemble, who made her <em>debut</em> at Covent Garden at +the same age as Mary Anderson, took the town by storm at once, and +seemed to burst upon the stage as a finished actress. David Garrick +was the greatest actor in England after he had been on the boards +less than three months. Shelley was little more than sixteen when +he wrote “Queen Mab;” and Beckford’s +“Vathek” was the production of a youth of barely +twenty.</p> +<p>In the year 1876, Mary Anderson received an offer from a +distinguished theatrical manager, John T. Ford, of Washington and +Baltimore, to join his company as a star, but at an ordinary +salary. Three hundred dollars a week, even in those early days, was +small pay for the rising young actress, who was already without a +rival in her own line on the American stage; but the extended tour +through the States which the engagement offered, the security of a +good company, and of able management, led to an immediate +acceptance. On this as on every other occasion, through her +theatrical career, Mary Anderson was accompanied by her father and +mother, who have ever watched over her welfare with the tenderest +solicitude. All the arrangements for the trip were <em>en +prince</em>. Indeed we have small idea in our little sea-girt isle, +of the luxury and even splendor with which American stars travel +over the vast distances between one city and another on the immense +Western continent. The City of Worcester, a new Pullman car, +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 and three colored porters constituted the +<em>personnel</em> of the establishment. There was a completely +equipped kitchen, a dining-room with commodious family table; a +tiny drawing-room with its piano, portraits of favorite artists, +and some choicely-filled bookshelves, as well as capital sleeping +quarters. It was literally a splendid home upon wheels. Where the +hotels happened to be inferior at any particular town, the party +occupied it through the period of the engagement. Visitors were +received, friendly parties arranged, and little of the +inconvenience and discomfort of travel experienced. It was thus +that Mary Anderson made her first great theatrical tour through the +States. In spite of now and then a cold, or even hostile press, her +progress was very like a triumph. In many places she created an +absolute <em>furore</em>, hundreds being turned away at the theater +doors. Indeed, it was no uncommon occurrence for an ordinary seat +whose advertised price was seventy-five cents to sell at as high a +premium as twenty-five dollars. The management reaped a rich +harvest, and Mary Anderson played on this Southern trip to more +money than any previous actor, excepting only Edwin Forrest. There +was still one drop of bitter in this cup of sweetness and success. +The company, jealous of the prominence given to one whom they +regarded as a mere untried girl, proceeded to add what they could +to her difficulties by “boycotting” her. There were two +exceptions among the gentlemen actors; and we are pleased to be +able to record that one of these was an Englishman. The ladies were +unanimous in proclaiming a war to the knife!</p> +<p>Needless to say the impassioned youth of the New World now and +then pursued the wandering star in her travels at immense +expenditure of time and money, as well as of floral decorations. +This is young America’s way of showing his admiration for a +favorite actress. He is silent and unobtrusive. He makes his +presence known by the midnight serenade beneath her windows; by the +bouquets which fall at her feet on every representation, and are +sent to the room of her hotel at the same hour each day; by his +constant attendance on the departure platform at the railway +station. We are not sure that this silent worship which so often +persistently followed her path was displeasing to Mary Anderson. It +touched, if not her heart, yet that poetic vein which runs through +her nature, and reminded her sometimes of the vain pursuit with +which Evangeline followed her wandering lover.</p> +<p>Manager Ford had taken Mary Anderson through the South with +great profit to himself. In this she had had no direct pecuniary +interest beyond her modest salary. She had, of course, greatly +enriched her reputation if not her purse. She had become at home in +her parts, and even added to her <em>repertoire</em>, the +manager’s daughter, with whom she played Juliet and Lady +Macbeth alternately, having translated for her “La Fille de +Roland,” in which she has since appeared with great success. +She was then but seventeen and a half, and had never possessed a +diamond, when on returning home from church one Sunday morning, she +found a little jewel case containing a magnificent diamond cross, +an acknowledgment from the manager of her services to his company. +The gift was the more appreciated from the fact that it was a very +exceptional specimen of managerial generosity in America!</p> +<p>The criticisms of the press during the early years of Mary +Anderson’s theatrical career are full of interest, viewed in +the light of her after and firmly established success. They show +that the American people were not slow to recognize the genius of +the young girl, who was destined hereafter to spread a luster on +the stage of two continents. At the same time they are full either +of a ridiculous praise which is blind to the presence of the least +fault, and would have turned the head of a young girl not endowed +with the sturdy common sense possessed by Mary Anderson; or they +are marked by a vindictive animosity which defeats its very object, +and practically attracts public notice in favor of an actress it is +obviously meant to crush. These newspaper criticisms are further +amusing as showing the family likeness which exists between the +<em>genus</em> “dramatic critic” on both sides of the +Atlantic. Each seems to believe that he carries the fate of the +actor in his inkhorn. Each seems blind to the fact that <em>Vox +populi vox Dei</em>; that favorable criticism never yet made an +artist, who had not within him the power to win the popular favor; +still more, that adverse criticism can never extinguish the +heaven-sent spark of true artistic fire.</p> +<p>The verdict of Louisville on its home-grown actress has been +given in a preceding chapter. The estimate, however, of strangers +is of far more value than that of friends or acquaintance. The +judgment of St. Louis, where Mary Anderson played her earliest +engagements away from home is, on the whole, the most interesting +dramatic criticism of her early performances on record. St. Louis +is a city of considerable culture, and stands in much the same +relation to the South as does its modern rival Chicago to the +North-West. Its newspapers are some of the ablest on the continent, +and its audiences perhaps as critical as any in America if we +except perhaps such places as Boston or New York.</p> +<p>The <em>St. Louis Globe Democrat</em> says:—</p> +<p>“A diamond in the rough, but yet a diamond, was the mental +verdict of the jury who sat in the Opera House last night to see +Miss Mary Anderson on her first appearance here in the character of +Juliet. It was in reality her <em>debut</em> upon the stage. She +played, a short time since, for one week in her native city, +Louisville, but this is her first effort upon a stage away from the +associations which surround an appearance among friends, and which +must, to a great extent, influence the general judgment of the +<em>debutante’s</em> merit…. We believe her to be the +most promising young actress who has stepped upon the boards for +many a day, and before whom there is, undoubtedly, a brilliant and +successful career.”</p> +<p>The <em>St. Louis Republican</em> has the following very +interesting notice:—</p> +<p>“A fresh and beautiful young girl of Juliet’s age +embodied and presented Juliet. Beauty often mirrors its type in +this beautiful character, but very rarely does Juliet’s youth +meet its youthful counterpart on the stage…. A great Juliet +is not the question here, but the possibility of a Juliet near the +age at which the dramatist presented his heroine. Mary Anderson is +untampered by any stage traditions, and she rendered +Shakespeare’s youngest heroine as she felt her pulsing in his +lines…. She leads a return to the source of poetic +inspiration, and exemplifies what true artistic instincts and +feeling can do on the stage, without either the traditions and +experience of acting. She colors her own conceptions 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…. The +fourth act exhibited great tragic power, and no want was felt in +the celebrated chamber scene, which is the test passage of this +<em>role</em>…. It stamped the performance as a success, and +the actress as a phenomenon…. The thought must have gone +round the house among those who knew the facts—Can this be +only the seventh performance on the stage of this young +girl?”</p> +<p>Here is another notice a few months later on in Mary +Anderson’s dramatic career from the <em>Baltimore +Gazette</em>:—</p> +<p>“Miss Anderson’s Juliet has the charm which belongs +to youth, beauty, and natural genius. Her fair face, her flexible +youth—for she is still in her teens—and her great +natural dramatic genius, make her personation of that sweet +creation of Shakespeare successful, in spite of her immaturity as +an artist. 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 unworn voice, is truly refreshing. In the scene +where the nurse brings her the bad news of Tybalt’s death and +Romeo’s banishment, she acted charmingly. In gesture, +attitude, and facial expression she gave evidence of emotion so +true and strong, as showed she was capable of losing her own +identity in the <em>role</em>.”</p> +<p>As an amusing specimen of vindictive criticism, we subjoin a +notice in the <em>Washington Capitol</em>, under date May 28, 1876. +This lengthy notice contains strong internal evidence of a deadly +feud existing between Manager Ford and the editor of the +<em>Capitol</em>, and the stab is given through the fair bosom of +Mary Anderson, whose immense success in Senatorial Washington, this +atrabilious knight of the plume devotes two columns of his valuable +space to explaining away.</p> +<p class="cen">Washington City <em>Daily Capitol</em>, 28th May, +1876.</p> +<p>“Miss Anderson comes to us on a perfect whirlwind of +newspaper puffs. We use the words advisedly, for in none of them +can be found a paragraph of criticism. If Siddons or Cushman had +been materialized and restored to the stage 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 lost their +hearts, if not their heads; and not only serenaded the object of +their adoration, but got up a decoration for her to wear of the +most costly and gorgeous sort. Under this state of facts we waited +with unusual impatience for sixteen sticks to give the cue that was +to fetch on the Juliet. It came at last, and Juliet stalked in. Had +Lady Macbeth responded to the summons we could not have been more +amazed. Miss Anderson is heroic in size and manner. The lovely +heiress to the house of the Capulets, on the turn of sixteen, swept +in upon the stage as if she were mistress of the house, situation, +and of fate, and bent on bringing the enemy to terms. Her face is +sweet, at times positively beautiful, but incapable of expression. +Her voice, while clear, is hard, metallic, at intervals nasal, and +all the while stagey. She has been trained in the old Kemble tragic +pump-handle style of elocution, that runs talk on stilts. Her +manner is crude and awkward. In the balcony scene she only needed a +pair of gold rimmed glasses to have made her an excellent +schoolmistress, chiding a naughty young man for intruding upon the +sacred premises of Madame Fevialli’s select academy for young +ladies. In the love scenes that followed 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 pained us with his quite +unnecessary gyrations and spasmodic noise. We soon discovered that +Miss Anderson had been coached for Juliet without possessing on her +part the most distant conception of the character—or capacity +to render it, had she the information. She was not doing Juliet +from end to end. She was as far from Juliet as the North Pole is +from the Equator. She was doing something else. We could not make +out clearly what that character was; but it was something quite +different and a good way off. Sometimes we thought it was Lady +Macbeth, sometimes Meg Merrilies, sometimes Lucretia Borgia, but +never for a moment Juliet. We speak thus plainly of Miss Anderson +because her injudicious and enthusiastic friends are injuring, if +they are not ruining her. Her fine physique, her dash, her +beautiful face, her clear ringing voice, have carried crowds off +their heads—well, they are off at both ends; for on last +Thursday night the amount of applauding was based on shoe leather. +The lovely Anderson was called out at the end of each act. As to +that, the active Romeo had his call. We never saw before precisely +such a house. The north-west was out in full force. Kentucky came +to the front like a little man. General Sherman, sitting at our +elbow, wore out his gloves, blistered his hands, and then borrowed +a cotton umbrella from his neighbor. Miss Anderson, with all her +natural advantages, added to her love of the art, her indomitable +will as shown in her square prominent jaw, has a career before her, +but it is not down the path indicated by these enthusiastic +friends. ‘The steeps where Fame’s proud temple shines +afar’ are difficult of access, and genius waters them with +more tears than sturdy, steady, persevering talent.</p> +<p>“Charlotte Cushman told us once that the heaviest article +she had to carry up was her heart. The divine actress who now leads +the English-spoken stage began her professional career as a ballet +dancer, and has grown her laurels from her tears. We suspected Miss +Anderson’s success. It was too triumphant, too easy. After +years of weary labor, of heart-breaking disappointments, of dreary +obscurity, genius sometimes blazes out for a brief period to dazzle +humanity; and quite as often never blazes, but disappears without a +triumph.</p> +<p>“To such life is not a battle, but a campaign with ten +defeats, yea, twenty defeats to one victory.</p> +<p>“Miss Anderson will think us harsh and unkind in this. She +will live, we hope, to consider us her best friend.</p> +<p>“There is one fact upon which she can comfort herself: she +could not get two hours and a half of our time and a column in the +<em>Capitol</em> were she without merit. There is value in her; but +to fetch it out she must go back, 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 on end in +the world.</p> +<p>“Romeo (Mr. Morton) we have spoken of. Lingham is supposed +to have done Mercutio. Well, he did do him. That is, he went +through the motions. He seemed to be saying something anent the +great case of Capulet <em>vs.</em> Montague, but so indistinct that +there was a general sense of relief when he staggered off to die. +Deaths generally had this effect Thursday night, and the house not +only applauded the exits, but made itself exceedingly merry.</p> +<p>“When Paris went down and a tombstone fell over him, his +plaintive cry of ‘Oh, I am killed!’ was received with +shouts of laughter.</p> +<p>“It was the most laughable we ever witnessed. In the first +scene one of those marble statues, so peculiar to John T.’s +mismanagement, that resemble granite in a bad state of small-pox, +fell over.</p> +<p>“The house was amazed to see it resolve itself into a +board, and laughed tumultuously to note how it righted itself up in +a mysterious manner, and stood in an easy reclining posture till +the curtain fell.</p> +<p>“The scene that exhibited the balcony affair was a sweet +thing. Evidently the noble house of the Capulets was in reduced +circumstances. The building from which Juliet issued was a frame +structure so frail in material that we feared a collapse.</p> +<p>“If the carpenter who erected that structure for the +Capulets charged more than ten dollars currency he swindled the +noble old duffer infamously. The front elevation came under that +order of architecture known out West as Conestoga. It was all of +fifteen feet in height, and depended for ornamentation on a +brilliant horse cover thrown over the corner of the balcony, and a +slop bucket that Juliet was evidently about to empty on the head of +Romeo when that youth made his presence known. The house shook so +under Juliet’s substantial tread, that an old lady near us +wished to be taken out, declaring that ‘that young female +would get her neck broken next thing.’</p> +<p>“In the last scene where the page (Miss Lulu Dickson) was +ordered to extinguish the torch, the poor girl made frantic +efforts, but failing, walked off with the thing blazing.</p> +<p>“When Paris entered with his page, a youth in a night +shirt, that youth carried in his countenance the fixed +determination of putting out his torch at the right moment or +dieing in the attempt. We all saw that.</p> +<p>“Expectancy was worked up to a point of intense interest, +so that when at last the word was given, a puff of wind not only +extinguished the torch but shook the scenery, and made us thankful +the young man did wear pantaloons, as the consequences might have +been terrible.</p> +<p>“When Count Paris fell mortally wounded, a tombstone at +his side fell over him in the most convenient and charming manner. +The house was so convulsed with merriment that when poor Juliet was +exposed in the tomb she was greeted with laughter, much to the poor +girl’s embarrassment. And this is the sort of entertainment +to which we have been treated throughout our entire season. But +then the showman is a success and pays his bills.”</p> +<p>The great Eastern cities of America are regarded by an American +artist much in the same light as is the metropolis by a provincial +artist at home. Their approval is supposed to stamp as genuine the +verdict of remoter districts. The success which had attended Mary +Anderson in her journeyings West and South was not to desert her +when she presented herself before the presumably more critical +audiences of the East. She made her Eastern <em>debut</em> at +Pittsburg, the Birmingham of America, in the heat of the +Presidential election of 1880, and met with a thoroughly +enthusiastic reception, to proceed thence to Philadelphia, where +she reaped plenty of honor, but very little money. Boston, the +Athens of the New World, was reached at length. When Mary Anderson +was taken down by the manager to see the vast Boston Theater, whose +auditorium seats 4000 people, and which Henry Irving declared to be +the finest in the world, she almost fainted with apprehension. She +opened here in Evadne, and one journal predicted that she would +take Cushman’s place. This part was followed by Juliet, Meg +Merrilies, and her other chief impersonations. On one day of her +engagement the receipts at a matinee and an evening performance +amounted together to the large sum of $7000.</p> +<p>The visit to Boston was made memorable to Mary Anderson by her +introduction to Longfellow. About a week after she had opened, a +friend of the poet’s came to her with a request that she +would pay him a visit at his pretty house in the suburbs of Boston, +Longfellow being indisposed at the time, and confined to his quaint +old study, overlooking the waters of the sluggish Charles, and the +scenery made immortal in his verse. Here was commenced a warm +friendship between the beautiful young artist and the aged poet, +which continued unbroken to the day of his death. He was seated +when she entered, in a richly-carved chair, of which Longfellow +told her this charming story. The “spreading chestnut +tree,” immortalized in “The Village Blacksmith,” +happened to stand in an outlying village near Boston, somewhat +inconveniently for the public traffic at some cross roads. It +became necessary to cut it down, and remove the forge beneath. But +the village fathers did not venture to proceed to an act which they +regarded as something like sacrilege, without consulting +Longfellow. At their request he paid a visit of farewell to the +spot, and sanctioned what was proposed. Not long after, a +handsomely carved chair was forwarded to him, made from the wood of +the “spreading chestnut tree,” and which bore an +inscription commemorative of the circumstances under which it was +given. Few of his possessions were dearer to Longfellow than this +dumb memento how 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 death was always his favorite seat.</p> +<p>The verdict of Longfellow upon Mary Anderson is worth that of a +legion of newspaper critics, and his judgment of her Juliet +deserves to be recorded in letters of gold. The morning after her +benefit, he said to her, “I have been thinking of Juliet all +night. <em>Last night you were Juliet!</em>”</p> +<p>At the Boston Theater occurred an accident which shows the +marvelous courage and power of endurance possessed by the young +actress. In the play of “Meg Merrilies,” she had to +appear suddenly in one scene at the top of a cliff, some fifteen +feet above the stage. To avoid the danger of falling over, it was +necessary to use a staff. Mary Anderson had managed to find one of +Cushman’s, but the point having become smooth through use, +she told one 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 Mary Anderson, coming out as usual, drove this right through +her foot, in her sudden stop on the cliffs brink. Without +flinching, or moving a muscle, with Spartan fortitude she played +the scene to the end, though almost fainting with pain, till on the +fall of the curtain the spiked staff was drawn out, not without +force. Longfellow was much concerned at this accident, 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 wounded +foot.</p> +<p>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 under her door a very +favorable notice in the New York <em>Herald</em>. The engagement +proved a great success, and was ultimately extended to six weeks, +the actress playing two new parts, Juliet and The Daughter of +Roland. She had passed the last ordeal successfully, and might +rejoice as she stood on the crest of the hill of Fame that the +ambition of her young life was at length realized. Her subsequent +theatrical career in the States and Canada need not be recorded +here. She had become America’s representative +<em>tragedienne</em>; there was none to dispute her claims. Year +after year she continued to increase an already brilliant +reputation, and to amass one of the largest fortunes it has ever +been the happy lot of any artist to secure.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_V" name="Ch_V">Chapter V.</a></h3> +<h2>First Visit to Europe.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>In the summer of 1879, was paid Mary Anderson’s first +visit to Europe. It had long been eagerly anticipated. In the lands +of the Old World was the cradle of the Art she loved so well, and +it was with feelings almost of awe that she entered their portals. +She had few if any introductions, and spent a month in London +wandering curiously through the conventional scenes usually visited +by a stranger. Westminster Abbey was among her favorite haunts; its +ancient aisles, its storied windows, its thousand memories of a +past which antedated by so many centuries the civilization of her +native land, appealed deeply to the ardent imagination of the +impassioned girl. Here was a world of which she had read and +dreamed, but whose over-mastering, living influence was now for the +first time felt. It seemed like the first glimpse of verdant +forest, of enameled meadow, of crystal stream, of pure sky to one +who had been blind. It was another atmosphere, another life. Brief +as was her visit, it gave an impulse to those germs which lie deep +in every poetic soul. She saw there was an illimitable world of +Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardly trodden—and she +went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancient fountains +of Poetry and Art. From that time an intellectual change seems to +have passed over her. Her studies took new channels, and her +impersonations were mellowed and glorified from her personal +contact with the associations of a great past.</p> +<p>A visit to Stratford-on-Avon was one of the most delightful +events of the trip. It seemed to Mary Anderson the emblem of peace +and contentment and quiet; and though as a stranger she did not +then enjoy so many of the privileges which were willingly accorded +her during the present visit to this country, she still looks back +to the day when she knelt by the grave of Shakespeare as one of the +most eventful and inspiring of her life.</p> +<p>Much of the time of Mary Anderson’s European visit was +spent in Paris. Through the kindness of General Sherman she +obtained introductions to Ristori and other distinguished artists, +and, to her delight, secured also the <em>entree</em> behind the +scenes of the Theatre Francais. Its magnificent green-room, the +walls lined with portraits of departed celebrities of that famous +theater, amazed her by its splendor; and to her it was a strange +and curious sight to see the actors in “Hernani” come +in and play cards in their gorgeous stage costumes at intervals in +the performance. On one of these occasions she naively asked Sarah +Bernhardt why her portrait did not appear on the walls? The great +artist replied that she hoped Mary Anderson did not wish her dead, +as only under such circumstances could an appearance there be +permitted to her. “Behind the scenes” of the Theatre +Francais was a source of never-wearying interest, and Mary Anderson +thought the effects of light attained there far surpassed anything +she had witnessed on the English or American stage.</p> +<p>The verdict of Ristori, before whom she recited, was highly +favorable, and the great <em>tragedienne</em> predicted a brilliant +career for the young actress, and declared she would be a great +success with an English company in Paris, while the “divine +Sarah” affirmed that she had never seen greater originality. +On the return journey from Paris a brief stay was made at the +quaint city of Rouen. Joan of Arc’s stake, and the house +where, tradition has it, she resided, were sacred spots to Mary +Anderson; and the ancient towers, the curious old streets, +overlooking the fertile valley through which the Seine wanders like +a silver thread, are memories which have since remained to her ever +green. During her first visit to England Mary Anderson never dreamt +of the possibility that she herself might appear on the English +stage. Indeed the effect of her first European tour was depressing +and disheartening. She saw only how much there was for her to see, +how much to learn in the world of Art. A feeling of home-sickness +came over her, and she longed to be back at her seaside home where +she could watch the wild restless Atlantic as it swept in upon the +New Jersey shore, and listen to the sad music of the weary waves. +This was the instinct of a true artist nature, which had depths +capable of being stirred by the touch of what is great and +noble.</p> +<p>In the following year, however, there came an offer from the +manager of Drury Lane to appear upon its boards. Mary Anderson +received it with a pleased surprise. It told that her name had +spread beyond her native land, and that thus early had been earned +a reputation which commended her as worthy to appear on the stage +of a great and famous London theater. But her reply was a refusal. +She thought herself hardly finished enough to face such a test of +her powers; and the natural ambition of a successful actress to +extend the area of her triumph seemed to have found no place in her +heart.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_VI" name="Ch_VI">Chapter VI.</a></h3> +<h2>Second Visit to Europe.—Experiences on the English +Stage.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The interval of five years which elapsed between Mary +Anderson’s first and second visits to Europe was busily +occupied by starring tours in the States and Canada. Mr. Henry +Abbey’s first proposal, in 1883, for an engagement at the +Lyceum was met with the same negative which had been given to that +of Mr. Augustus Harris. But, happening some time afterward to meet +her step-father, Dr. Griffin, in Baltimore, Mr. Abbey again urged +his offer, to which a somewhat reluctant consent was at length +given. The most 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 of her art; if failure were the issue, she +would return to America discredited, if not disgraced, as an +actress. The very crisis of her stage-life had come now in earnest. +It found her despondent, almost despairing; at the last moment she +was ready to draw back. She had then none of the many friends who +afterward welcomed her with heartfelt sincerity whenever the +curtain rose on her performance. She saw Irving in “Louis +XI.” and “Shylock.” The brilliant powers of the +great actor filled her at once with admiration and with dread, when +she remembered how soon she too must face the same audiences. She +sought to distract herself by making a round of the London +theaters, but the most amusing of farces could hardly draw from her +a passing smile, or lift for a moment the weight of apprehension +which pressed on her heart. The very play in which she was destined +first to present herself before a London audience was condemned +beforehand. To make a <em>debut</em> as Parthenia was to court +certain failure. The very actors who rehearsed with her were +Job’s comforters. She saw in their faces a dreary vista of +empty houses, of hostile critics, of general disaster. She almost +broke down under the trial, and the sight of her first play-bill +which told that the die was irrevocably cast for good or evil made +her heart sink with fear. On going down to the theater upon the +opening night she found, with mingled pleasure and surprise, that +on both sides of the Atlantic fellow artists were regarding her +with kindly sympathizing hearts. Her dressing-room was filled with +beautiful floral offerings from many distinguished actors in +England and America, while telegrams from Booth, McCullough, +Lawrence Barrett, Irving, Ellen Terry, Christine Nilsson, and +Lillie Langtry, bade her be of good courage, and wished her +success. The overture smote like a dirge on her ear, and when the +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 the sable mute appears at the door, as a signal to form the +procession to the tomb. But in a moment the ordeal was safely +passed, and passed forever so far as an English audience is +concerned. Seldom has any actress received so warm and enthusiastic +a reception. Mary Anderson confesses now that never till that +moment did she experience anything so generous and so sympathetic, +and offered to one who was then but “a stranger in a strange +land.” Mary Anderson’s Parthenia was a brilliant +success. Her glorious youth, her strange beauty, her admirable +impersonation of a part of exceptional difficulty, won their way to +all hearts. A certain amount of nervousness and timidity was +inevitable to a first performance. The sudden revulsion of feeling, +from deep despondency to complete triumphant success, made it +difficult, at times, for the actress to master her feelings +sufficiently to make her words audible through the house. One +candid youth in the gallery endeavored to encourage her with a +kindly “Speak up, Mary.” The words recalled her in an +instant to herself, and for the rest of the evening she had +regained her wonted self-possession.</p> +<p>From that time till Mary Anderson’s first Lyceum season +closed, the world of London flocked to see her. The house was +packed nightly from floor to ceiling, and she is said to have +played to more money than the distinguished lessee of the theater +himself. Among the visitors with whom Mary Anderson was a special +favorite were the prince and princess. They witnessed each of her +performances more than once, and both did her the honor to make her +personal acquaintance, and compliment her on her success. So many +absurd stories have been circulated as to Mary Anderson’s +alleged unwillingness to meet the Prince of Wales, that the true +story may as 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 prince caused it to be intimated to +Mary Anderson that he should be glad to be introduced to her after +the third act. The little republican naively responded that she +never saw any one till after the close of the performance. H.R.H. +promptly rejoined that he always left the theater immediately the +curtain fell. Meanwhile the manager represented to her the +ungraciousness of not complying with a request which half the +actresses in London would have sacrificed their diamonds to +receive. And so at the close of the third act Mary Anderson +presented herself, leaning on her father’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 than were ever said to me, in a few minutes, in all my life. +I was delighted with his kindness, and with his simple pleasant +manner, which put me at my ease in a moment; but I was rather +surprised that the princess did not see me as well.” The +piece over, and there came a second message, that the princess also +wished to be introduced. With her winning smile she took Mary +Anderson’s hand in hers, and thanking her for the pleasure +she had afforded by her charming impersonation, graciously +presented Mary with her own bouquet.</p> +<p>The true version of another story, this time as to the Princess +of Wales and Mary Anderson, may as well now be given. One evening +Count Gleichen happened to be dining <em>tete-a-tete</em> with the +prince and princess at Marlborough House. When they adjourned to +the drawing-room, the princess showed the count some photographs of +a young lady, remarking upon her singular beauty, and suggesting +what a charming subject she would make for his chisel. The count +was fain to confess that he did not even know who the lady was, and +had to be informed that she was the new American actress, beautiful +Mary Anderson. He expressed the pleasure it would give him to have +so charming a model in his studio, and asked the princess whether +he was at liberty to tell Mary Anderson that the suggestion came +from her, to which the princess replied that he certainly might do +so. Three replicas of the bust will be executed, of which Count +Gleichen intends to present one to her royal highness, another to +Mary Anderson’s mother, while the third will be placed in the +Grosvenor Gallery. This is really all the foundation for the story +of a royal command to Count Gleichen to execute a bust of Mary +Anderson for the Princess of Wales.</p> +<p>Among those who were constant visitors at the Lyceum was Lord +Lytton, or as Mary Anderson loves to call him, “Owen +Meredith.” Her representation of his father’s heroine +in “The Lady of Lyons” naturally interested him +greatly, 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 seen between two artist natures, and Lord Lytton +paid Mary Anderson the compliment of lending her an unpublished +manuscript play of his father’s to read. Tennyson, too, +sought the acquaintance of one who in his verse would make a +charming picture. He was invited to meet her at dinner at a London +house, and was her cavalier on the occasion. The author of +“The Princess” did not in truth succeed in supplanting +in her regard the bard of her native land, Longfellow; but he so +won on Mary’s heart that she afterward presented him with the +gift—somewhat unpoetic, it must be admitted—of a bottle +of priceless Kentucky whisky, of a fabulous age!</p> +<p>If Mary Anderson was a favorite with the public before the +curtain, she was no less popular with her fellow artists on the +stage. Jealousy and ill-will not seldom reign among the +surroundings of a star. It is a trial to human nature to be but a +lesser light revolving round some brilliant luminary—but the +setting to adorn the jewel. But Mary Anderson won the hearts of +every one on the boards, from actors to scene-shifters. And at +Christmas, in which she is a great believer, every one, high or +low, connected with the Lyceum, was presented with some kind and +thoughtful mark of her remembrance. And when the season closed, she +was presented in turn, on the stage, with a beautiful diamond suit, +the gift of the fellow artists who had shared for so long her +triumphs and her toils.</p> +<p>Mary Anderson’s success in London was fully indorsed by +the verdict of the great provincial towns. Everywhere she was +received with enthusiasm, and hundreds were nightly turned from the +doors of the theaters where she appeared. In Edinburgh she played +to a house of £450, a larger sum than was ever taken at the +doors of the Lyceum. The receipts of the week in Manchester were +larger than those of any preceding week in the theatrical history +of the great Northern town. Taken as a whole, her success has been +without a parallel on the English stage. If she has not altogether +escaped hostile criticism in the press, she has won the sympathies +of the public in a way which no artist of other than English birth +has succeeded in doing before her. They have come and gone, dazzled +us for a time, but have left behind them no endearing remembrance. +Mary Anderson has found her way to our hearts. It seems almost +impossible that she can ever leave us to resume again the old life +of a wandering star across the great American continent. It may be +rash to venture a prophecy as to what the future may bring forth; +but thus much we may say with truth, that, whenever Mary Anderson +departs finally from our shores, the name of England will remain +graven on her heart.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_VII" name="Ch_VII">Chapter VII.</a></h3> +<h2>Impressions of England.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Almost every traveler from either side of the Atlantic, with the +faintest pretensions to distinction, bursts forth on his return to +his native shores in a volume of “Impressions.” +Archæologists and philosophers, novelists and divines, +apostles of sweetness and light, and star actors, are accustomed +thus to favor the public with volumes which the public could very +often be well content to spare. It is but natural that we should +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 much better 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 the life of +a recluse. Shut up in a pretty villa under the shadow of the +Hampstead Hills, she saw little society but that of a few fellow +artists, who found their way to her on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, +she almost shrank from the idea of entering general society. The +English world she wished to know was a world of the past, peopled +by the creations of genius; not the modern world, which crowds +London drawing-rooms. She saw the English people from the stage, +and they were to her little more than audiences which vanished from +her life when the curtain descended. From her earliest years she +had been, in common with many of her countrymen, a passionate +admirer of the great English novelist, Dickens. Much of her leisure +was spent 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 at an 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 a public-house. Here she +would try to people the place in fancy with the characters of the +novel. “To listen to the talk of the people at such +places,” she once said to me, “was better than any play +I ever saw.”</p> +<p>Stratford-on-Avon too, was, of course, revisited, and many days +were spent in lingering lovingly over the memorials of her favorite +Shakespeare. She soon became well known to the guardians of the +spot, and many privileges were 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 who throng to the shrine of the +great master of English dramatic art. On one occasion when she was +in the church of Stratford-on-Avon, the ancient clerk asked her if +she would mind being locked in while he went home to his tea. +Nothing loath she consented, and remained shut up in the still +solemnity of the place. Kneeling down by the grave of Shakespeare, +she took out a pocket “Romeo and Juliet” and recited +Juliet’s death scene close to the spot where the great +master, who created her, lay in his long sleep. But presently the +wind rose to a storm, the branches of the surrounding trees dashed +against the windows, darkness spread through the ghostly aisles, +and terror-stricken, Mary fled to the door, glad enough to be +released by the returning janitor.</p> +<p>Rural England with its moss-grown farmhouses, its gray steeples, +its white cottages clustering under their shadow, its tiny fields, +its green hedgerows, garrisoned by the mighty elms, charmed Mary +Anderson beyond expression, contrasting so strongly with the vast +prairies, the primeval forests, the mighty rivers of her own giant +land. These were the boundaries of her horizon in the earlier +months of her stay among us; she knew little but the England of the +past, and the England as the stranger sees it, who passes on his +travels through its smiling landscapes. But a change of residence +to Kensington brought Mary Anderson more within reach of those whom +she had so charmed upon the stage, and who longed to have the +opportunity of knowing her personally. By degrees her drawing-rooms +became the scene of an informal Sunday afternoon reception. Artists +and novelists, poets and sculptors, statesmen and divines, +journalists and people of fashion crowded to see her, and came away +wondering at the skill and power with which this young girl, +evidently fresh to society, could hold her own, and converse +fluently and intelligently on almost any subject. If the verdict of +London society was that Mary Anderson was as clever in the +drawing-room as she was attractive on the stage, she, in her turn, +was charmed to speak face to face with many whose names and whose +works had long been familiar to her. It was a new world of art and +intellect and genius to which she was suddenly introduced, and +which seemed to her all the more brilliant after the somewhat +prosaic uniformity of society in her own republican land. To say +that she admires and loves England with all her heart may be safely +asserted. To say that it has almost 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 that of Captain Macheath, +in the “Beggars’ Opera”—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“How happy could I be with either,</p> +<p>Were t’other dear charmer away.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>One superiority, at least, she confesses England to have over +America. The dreadful “interviewer” who has haunted her +steps for the last eight years of her life with a dogged +pertinacity which would take no denial, was here nowhere to be +seen. He exists we know, but she failed to recognize the same +<em>genus</em> in the quite harmless-looking gentleman, who, +occasionally on the stage after a performance, or in her +drawing-room, engaged her in conversation, when leading questions +were skillfully disguised; and, then, much to her astonishment, +afterward produced a picture of her in print with materials she was +quite unconscious of having furnished. She failed, she admits now, +to see the conventional “note-book,” so symbolical of +the calling at home, and thus her fears and suspicions were +disarmed.</p> +<p>One instance of Mary Anderson’s kind and womanly sympathy +to some of the poorest of London’s waifs and strays should +not be unrecorded here. It was represented to her at Christmas time +that funds were needed for a dinner to a number of poor boys in +Seven Dials. She willingly found them, and a good old-fashioned +English dinner was given, at her expense, in the Board School Room +to some three hundred hungry little fellows, who crowded through +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 of that Christian Charity which, at such seasons, knows no +distinction of creed; and of all the kind acts which she has done +quietly and unostentatiously since she came among us, this is one +which commends her perhaps most of all to our affection and +regard.</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_VIII" name="Ch_VIII">Chapter VIII.</a></h3> +<h2>The Verdict of the Critics.</h2> +<p class="cen">“<em>Quot homines, tot +sententiæ.</em>”</p> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It may, perhaps, be interesting to record here some of the +criticisms which have appeared in several of the leading London and +provincial journals on Mary Anderson’s performances, and +especially on her <em>debut</em> at the Lyceum. Such notices are +forgotten almost as soon as read, and except for some biographical +purpose like the present, lie buried in the files of a newspaper +office. It is usual to intersperse them with the text; but for the +purpose of more convenient reference they have been included in a +separate chapter.</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Standard</em>, 3d September, 1883.</p> +<p>“The opening of the Lyceum on Saturday evening, was +signalized by the assembly of a crowded and fashionable audience to +witness the first appearance in this country of Miss Mary Anderson +as Parthenia in Maria Lovell’s four-act play of +‘Ingomar.’ Though young in years, Miss Anderson is +evidently a practiced actress. She knows the business of the stage +perfectly, is learned in the art of making points, and, what is +more, knows how to bide her opportunity. The wise discretion which +imposes restraint upon the performer was somewhat too rigidly +observed in the earlier scenes on Saturday night, the consequence +being that in one of the most impressive passages of the not very +inspired dialogue, the little distance between the sublime and the +ridiculous was bridged by a voice from the gallery, which, adopting +a tone, ejaculated ‘A little louder, Mary.’ A less +experienced artist might well have been taken aback by this sudden +infraction of dramatic proprieties. Miss Anderson, however, did not +loose 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. Miss Anderson will, doubtless, take a speedy opportunity +of appearing in some other work in which her capacity as an actress +can be better gauged than in Maria Lovell’s bit of tawdry +sentiment. A real power of delineating passion was exhibited in the +scene where Parthenia repulses the advances of her too venturesome +admirer, and in this direction, to our minds, the best efforts of +the lady tend. All we can do at present is to chronicle Miss +Anderson’s complete success, the recalls being so numerous as +to defy particularization.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Times</em>, 3d September, 1883.</p> +<p>“Miss Mary Anderson, although but three or four and +twenty, has for several years past occupied a leading position in +the United States, and ranks as the highest of the American +‘stars,’ whose effulgence Mr. Abbey relies upon to +attract the public at the Lyceum in Mr. Irving’s absence. +Recommendations of this high order were more than sufficient to +insure Miss Anderson a cordial reception. They were such as to +dispose a sympathetic audience to make the most ample allowance for +nervousness on the part of the <em>debutante</em>, and to distrust +all impressions they might have of an unfavorable kind, or at least +to grant the possession of a more complete knowledge of the +lady’s attainments to those who had trumpeted her 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 being subordinated for the time being to the hospitable, +that Miss Anderson was able to obtain all the outward and visible +signs of a dramatic triumph in a <em>role</em> which intrinsically +had little to commend it…. Usually it is the rude manliness, +the uncouth virtues, the awkward and childlike submissiveness of +that tamed Bull of Bashan [Ingomar] that absorbs the attention of a +theatrical audience. On Saturday evening the center of interest +was, of course, transferred to Parthenia. To the interpretation of +this character Miss Anderson brings natural gifts of rare +excellence, gifts of face and form and action, which suffice almost +themselves to play the part; and the warmth of the applause which +greeted her as she first tripped upon the stage expressed the +admiration no less than the welcome of the house. Her severely +simple robes of virgin white, worn with classic grace, revealed a +figure as lissome and perfect of contour as a draped Venus of +Thorwaldsen, her face seen under her mass of dark brown hair, +negligently bound with a ribbon, was too <em>mignonne</em>, +perhaps, to be classic, but looked pretty and girlish. A +performance so graced could not fail to be pleasing. And yet it was +impossible not to feel, as the play progressed, that to the fine +embodiment of the romantic heroine, art was in some degree wanting. +The beautiful Parthenia, like a soulless statue, pleased the eye, +but left the heart untouched. It became evident that faults of +training or, perhaps, of temperament, were to be set off against +the actress’ unquestionable merits. The elegant artificiality +of the American school, a tendency to pose and be self-conscious, +to smirk even, if the word may be permitted, especially when +advancing to the footlights to receive a full measure of applause, +were fatal to such sentiment as even so stilted a play could be +made to yield. It was but too evident that Parthenia was at all +times more concerned with the fall of her drapery than with the +effect of her speeches, and that gesture, action, +intonation—everything which constitutes a living +individuality were in her case not so much the outcome of the +feeling proper to the character, as the manifestation of diligent +painstaking art which had not yet learnt to conceal itself. The +gleam of the smallest spark of genius would have been a welcome +relief to the monotony of talent…. It must not be forgotten, +however, that a highly artificial play like ‘Ingomar’ +is by no means a favorable medium for the display of an +actress’ powers, though it may fairly indicate their nature. +Before a definite rank can be assigned to her among English +actresses, Miss Anderson must be seen in some of her other +characters.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Daily News</em>, 3d September, 1883.</p> +<p>“It will be recollected that Mr. Irving, in his farewell +speech at the Lyceum Theater, on the 28th of July, made a point of +bespeaking a kindly welcome for Miss Mary Anderson on her +appearance at his theater during his absence, as the actress he +alluded to was a lady whose beauty and talent had made her the +favorite of America, from Maine to California. It would not perhaps +be unfair to attribute to this cordial introduction something of +the special interest which was evidently aroused by Miss +Anderson’s <em>debut</em> here on Saturday night. English +playgoers recognize but vaguely the distinguishing characteristics +of actors and actresses, whose fame has been won wholly by their +performances on the other side of the Atlantic. It was therefore +just as well that before Miss Anderson arrived some definite claim +as to her pretensions should be authoritatively put forward. These +would, it must be confessed, have been liable to misconception if +they had been judged solely by her first performance on the London +stage. ‘Ingomar’ is not a play, and Parthenia is +certainly not a character, calculated to call forth the higher +powers of an ambitious actress. As a matter of fact, Miss Anderson, +who began her histrion career at an early age, and is even now of +extremely youthful appearance, has had plenty of experience and +success in <em>roles</em> of much more difficulty, and much wider +possibilities. Her modest enterprise on Saturday night was quite as +successful as could have been anticipated. There is not enough +human reality about Parthenia to allow her representative to +interest very deeply the sympathy of her hearers. There is not +enough poetry in the drama to enable the actress to mar our +imagination by calling her own into play. What Miss Anderson could +achieve was this: she was able in the first place to prove, by the +aid of the Massilian maiden’s becoming, yet exacting attire, +that her personal advantages have been by no means overrated. Her +features regular yet full of expression, her figure slight but not +spare, the pose of her small and graceful head, all these, together +with a girlish prettiness of manner, and a singularly refined +bearing, are quite enough to account for at least one of the phases +of Miss Anderson’s popularity. Her voice is not wanting in +melody of a certain kind, though its tones lack variety. Her accent +is slight, and seldom unpleasant. Of her elocution it is scarcely +fair to judge until she has caught more accurately the pitch +required for the theater. For the accomplishment of any great +things Miss Anderson had not on Saturday night any opportunity, nor +did her treatment of such mild pathos and passion as the character +permitted impress us with the idea that her command of deep feeling +is as yet matured. So far as it goes, however, her method is +extremely winning, and her further efforts, especially in the +direction of comedy and romantic drama, will be watched with +interest, and may be anticipated with pleasure.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Morning Post</em>, 3rd September, 1883.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Lyceum Theater.</span></p> +<p>“This theater was reopened under the management of Mr. +Henry Abbey on Saturday evening, when was revived Mrs. +Lovell’s play called ‘Ingomar,’ a picturesque but +somewhat ponderous work of German origin, first produced some +thirty years ago at Drury Lane with Mr. James Anderson and Miss +Vandenhoff as the principal personages. The interest centers not so +much in the barbarian Ingomar as in his enchantress, Parthenia, of +whom Miss Mary Anderson, an American artist of fine renown, proves +a comely and efficient representative. In summing up the +qualifications of an actress the Transatlantic critics never fail +to take into account her personal charms—a fascinating +factor. Borne on the wings of an enthusiastic press, the fame of +Miss Anderson’s loveliness had reached our shores long before +her own arrival. The Britishers were prepared to see a very +handsome lady, and they have not been disappointed. Miss +Anderson’s beauty is of Grecian type, with a head of classic +contour, finely chiseled features, and a tall statuesque figure, +whose Hellenic expression a graceful costume of antique design sets +off to the best advantage. You fancy that you have seen her before, +and so perhaps you have upon the canvas of Angelica Kauffman. For +the rest, Miss Anderson is very clever and highly accomplished. Her +talents are brilliant and abundant, and they have been carefully +cultivated to every perfection of art save one—the +concealment of it. She has grace, but it is studied, not negligent +grace; her action is always picturesque and obviously premeditated; +everything she says and does is impressive, but it speaks a +foregone conclusion. Her acting is polished and in correct taste. +What it wants is freshness, spontaneity, <em>abandon</em>. Among +English artists of a bygone age her style might probably find a +parallel in the stately elegance and artificial grandeur of the +Kembles. It has nothing in common with the electric <em>verve</em> +and romantic ardor of Edmund Kean. Of the <em>feu sacre</em> which +irradiated Rachel and gives to Bernhardt splendor ineffable, Miss +Anderson has not a spark. She is not inspired. Hers is a pure, +bright, steady light; but it lacks mystic effulgence. It is not +empyreal. It is not ‘the light that never was on sea or +land—the consecration and the poet’s dream.’ It +is not genius. It is talent. In a word, Miss Anderson is beautiful, +winsome, gifted, and accomplished. To say this is to say much, and +it fills to the brim the measure of legitimate praise. She is an +eminently good, but not a great artist.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Daily Telegraph</em>, 3rd September, 1883.</p> +<p>“There was a natural desire to see, nay, rather let us say +to welcome Miss Mary Anderson, who made her <em>debut</em> as +Parthenia in ‘Ingomar’ on Saturday evening last. The +fame of this actress had already preceded her. An enthusiastic +climber up the rugged mountain paths of the art she had elected to +serve … an earnest volunteer in the almost forlorn cause of +the 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 that has been lost to us, Miss Mary Anderson was +assured an honest greeting at a theater of cherished +memories…. It has been said that the friends of Miss +Anderson were very ill-advised to allow her to appear as Parthenia +in the now almost-forgotten play of ‘Ingomar.’ We +venture to differ entirely with this opinion. That the American +actress interested, moved, and at times delighted her audience in a +play supposed to be unfashionable and out of date, is, in truth, +the best feather that can be placed in her cap…. There must +clearly be something in an actress who cannot only hold her own as +Parthenia, but in addition dissipate the dullness of +‘Ingomar.’… And now comes the question, how far +Miss Mary Anderson succeeded in a task that requires both artistic +instinct and personal charm to carry it to a successful issue. The +lady has been called classical, Greek, and so on, but is, in truth, +a very modern reproduction of a classical type—a Venus by Mr. +Gibson, rather than a Venus by Milo; a classic draped figure of a +Wedgwood plaque more than an echo from the Parthenon…. The +actress has evidently been well taught, and is both an apt and +clever pupil; she speaks clearly, enunciates well, occasionally +conceals the art she has so closely studied, and is at times both +tender and graceful…. Her one great fault is insincerity, +or, in other words, inability thoroughly to grasp the sympathies of +the thoughtful part of her audience. She is destitute of the +supreme gift of sensibility that Talma considers essential, and +Diderot maintains is detrimental to the highest acting. Diderot may +be right, and Talma may be wrong, but we are convinced that the art +Miss Anderson has practiced is, on the whole, barren and +unpersuasive. She does not appear to feel the words she speaks, or +to be deeply moved by the situations in which she is placed. She is +forever acting—thinking of her attitudes, posing very +prettily, but still posing for all that…. She weeps, but +there are no tears in her eyes; she murmurs her love verses with +charming cadence, but there is no throb of heart in them…. +These things, however, did not seem to affect her audience. They +cheered her as if their hearts were really touched…. These, +however, are but early impressions, and we shall be anxious to see +her in still another delineation.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Standard</em>, 10th December, 1883.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Lyceum Theater.</span></p> +<p>“Miss Mary Anderson has won such favor from audiences at +the Lyceum, that anything 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 a +crowded house on Saturday evening was the result of the +announcement of its revival. An ideal Galatea could scarcely be +realized, for there should be in the triumph of the +sculptor’s art, endowed by the gods with life, a supernatural +grace and beauty. The singular picturesqueness of Miss +Anderson’s poses and gestures, the consequences of careful +study of the best sculpture, has been noted in all that she has +done, and this quality fits her peculiarly for the part of the +vivified statue. In this respect it is little to say that Galatea +has never before been represented with so near an approach to +perfection.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Daily News</em>, 10th December, 1883.</p> +<p>“The part of Galatea, in which Miss Anderson made her +first appearance in England at the Lyceum Theater on Saturday +evening, enables this delightful actress to exhibit in her fullest +charms the exquisite grace of form and the simple elegance of +gesture and movement by virtue of which she stands wholly without a +rival on the stage. Whether in the alcove, where she is first +discovered motionless upon the pedestal, or when miraculously +endued with life, she moves, a beautiful yet discordant element in +the Athenian sculptor’s household. The statuesque outline and +the perfect harmony between the figure of the actress and her +surroundings, were striking enough to draw more than once from the +crowded theater, otherwise hushed and attentive, an audible +expression of pleasure. Rarely, indeed, can an attempt to satisfy +by actual bodily presentment the ideal of a poetical legend have +approached so nearly to absolute perfection.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Morning Post</em>, 10th December, 1883.</p> +<p>“‘Pygmalion and Galatea,’ a play in which Miss +Mary Anderson is said to have scored her most generally accepted +success in her own country, has now taken at the Lyceum the place +of ‘The Lady of Lyons,’ a drama certainly not well +fitted to the young actress’ capabilities. Mr. +Gilbert’s well-known fairy comedy is in many respects exactly +suited to the display of Miss Anderson’s special merits. Its +heroine is a statue, and a very beautiful simulation of chiseled +marble was sure to be achieved by a lady of Miss Anderson’s +personal advantages, and of her approved skill in artistic posing. +Moreover, the sub-acid spirit of the piece rarely allows its +sentiment to go very deep, and it is in the +expression—perhaps, we should write the experience—of +really earnest emotion, that Miss Anderson’s chief deficiency +lies. Galatea is moreover by no means the strongest acting part in +the comedy, affording few of the opportunities for the exhibition +of passion, which fall to the lot of the heart-broken and indignant +wife, Cynisca. Although in 1871, on the original production of the +play, Mrs. Kendall made much of Galatea’s womanly pathos, +there is plenty of room for an effective rendering of the +character, which deliberately hides the woman in the statue. Such a +rendering is, as might have been expected, Miss Anderson’s. +Even in her ingenious scenes of comedy with Leucippe and with +Chrysos, there is no more dramatic vivacity than might be looked +for in a temporarily animated block of stone. Her love for the +sculptor who has given her vitality is perfectly cold in its +purity. There is no spontaneity in the accents in which it is told, +no amorous impulse to which it gives rise. This new Galatea, +however, is fair to look upon—so fair in her statuesque +attitudes and her shapely presence, that the infatuation of the man +who created her is readily understood. By the classic beauty of her +features and the perfect molding of her figure she is enabled to +give all possible credibility to the legend of her miraculous +birth. Moreover, the refinement 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 by the spectator, it is felt that a +plausible and consistent interpretation of the character has been +given.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Times</em>, 10th December, 1883.</p> +<p>“Mr. Gilbert’s play ‘Pygmalion and +Galatea,’ is a perversion of Ovid’s fable of the +Sculptor of Cyprus, the main interest of which upon the stage is +derived from its cynical contrast between the innocence of the +beautiful nymph of stone whom Pygmalion’s love endows with +life, and the conventional prudishness of society. Obviously the +purpose of such a travesty may be fulfilled without any call upon +the deeper emotions—upon the stress of passion, which springs +from that ‘knowledge of good and evil’ transmitted by +Eve to all her daughters. It is sufficient that the living and +breathing Galatea of the play should seem to embody the classic +marble, that she should move about the stage with statuesque grace +and that she should artlessly discuss the relations of the sexes in +the language of double intent. Miss Anderson’s degree of +talent, as shown in the impersonations she has already given us, +and her command of classical pose, have already suggested this +character as one for which she was eminently fitted. It was +therefore no surprise to those who have been least disposed to +admit this lady’s claim to greatness as an actress that her +Galatea on Saturday night should have been an ideally beautiful and +tolerably 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 to repose upon the finest <em>tableau vivant</em> +that the stage has ever seen. Upon the curtains of the alcove being +withdrawn, where the statue still inanimate rests upon its +pedestal, the admiration of the house was unbounded. Not only was +the pose of the figure under the lime-light artistic in the highest +sense, but the tresses and the drapery were most skillfully +arranged to look like the work of the chisel. It is significant of +the measure of Miss Anderson’s art, that in her animated +moments subsequently she should not have excelled the plastic grace +of this first picture. At the same time, to her credit it must be +said, that she never fell much below it. Her movements on the +stage, her management of her drapery, her attitudes were full of +classic beauty. Actresses there have been who have given us much +more than this statuesque posing, who have transformed Galatea into +a woman of flesh and blood, animated by true womanly love for +Pygmalion as the first man on whom her eyes alight. Sentiment of +this kind, whether intended by the author or not, would scarcely +harmonize with the satirical spirit of the play, and the innocent +prattle which Miss Anderson gives us in place of it meets +sufficiently well the requirements of the case dramatically, +leaving the spectator free to derive pleasure from his sense of the +beautiful, here so strikingly appealed to, from the occasionally +audacious turns of the dialogue in relation to social questions, +from the disconcerted airs of Pygmalion at the contemplation of his +own handiwork, and from the real womanly jealousy of +Cynisca.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Graphic</em>, 14th December, 1883.</p> +<p>“Never, perhaps, have the playgoing public been so much at +variance with the critics as in the case of the young American +actress now performing at the Lyceum Theater. There is no denying +the fact that Miss Anderson is, to use a popular expression, +‘the rage;’ but it is equally certain that she owes +this position in very slight degree to the published accounts of +her acting. From the first she has been received, with few +exceptions, only in a coldly critical spirit; and yet her +reputation has gone on gathering in strength till now, the Lyceum +is crowded nightly with fashionable folk whose carriages block the +way; and those who would secure places to witness her performances +are met at the box offices with the information that all the seats +have been taken long in advance. How are we to account for the fact +that this young lady who came but the other day among us a +stranger, even her name being scarcely known, and who still +refrains from those ‘bold advertisements,’ which in the +case of so many other managers and performers usurp the functions +of the trumpet of fame, has made her way in a few short months only +to the very highest place in the estimation of our play going +public? We can see no possible explanation save the simple one that +her acting affords pleasure in a high degree; for those who +insinuate that her beauty alone is the attraction may easily be +answered by reference to numerous actresses of unquestionable +personal attractions who have failed to arouse anything approaching +to the same degree of interest. As regards the unfavorable critics, +we are inclined to think that they have been unable to shake off +the associations of the essentially artificial +characters—Parthenia and Pauline—in which Miss Anderson +has unfortunately chosen to appear. Further complaints of +artificiality and coldness have, it is true, been put forth <em>a +propos</em> of her first appearance on Saturday evening in Mr. +Gilbert’s beautiful mythological comedy of ‘Pygmalion +and Galatea;’ but protests are beginning to appear in some +quarters, and we are much mistaken if this graceful and +accomplished actress is not destined yet to win the favor of her +censors. The statuesque beauty of her appearance and the classic +grace of all her movements and attitudes, as the Greek statue +suddenly endowed with life, have received general recognition; but +not less remarkable were the simplicity, the tenderness, and, on +due occasion, the passionate impulse of her acting, though the +impersonation is no doubt in the chastened classical vein. It is +difficult to imagine how a realization of Mr. Gilbert’s +conception could be made more perfect.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The World</em>, 12th December, 1883.</p> +<p>“The revival of ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’ at the +Lyceum on Saturday last, with Miss Mary Anderson in the part of the +animated statue, excited considerable interest and drew together a +large and enthusiastic audience. Without attempting any comparison +between Mrs. Kendal and the young American actress, it may at once +be stated, that the latter gave an interesting and original +rendering of Galatea. As the velvet curtain drawn aside disclosed +the snowy statue on its pedestal, in a pose of classic beauty, it +seemed hard to believe that such sculptural forms, the delicate +features, the fine arms, the graceful figure, could be of any other +material than marble. The gradual awakening to life, the joy and +wonder of the bright young creature, to whom existence is still a +mystery, were charmingly indicated; and when Miss Anderson stepped +forward slowly in her soft clinging draperies, with her pretty +brown hair lightly powdered, she satisfied the most fastidiously +critical sense of beauty. Galatea, as Miss Anderson understands +her, is statuesque; but Galatea is also a woman, perfect in the +purity of ideal womanhood. The chief characteristics of her nature +are innate modesty and refinement, which, though, perhaps, not +strictly fashionable attributes, are appropriate enough in a +daughter of the gods. When she loves, it is without any airs and +graces. She has not an atom of self-consciousness; she cannot +premeditate; she loves because she <em>must</em>, rather than +because she will, because it is the condition of her life. Some of +the naive remarks she has to utter, might in clumsy lips seem +coarse. Miss Anderson delivered them with consummate grace and +innocence, but her fine smile, her bright sparkling eye, proved +sufficiently, that the innocence was not stupidity. The first long +speech at the conclusion of which she kneels to Pygmalion was +beautifully rendered, and elicited a burst of applause, which was +repeated at intervals throughout the evening. Her poses were always +graceful, sometimes strikingly beautiful.</p> +<p>“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 with a sweet and tender inflection. She +has seized, in this instance, upon the touching rather than the +harmonious side of Galatea, the pure and innocent girl who is not +fit to live upon this world. She is only not human because she is +superior to human folly; she cannot understand sin because it is so +sweet; she asks to be taught a fault; but the womanly love and +devotion, and unselfishness, are all there, writ in clear and +uncompromising characters. The first and last acts were decidedly +the best; in the latter especially Miss Anderson touched a true +pathetic chord, and fairly elicited the pity and sympathy of the +audience. With a gentle wonder and true dignity she meets the +gradual dropping away of her illusion, the crumbling of her +unreasoning faith, the cruel stings when her spiritual nature is +misunderstood, and her actions misinterpreted. She is jarred by the +rough contact of commonplace facts, and ruffled and wounded by the +strange 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 a flower broken on its stem, shrinking and sensitive, +she totters out with one 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 artistic sensibility, and the result is that +while she presents us with a picture of ideal womanhood, she must +appeal of necessity rather to our imaginations than to our senses, +and may by some persons be considered cold. Once or twice she +dropped her voice so as to became almost inaudible, and +occasionally forced her low tones more than was quite agreeable; +but whether in speech, in gesture, or in delicate suggestive +byplay, her performance is essentially finished. One or two little +actions may be noted, such as the instinctive recoil of alarmed +modesty when Pygmalion blames her for saying ‘things that +others would reprove,’ or her expression of troubled wonder +to find that it is ‘possible to say one thing and mean +another.’”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Daily Telegraph</em>, 10th December, 1883.</p> +<p class="cen">“‘<span class="sc">Pygmalion and +Galatea.</span>’</p> +<p>“It is the fashion to judge of Miss Anderson outside her +capacity and competency as an actress. Ungraciously enough she is +regarded and reviewed as the thing of beauty that is a joy forever, +and her infatuated admirers view her first as a picture, last as an +artist. If, then, public taste was agitated by the Parthenia who +lolled in her mother’s lap and twisted flower garlands at the +feet of her noble savage Ingomar; if society fluttered with +excitement at the sight of the faultless Pauline gazing into the +fire on the eve of her ill-fated marriage, how much more jubilation +there will be now that Miss Mary Anderson, a lovely woman in +studied drapery, stands posed at once as a statue, and as a subject +for the photographic pictures which will flood the town. +Unquestionably Miss Anderson never looked so well as a statue, both +lifeless and animated, never comported herself with such grace, +never gave such a perfect embodiment 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 who try to persuade +themselves, that this is all Galatea has to do—to appear +behind a curtain as a ‘<em>pose plastique</em>,’ to +make an excellent ‘<em>tableau vivant</em>,’ and to +wear Greek drapery, as if she had stepped down from a niche in the +Acropolis. All this Miss Mary Anderson does to perfection. She is a +living, breathing statue. A more beautiful object in its innocent +severity the stage has seldom seen. But is this all that Galatea +has to do? Those who have studied Mr. Gilbert’s poem will +scarcely say so. Galatea descended from her pedestal has to become +human, and has to reconcile her audience to the contradictory +position of a woman, who, presumably innocent of the world and its +ways, is unconsciously cynical and exquisitely pathetic. We grant +that it is a most difficult part to play. Only an artist can give +effect to the comedy, or touch the true chord of sentiment that +underlies the idea of Galatea. But to make Galatea consistently +inhuman, persistently frigid, and monotonously spiritual, is, if +not absolutely incorrect, at least glaringly ineffective. If +Galatea does not become a breathing, living woman when she descends +from her pedestal, a woman capable of love, a woman with a +foreshadowing of passion, a woman of tears and tenderness, then the +play goes for nothing…. Miss Anderson reads Galatea in a +severe fashion. She is a Galatea perfectly formed, whose heart has +not yet been adjusted. She shrinks from humanity. She wants to be +classical and severe, and her last cry 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 be +discourteous that we venture any comparison between the Galatea of +Miss Anderson and of Mrs. Kendal. The comparison should only be +made on the point of reading. Yet surely there can be no doubt that +Mrs. Kendal’s idea of Galatea, while appealing to the heart, +is more dramatically effective. It illumines the poem.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Times</em>, 28th January, 1884.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Lyceum Theater.</span></p> +<p>“Those who have suspected that Miss Mary Anderson was well +advised in clinging to the artificial class of character hitherto +associated with her engagement at the Lyceum—characters, that +is to say, making little call upon the emotional faculties of their +exponent—will not be disposed to modify their opinion from +her ‘creation’ of the new part of distinctly higher +scope in Mr. Gilbert’s one act drama, ‘Comedy and +Tragedy,’ produced for the first time on Saturday night. +Though passing in a single scene, this piece furnishes a more +crucial test of Miss Anderson’s powers than any of her +previous assumptions in this country. Unfortunately it also assigns +limits to those powers which few actresses of the second or even +third rank need despair of attaining. Such a piece as this, it will +be seen, makes the highest demands upon an actress. Tenderly +affectionate, and true with her husband, when she arranges with him +the plan upon which so much depends: heartless and +<em>insouciante</em> in manner while she receives her guests; +affectedly gay and vivacious while her husband’s fate is +trembling in the balance; deeply tragic in her anguish when her +fortitude has broken down; and finally overcome with joy as her +husband is restored to her arms; she has to pass and repass, +without a pause, from one extreme of her art to the other. There is +probably no actress but Sarah Bernhardt who could render all the +various phases of this character as they should be rendered. There +is only one phase of it that comes fairly within Miss +Anderson’s grasp. Of vivacity there is not a spark in her +nature; a heavy-footed impassiveness weighs upon all her efforts to +be sprightly. The refinement, the subtlety, the animation, the +<em>ton</em>, of an actress of the Comedie Francaise she does not +so much as suggest. Womanly sympathy, tenderness, and trust, those +qualities which constitute a far deeper and more abiding charm than +statuesque beauty, are equally absent from an impersonation 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 +anxiety is perceptible. It is not till this double <em>role</em>, +which demands a degree of <em>finesse</em> evidently beyond Miss +Anderson’s range, is exchanged for the unaffected expression +of mental torture that the actress rises to the occasion, and here +it is pleasing to record, she displayed on Saturday night an +earnestness and an intensity which won her an ungrudging round of +applause. Miss Anderson’s conception of the character is +excellent, it is her powers of execution that are defective; and we +do not omit from these the quality of her voice, which at times +sinks into a hard and unsympathetic key.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Morning Post</em>, 28th January, 1884.</p> +<p>“A change effected in the programme at the Lyceum Theater +on Saturday night makes Mr. Gilbert responsible for the whole +entertainment of the evening. His fairy comedy of ‘Pygmalion +and Galatea,’ is now supplemented by a new dramatic study in +which, under the ambitious title ‘Comedy and Tragedy,’ +he has been at special pains to provide Miss Mary Anderson with an +effective <em>role</em>. This popular young actress has every +reason to congratulate herself upon the opportunity for distinction +thus placed in her way, for Mr. Gilbert has accomplished his task +in a thoroughly workmanlike manner. In the course of a single act +he has demanded from the exponent of his principal character the +most varied histrionic capabilities, for he has asked her to be by +turns the consummate actress and the unsophisticated woman, the +gracious hostess and the vindictive enemy, the humorous reciter and +the tragedy queen. Nor has he done this merely by inventing +plausible excuses for a succession of conscious assumptions, such +as those of the entertainer who appears first in one guise and then +in another, that he may exhibit his deft versatility. There is a +genuine dramatic motive for the display by the heroine of +‘Comedy and Tragedy’ of quickly changing emotions and +accomplishments. She acts because circumstances really call upon +her to act, and not because the showman pulls the strings of his +puppet as the whim of the moment may suggest. The question is, how +far Miss Anderson is able to realize for us the mental agony and +the characteristic self-command of such a woman as Clarice in such +a state as hers. The answer, as given on Saturday by a +demonstrative audience, was wholly favorable; as it suggests itself +to a calmer judgment the kindly verdict must be qualified by +reservations many and serious. We may admit at once that Miss +Anderson deserves all praise for her exhibition of earnest force, +and for the nervous spirit with which she attacks her work. It is a +pleasant surprise to see her depending upon something beyond her +skill in the art of the <em>tableau vivant</em>. The ring of her +deep voice may not always be melodious, but at any rate it is true, +and the burst of passionate entreaty carries with it the genuine +conviction of distress. What is missing is the distinction of +bearing that should mark a leading member of the famous +<em>troupe</em> of players, grace of movement as distinguished from +grace of power, lightening of touch in Clarice’s comedy, and +refinement of expression in her tragedy. At present the +impersonation is rough and almost clumsy whilst, at times, the +vigorous elocution almost descends to the level of ranting. Many of +these faults 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 greatly under less trying +conditions.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>The Scotsman</em>, 28th April, 1884.</p> +<p>“Last night the young American actress, who has, during +the past few months, acquired such great popularity in London, made +her first appearance before an Edinburgh audience in the same +character she chose for her Metropolitan <em>debut</em>—that +of Parthenia in ‘Ingomar.’ The piece itself is +essentially old-fashioned. It is one of that category of +‘sentimental dramas’ which were in vogue thirty or +forty years ago, but are not sufficiently complex in their +intrigue, or subtle in their analysis of emotion, to suit the +somewhat cloyed palates of the present generation of playgoers. +Yet, through two or three among the long list of plays of this +type, there runs like a vein of gold amid the dross, a noble and +true idea that preserves them from the common fate, and one of +these few pieces is ‘Ingomar.’ Its blank verse may be +stilted, its action often forced 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, are drawn with a +breadth and a simplicity of outline that make them at once +appreciable, and they are pictures upon which few people can help +looking with pleasure and sympathy. We do not say that Miss +Anderson could not possibly have chosen a better character in which +to introduce herself to an Edinburgh audience; but certainly it +would be difficult to conceive a more charming interpretation of +Parthenia than she gave last night. To personal attractions of the +highest order she adds a rich and musical voice, capable of a wide +range of accent and inflection, a command of gesture which is +abundantly varied, but always graceful and—what is, perhaps, +of more moment to the artist than all else—an unmistakable +capacity for grasping the essential significance of a character, +and identifying herself thoroughly with it. Her delineation is not +only exquisitely picturesque; it leaves behind the impression of a +thoughtful conception wrought out with consistency, and developed +with real dramatic power. The lighter phases of Parthenia’s +nature were, as they should be, kept generally prominent, but when +the demand came for stronger and tenser emotions the actress was +always able to respond to it—as for instance in +Parthenia’s defiance of Ingomar, when his love finds its +first uncouth utterance, 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 points in the rendering of the part; and they +were so played last night by Miss Anderson as to prove that she is +equal to much more exacting <em>roles</em>. She was excellently +supported by Mr. Barnes as Ingomar, and fairly well by the +representatives of the numerous minor personages who contribute to +the development of the story, without having individual interest of +their own. Miss Anderson won an enthusiastic reception at the hands +of a large and discriminating audience, being called before the +curtain at the close of each act.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Glasgow Evening Star</em>, 6th May, 1884.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Miss Anderson at the +Royalty.</span></p> +<p>“No modern actress has created such a <em>furore</em> in +this country as Miss Anderson. Coming to us from America with the +reputation of being the foremost exponent of histrionic art in that +country, it was but natural that her advent should be regarded with +very critical eyes by many who thought that America claimed too +much for their charming actress. Thus predisposed to find as many +faults as possible in one who boldly challenged their verdict on +her own merits alone, it is not surprising that Metropolitan +critics were almost unanimous in their opinion that Miss Anderson, +although a clever actress and a very beautiful woman, was not by +any means a great artist. They did not hesitate to say, moreover, +that much of her success as an actress was due to her physical +grace and beauty. We have no hesitation in stating a directly +contrary opinion.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Glasgow Herald</em>, 6th May, 1884.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Miss Anderson at the Royalty +Theater.</span></p> +<p>“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 of them have succeeded in +presenting a carefully thought-out and intelligently-executed +picture; few have been able to realize in their intensity, and give +adequate embodiment to, the dreamy utterances of the animated +statue. It is a character which only consummate skill can +appropriately represent. The play is indeed a cunningly-devised +fable; but Galatea is the one central figure on which it hangs. Its +humor and its satire are so exquisitely keen that they must needs +be delicately wielded. That a statue should be vivified and endowed +with speech and reason is a bold conception, and it requires no +ordinary artist to depict the emotion of such a mythical being. For +this duty Miss Anderson last night proved herself more than +capable. Her interpretation of the part is essentially her own; it +differs in some respects from previous representations of the +character, and to none of them is it inferior. In her conception of +the part, the importance of statuesque posing has been studied to +the minutest detail, and in this respect art could not well be +linked with greater natural advantages than are possessed by Miss +Anderson. When, in the opening scene, the curtains of the recess in +the sculptor’s studio were thrown back from the statue, a +perfect wealth of art was displayed in its pose; it seemed indeed +to be a realization of the author’s conception of a figure +which all but breathes, yet still is only cold, dull stone. From +beginning to end, Miss Anderson’s Galatea is a captivating +study in the highest sphere of histrionic art. There is no part of +it that can be singled out as better than another. It is a compact +whole such as only few actresses may hope to equal.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Dublin Evening Mail</em>, 22d March, 1884.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Mary Anderson at the +Gaiety.</span></p> +<p>“Notwithstanding all that photography has done for the +last few weeks to familiarize Dublin with Miss Anderson’s +counterfeit presentment, the original took the Gaiety audience last +night by surprise. Her beauty outran expectation. It was, moreover, +generally different from what the camera had suggested. It required +an effort to recall in the brilliant, mobile, speaking countenance +before us the classic regularity and harmony of the features which +we had admired on cardboard. Brilliancy is the single word that +best sums up the characteristics of Miss Anderson’s face, +figure and movements on the stage. But it is a brilliancy that is +altogether natural and spontaneous—a natural gift, not +acquisition; and it is a brilliancy which, while it is all alive +with intelligence and sympathy, is instinct to the core with a +virginal sweetness and purity. In ‘Ingomar’ the heroine +comes very early and abruptly on the scene before the audience is +interested in her arrival, or has, indeed, got rid of the garish +realities of the street. But Miss Anderson’s appearance spoke +for itself without any aid from the playwright. The house, after a +moment’s hesitation, broke out into sudden and +quickly-growing applause, which was evidently a tribute not to the +artist, but to the woman. She understood this herself, and +evidently enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlish pleasure. +She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She is of +rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, her +well-shaped head dressed Greek fashion with the simple knot behind, +her arms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, +white, and of a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her +walk and all her attitudes consummately graceful and expressive. A +more general form of disparagement is that which pretends to +account for all Miss Anderson’s popularity by her beauty. It +is her beauty, these people say, not her acting, that draws the +crowd. We suspect the fact to be that Miss Anderson’s +uncommon beauty is rather a hindrance than a help to the perception +of her real dramatic merits. People do not easily believe that one +and the same person can be distinguished in the highest degree by +different and independent excellences. They find it easier to make +one of the excellences do duty for both. Miss Anderson, it may be +admitted, is not a Sarah Bernhardt. At the same time we must +observe that at twenty-three the incomparable Sarah was not the +consummate artist that she is now, and has been for many years. We +are not at all inclined to rank Miss Anderson as an actress at a +lower level than the very high one of Miss Helen Faucit, of whose +Antigone she reminded us in several passages last night. Miss +Faucit was more statuesque in her poses, more classical, and, +perhaps, touched occasionally a more profoundly pathetic chord. But +the balance is redeemed by other qualities of Miss Anderson’s +acting, quite apart from all consideration of personal beauty.</p> +<p>“‘Ingomar,’ it must be said, is a mere +melodrama, and as such does not afford the highest test of an +actor’s capacity. The wonder is that Miss Anderson makes so +much of it. In her hands it was really a stirring and very +effective play.”</p> +<p class="cen"><em>Dublin Daily Express</em>, 28th March, 1884.</p> +<p class="cen">“<span class="sc">Miss Anderson as +Galatea.</span></p> +<p>“Nothing that the sculptor’s art could create could +be more beautiful than the still figure of Galatea, in classic +<em>pose</em>, with gracefully flowing robes, looking down from her +pedestal on the hands that have given her form, and it is not too +much to say that nothing could be added to render more perfect the +illusion. The whole <em>pose</em>—her aspect, the +<em>contour</em> of her head, the exquisite turn of the stately +throat, the faultless symmetry of shoulder and +arms—everything is in keeping with the realization of the +most perfect, most beautiful, and most illusive figure that has +ever been witnessed on the stage. Miss Anderson indeed is liberally +endowed with physical charms, so fascinating that we can understand +an audience finding it not a little difficult to refrain from +giving the rein to enthusiasm in the presence of this fairest of +Galateas. From these remarks, however, it is not intended to be +inferred that the young American is merely a graceful creature with +a ‘pretty face.’ Miss Anderson is unquestionably a fine +actress, and the high position which she now deservedly occupies +amongst her sister artists, we are inclined to think, has been +gained perhaps less through her personal attractions than by the +sterling characteristics of her art. Each of her scenes bears the +stamp of intelligence of an uncommon order, and perhaps not the +least remarkable feature in her portraiture of Galatea is that her +effects, one and all, are produced without a suspicion of +straining. Those who were present in the crowded theater last +night, and saw the actress in the <em>role</em>—said to be +her finest—had, we are sure, no room to qualify the high +reputation which preceded the impersonation.”</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><h3><a id="Ch_IX" name="Ch_IX">Chapter IX.</a></h3> +<h2>Mary Anderson as an Actress.</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The author approaches this, his concluding chapter, with some +degree of diffidence. Though he has in the foregoing pages essayed +something like a portrait of a very distinguished artist, he is not +by profession a dramatic critic. He does not belong to that noble +band at whose nod the actor is usually supposed to tremble. He is +not a “first-nighter,” who, by the light of the +midnight oil, dips his mighty pen in the ink which is to seal on +to-morrow’s broad-sheet, as he proudly imagines, the +professional fate of the artists who are submitted for his censure +or his praise. Not that he is by any means an implicit believer in +the verdict of the professional critic. An actor who succeeds, +should often fail according to the recognized canons of dramatic +criticism, and the reverse. That the beautiful harmony of nature +and the eternal fitness of things dramatic are not always +preserved, is due to that <em>profanum vulgus</em> which sometimes +reverses the decisions of those dramatic divinities who sit +enthroned, like the twelve Cæsars, in the sacred temple of +criticism, as the inspired representatives of the press.</p> +<p>Those who have been at the trouble to read the various and +conflicting notices of the chief London journals upon Mary +Anderson’s performances—for those of the great +provincial towns she visited present a singular unanimity in her +favor—must have found it difficult, if not impossible, to +decide either on her merits as an artist, or on the true place to +be assigned to her in the temple of the drama. The veriest +misogynist among critics was compelled, in spite of himself, to +confess to the charm of her strange beauty. Hers, as all agreed, +was the loveliest face and the most graceful figure which had +appeared on the London boards within the memory of a generation. +According to some she was an accomplished actress, but she lacked +that divine spark which stamps the true artist. Others attributed +her success to nothing but her personal grace and beauty; while one +critic, bolder than his fellows, even went so far as to declare +that whether she wore the attire of a Grecian maid, of a fine +French lady of a century ago, or of the fabled Galatea, only pretty +Miss Anderson, of Louisville, Kentucky, peeped out through every +disguise. Several causes, perhaps, combined to this uncertain sound +which went forth from the trumpet of the dramatic critic. Mary +Anderson was an American artist, who came here, it is true, with a +great American reputation; but so had come others before her, some +of whom had wholly failed to stand the fierce test of the London +footlights. Then to “damn her with faint praise,” would +not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a +becoming <em>locus peniteniæ</em> would be easy and gradual +if the vane should, in spite of the critics, veer round to the +point of popular favor. One of the most distinguished of English +journalists lately observed in the House of Commons that certain +writers in back parlors were in the habit of palming off their +effusions as the voice of the great English public, till that voice +made itself heard. When the voice of the English theater-going +public upon Mary Anderson came to make itself heard in the crowded +and enthusiastic audiences of the Lyceum, in the friendship of all +that was most cultivated and best worth knowing in London society, +it failed altogether to echo the trumpet, we will not say of the +back parlor critics only, but of some critics distinguished in +their profession, who can little have anticipated how quickly the +popular verdict would modify, if not reverse their own.</p> +<p>It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much +to the point, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable +paper read recently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science +Congress. It will hardly be denied that there are few artists +competent to speak with more authority on matters theatrical, or +better able to form a judgment on the true inwardness of that Press +criticism to which herself and her fellow artists are so constantly +subject:</p> +<p>“Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either +over-praise or too cruelly condemn. The public, as a matter of +course, turn to the newspapers for information, but how can any +judgment be formed when either indiscriminate praise or unqualified +abuse is given to almost every new piece and to the actors who +interpret it? Criticism, if it is to be worth anything, should +surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of a picturesque +article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be the aim +of the theatrical reviewer. Of course, the influence of the Press +upon the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if +playgoers find that their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy +guides. The public must, after all, decide the fate of a new play. +If it be bad, the Englishman of to-day will not declare it is good +because the newspapers have told him so. He will be disappointed, +he will be bored, he will tell his friends so, and the bad piece +will fail to draw audiences. If, on the other 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 of adverse +criticism. The report that it contains the true ring will go about, +and success must follow. In a word, though the Press can do very +much to further the interests of the stage, it is powerless to kill +good work, and cannot galvanize that which is invertebrate into +life.”</p> +<p>To determine Mary Anderson’s true stage place, and to make +a fair and impartial criticism of her performances is rendered +further difficult by the fact, that the English stage offers in the +last generation scarcely one with whom she can be compared, if we +except perhaps Helen Faucit. Between herself and that great artist, +middle-aged play-goers seem to find a certain resemblance; but to +the present generation of playgoers Mary Anderson is an absolutely +new revelation on the London boards. Recalling the roll of artists +who have essayed similar parts for the last five and twenty years, +we can name not one who has given as she did what we may best +describe as a new stage sensation. Never was the pride of a free +maiden of ancient Greece more nobly expressed than in Parthenia: +never were the gradual steps from fear and abhorrence to love more +finely portrayed than in the stages of her rising passion for the +savage chieftain, whose captive hostage she was. Her Pauline was +the old patrician beauty of France living on the stage, a true +woman in spite of the selfish veneer of pride and caste with which +the traditions of the ancient <em>noblesse</em> had covered her; +while Galatea found in her certainly the most poetic and beautiful +representation of that fanciful character, ever seen on any stage. +This was the verdict of the public who thronged the 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 the +possession of every grace which can adorn a woman, and of every +qualification which can make an artist attractive, with a solitary +but fatal reservation—<em>she was devoid of genius</em>. But +what, indeed, is genius after all? It is the magic power to touch +unerringly a sympathetic chord in the human breast. The novelist, +whose characters seem to be living; the painter, the figures on +whose canvas appear to breathe; the actor who, while he treads the +stage, is forgotten in the character he assumes; all these possess +it. This was the verdict of the public upon Mary Anderson, and we +are fain to believe that—<em>pace</em> the critics—it +was the true one. Her Clarice was perhaps the least successful of +her impersonations; and given as an afterpiece, it taxed unfairly +the endurance of an actress, who had already been some hours upon +the stage. But as a striking illustration of the reality of her +performance, we may mention, that, in the scene where she is +supposed by her guests to be acting, her fellow actors, who should +have applauded the tragic outburst which the public divine to be +real, were so disconcerted by the vehemence and seeming reality of +her grief and despair, that on the first representation of +“Comedy and Tragedy” they actually forgot their parts, +and had to be called to task by the author for failing properly to +support the star. “No man,” it is said, “is a +hero to his <em>valet de chambre</em>,” and few indeed are +the artists who can make their fellow artists on the stage forget +that the mimic passion which convulses them is but consummate art +after all.</p> +<p>Mary Anderson’s present Lyceum season will exhibit her in +characters which will give opportunity for displaying powers of a +widely different order to those called forth in the last. A new +Juliet and a new Lady Macbeth will show the capacity she possesses +for the true exhibition of the tenderest as well as the stormiest +passions which can agitate the human breast; and she may perhaps +appear in Cushman’s famous <em>role</em> of Meg Merrilies. In +all these she invites comparison with great impersonators of these +parts who are familiar to the stage. We will not anticipate the +verdict of the public, but of this much we are assured that rarely +can Shakespeare’s favorite heroine have been represented by +so much youth, and grace, and beauty, and genuine artistic ability +combined. Juliet was her first part, and has always been, regarded +by Mary Anderson with the affection due to a first love. But it may +not be generally known that she imagines her <em>forte</em> to lie +rather in the exhibition of the stormier passions, and that she +succeeds better in parts like Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies. I +remember her once saying to me, as she raised her beautiful figure +to its full height, and stretched her hand to the ceiling, “I +am always at my best when I am uttering maledictions.” Thus +far, Mary Anderson has shown herself to us in characters which must +give a very incomplete estimate of her powers. None indeed of the +parts she assumed were adapted to bring out the highest qualities +of an artist. That she has succeeded in inspiring the freshness and +glow of life into plays, some of which, at least, were supposed to +be consigned almost to the limbo of disused stage properties, +stamps her as possessing genuine histrionic power. She has earned +distinguished fame all over the Western continent. London as well +as the great cities of the kingdom have hailed her as a Queen of +the Stage. Such an experience as hers is rare indeed, almost +solitary, in its annals. A self-trained girl, born quite out of the +circle or influence of stage associations, she burst, when but +sixteen, as a star on the theatrical horizon; and if her grace, her +youth, her beauty, have helped her in the upward flight, they have +helped alone, and could not have atoned for the want of that divine +spark, which is the birthright of the artist who makes a mark upon +his generation and his time. When the more recent history of the +English-speaking stage shall once again be written, we do not doubt +that Mary Anderson will take her fitting place, side by side with +the many great artists who have so adorned it in the last half +century; with Charlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, and Fanny Stirling, +who represent its earlier glories; with Mrs. Kendal, Mrs. Bancroft, +and Ellen Terry, whose names are interwoven with the triumphs of +later years.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14758 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |