i 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■ I 
 
 »*?■>»•■» •* 
 
 V*V 
 
 ■ 
 
 r. 4/,v. 
 
Class PHa2.8 7 
 Book ,fr\VWfc> 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 

By the same Author. 
 * 
 
 Heafcp. 
 
 Henry Irving. 
 
 A Chronicle of his American Tours. 
 i6mo. Bound in Parchment Paper, $1.25. 
 
 !lfa Preparation* 
 
 The Life and Labours of Edwin Booth. 
 The Stage Life of Adelaide Neilson. 
 Memoir of Lawrence Barrett. 
 Essays on the Acting of Ellen Terry. 
 Memoir of John McCullough. 
 The Wallack Family of Actors. 
 
 Etc. 
 GEO. J. COOMBES, 
 
 Publisher, 
 
 New-York. 
 
THE STAGE LIFE OF MARY ANDERSON. 
 
WPcMj 
 
THE STAGE LIFE 
 
 MARY ANDERSON 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER 
 
 h 
 
 ' Like a great sea-mark, standing every fla-w 
 And saving those that eye thee." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 M.1 
 !s0 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 GEORGE J. COOMBES 
 
 1886 
 

 Copyright, 1886, 
 
 by 
 
 William Winter. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
TO 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 
 CHARLES H. ANDERSON, 
 
 THE FORTUNATE YET ILL-FATED FATHER, 
 
 WHO, DYING WHEN HIS DAUGHTER WAS A LITTLE CHILD, 
 
 MISSED EQUALLY THE KNOWLEDGE OF HER 
 
 RENOWN AND THE BLESSING 
 
 OF HER LOVE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The actress whose public life is recounted 
 in this memoir and chronicle, though yet in 
 the morning of her career, has already done a 
 great work and has obtained a noble renown. 
 It is customary to deplore that the glory of 
 the dramatic artist is imsubstantial ; that it 
 soon fades into oblivion , leaving no tangible 
 and permanent result. Yet there is no richer 
 or more abiding glory to be gained on earth 
 than is secured in the exercise of ennobling 
 influence upo?i humanity, and especially upon 
 the development of the young/ and this privi- 
 lege is peculiarly within the reach of the 
 actor. It is true that even the finest achieve- 
 ments in the art of acting, if they live at 
 all as subjects of popular knowledge, must 
 live as pictures in the memory. Dramatic 
 names once illustrious have already become 
 
x ii PREFACE. 
 
 shadows. In that respect theatrical reputa- 
 tion certaifily is ephemeral. One of the 
 characteristics of the present literary period, 
 however, is its marked tendency toward modi- 
 fying this evanescence of histriofiic repute, by 
 making copious and minute memorials of the 
 stage. The present writer, whose continual 
 occupation it has been for the last twenty-five 
 years to record, describe, and discuss the pro- 
 fessional proceedings of actors, is aware of 
 having steadily endeavoured to itnpart to his 
 theatrical commentaries a warmth of sympa- 
 thy, a?i earnestness of thought, and a fidelity 
 of portraiture which eventually might make 
 them helpful to augment, in the element of 
 perpetuity, the fame of the actors portrayed. 
 This purpose has been especially pursued by 
 him in describing the dramatic performances 
 given by Miss Mary Anderson, since she first 
 appeared in the American capital, in 1877. 
 l"he present volume, largely composed of his 
 writings in the New York Tribune, care- 
 fully revised, has grown out of the design 
 thus indicated. Its publication at this time 
 is made in practical response to the urgent 
 request of many persons who are, naturally, 
 interested in its subject ; and also it is made 
 in the strong conviction that it is better to 
 
PREFACE. x iii 
 
 place a wreath of roses on the living brow of 
 genius and beauty than to cast a sad garland 
 on their tomb. The author hopes that this book 
 may be accepted as a useful contribution to the 
 historical record of the contemporary stage; 
 but also he desires that it may be viewed 
 as an earnest and reverent testimonial, how- 
 ever unworthy, to the lofty character and 
 shining career of an extraordinary woman, 
 who, blessed with great powers and auspi- 
 cious opportunity, has used them for the ad- 
 vancement of a great and noble art, and thus 
 for the benefit of the world. 
 
 W. W. 
 Fort Hill, New Brighton, 
 
 Staten Island, N. V., 
 May 4, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. The Ladder of Fame i 
 
 II. Rosalind at Stratford-on-Avon 77 
 
 III. Rosalind in New York 99 
 
 IV. Galatea and Clarice 117 
 
 V. Pauline 129 
 
 VI. Juliet 1 36 
 
THE LADDER OF FAME 
 
 Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb 
 
 The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar ! 
 
 — Beattie. 
 
 jhose who greatly succeed in the 
 conduct of life teach many val- 
 uable lessons to others and give 
 great happiness to the world. 
 All cannot succeed. In the customary 
 course of things many must fail. But to 
 a just and sensitive mind the spectacle of a 
 lofty, puissant character and a noble pros- 
 perity is one of the incomparable comforts 
 of human experience. Such a mind will 
 find delight in dwelling upon this spectacle, 
 will exult in it, and will extol it ; for the 
 good reason that here is manifest a brilliant 
 example, soothing and encouraging, of the 
 capabilities inherent in human nature. A 
 
 The beauty 
 of true suc- 
 cess. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Motive of 
 this book. 
 
 Mary Ander- 
 son born in 
 California. 
 
 Educated in 
 Kentucky. 
 
 great character greatly successful, shining 
 in its righteous eminence and irradiating a 
 beneficent grace, implies the divine element 
 and the celestial future of mankind. Noth- 
 ing can be more helpful to humanity than 
 the contemplation of this kind of success. 
 An impulse to celebrate such a character 
 and to tell, in such detail as is permissible, 
 the story of such a life, therefore explains 
 itself, and surely it does not need the shield 
 of apology. 
 
 Mary Antoinette Anderson was born 
 at Sacramento, California, on July 28, 1859. 
 Her father, Charles Henry Anderson, was 
 a native of New York; her mother, Marie 
 Antoinette Leugers, was a native of Phila- 
 delphia. Mary is the elder of two children 
 born of this marriage, the younger being her 
 brother, Charles Joseph Anderson, a native 
 of Louisville, Kentucky, born January 28, 
 1863. Her father died in 1863, aged 29, 
 at Mobile, Alabama, and his ashes rest in 
 the Magnolia Cemetery at that place. Her 
 mother is now the wife of Dr. Hamilton 
 Griffin, of Louisville, to whom she was 
 married in 1867. Mary was taken to Louis- 
 ville in the spring of i860, and in that 
 city she passed her childhood and early 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^ 
 
 youth and received her education. She was 
 for eighteen months a pupil at the Ursuline 
 Convent there, and subsequently for three 
 years and a half a pupil at the Presentation 
 Academy, a Roman Catholic school, kept 
 by nuns, adjacent to the cathedral. She 
 was reared in the Roman Catholic faith, 
 and, especially, she was fortunate in being 
 instructed and trained by her mother's uncle, 
 Father Anthony Miiller, a Franciscan priest, 
 a thorough scholar, and a man equally re- 
 markable for the originality and power of 
 his intellect and the purity and benignity 
 of his character. Her direct tuition, how- Brief eriod 
 ever, was comprised within five years, and at school, 
 it ended before she was quite fourteen years 
 old. She was not in her girlhood an assidu- 
 ous student, and, although since then her 
 reading has been extensive, the observer 
 of her public life must regard her not as a 
 product of the schools but exclusively as a 
 product of nature. Throughout her youth 
 she was a dreamer, averse by the operation 
 of her temperament to restraint and subjec- 
 tion, averse also to companionship. " The 
 thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 Much of the time during those early years 
 was passed by her in solitary reverie and in 
 
4 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Early pas- making pictures in the clouds. While yet a 
 
 sionforthe child her fancy wag caught by the stagCj 
 
 and from the first she manifested a passion- 
 ate interest in everything relative to theatri- 
 cal art. Sometimes she would be taken by 
 her mother to see a play, and then she 
 would act it over again at home; and in 
 such repetitions she would manifest apt, 
 interesting, and remarkable talent. She 
 early evinced, also, a surprising taste and 
 capacity for music. Several of the tragic 
 impersonations of Edwin Booth were seen 
 by her, and these exerted a powerful influ- 
 ence upon her mind and feelings, strongly 
 impelling her, indeed, to the choice of the 
 stage for her own avocation. One of her 
 of Edwin favourite books at that time was the " Life 
 Booth. of Edwin Booth," — a narrative written by 
 
 the author of the present biography, — em- 
 bellished with portraits of the famous trage- 
 dian, in character, by Hennessey. It was 
 from Booth's acting and his artistic exam- 
 ple, indeed, that she derived her first prac- 
 tical perception of the high purpose and the 
 opportunity of noble achievement that are 
 possible to an actor; and it is significant 
 that the dramatic parts first studied and 
 learned by her — secretly and without advice 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 5 
 
 or aid — were male characters, Hamlet, 
 Wolsey, Richelieu, and Richard. She also 
 learned Schiller's Joa?i of Arc. On the 
 threshold of life, showing itself by these 
 slight signs, her desire for dramatic ex- 
 pression was seen to be the strongest im- 
 pulse of her nature. It is the old story of J f mations 
 
 r m J m of genius m 
 
 genius denoting itself in the exalted reveries, childhood, 
 the wayward impulses, the vague longings, 
 and the strange moods of youth. Such 
 signals are Nature's whispers of the bless- 
 ing that she intends, and the guardians ot 
 youth are wise who heed them. The talent 
 revealed by this gifted girl, in the little dra- 
 matic performances that she gave at home, 
 was of such a significant character that 
 soon it induced her parents to permit her 
 training to take an artistic direction. She 
 was instructed in English literature and in 
 elocution by Professor Noble Butler, of 
 Louisville ; she had the benefit of counsel 
 from that great actress, Charlotte Cushman, First meet- 
 whom she met for the first time in the l^T* 1 
 
 Charlotte 
 
 autumn of 1874, at Cincinnati, and who Cushman. 
 advised her, considering personal qualifica- 
 tions and the existent state of our stage, to 
 begin at the top; and in the spring of 1875 
 she received ten preparatory lessons in the 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 She deter- 
 mines to 
 adopt the 
 stage. 
 
 Besieges a 
 
 Western 
 
 manager. 
 
 art of acting from the veteran preceptor, 
 Mr. George VandenhorT. This was all; and 
 it will be observed that she had but little 
 direct instruction bearing on the practice 
 of the dramatic art. Natural capacity for 
 dramatic expression, striving to obtain its 
 freedom and to assert itself in fulfilment, 
 was the impulsive force of her girlish mind ; 
 and the only important guidance vouchsafed 
 to her was the guidance of her own spirit. 
 Such a spirit never strays nor swerves from 
 its appointed path. She loved the art of 
 acting, and she determined to become an 
 actress. With this object in view she read 
 every play that came within her reach, and 
 committed to memory many of the leading 
 characters in Shakespeare and in old stock 
 pieces of the theatre. Thus equipped, — 
 abundantly by nature but slenderly by cul- 
 tivation, — she eagerly yet patiently sought 
 the opportunity to make a first appearance 
 on the stage. The manager of the chief 
 theatre in Louisville was the late Mr. 
 Barney Macauley (1837-1886), and to him 
 her application for a chance to act was 
 anxiously and persistently made — and long 
 made in vain. At length, touched, no 
 doubt, by her profound sincerity and by 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 5 
 
 that winning charm of personality which 
 has since made her beloved by the theatri- 
 cal public in both hemispheres, this kind 
 friend consented to open the way for her 
 brave endeavour. A Saturday night was 
 selected, — November 25, 1875, — and, an- 
 nounced simply as " a young lady of Louis- 
 ville," Mary Anderson, in the character of 
 Juliet, made her dramatic advent. She had She makes 
 just entered on her sixteenth year, but she er rst ap " 
 
 J J 7 pearance as 
 
 was tall and lithe in figure, her beautiful an actress, 
 face was radiant with joy and hope, her 
 voice, though untrained, possessed its grand 
 volume of melodious power, and her physi- 
 cal strength, even then, was extraordinary. 
 Good judges of acting who saw that per- 
 formance of Juliet said that, with all its 
 violence and distortion, it was a wonderful 
 display of natural talent. All her forces 
 
 . . Excess of 
 
 were in excess, but the excess was an over- forceSt 
 flow of riches. From that night, through 
 many vicissitudes and in despite of many 
 obstacles, her career has been incessantly 
 progressive and triumphant, till now she 
 stands upon the summit of fame. 
 
 Her first regular engagement, resultant 
 on this auspicious endeavour, was played at 
 the Louisville Theatre under Mr. Macauley's 
 
8 
 
 Her first 
 professional 
 engagement, 
 1876. 
 
 Friendship 
 of John Mc- 
 Cullough. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 management, in the week beginning January 
 20, 1876. She appeared as Evadne, Bianca, 
 Julia, and Juliet. She had never seen either 
 of these parts acted, excepting Juliet, and her 
 embodiments of them were unconventional 
 and novel. Theatrical managers throughout 
 the Republic, hearing of these performances, 
 soon began to manifest a practical interest 
 in her work. She visited in rapid succession 
 many of the large cities of the South. In 
 March, 1876, she made a bright mark at St. 
 Louis and New Orleans, and a little later, 
 under the management of the veteran direc- 
 tor, Mr. John T. Ford,— one of the ablest, 
 and long one of the most distinguished 
 leaders of the theatre in America, — she 
 made her first visit to Washington, and 
 quite conquered the chivalry of the capital. 
 Her girlish aspiration and fine audacity of 
 effort had early won the friendly sympathy 
 of John McCullough — that noble gentle- 
 man and superb heroic actor, whose great 
 heart, now lamentably stilled in death, was 
 ever rejoiced to recognize and foster am- 
 bitious worth ! — and soon she made a visit 
 to San Francisco, to act at the California 
 Theatre, of which he was then the manager. 
 There, for the first time, and at McCullough's 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 suggestion, she appeared as Parthenia, in 
 " Ingomar," a character in which she has 
 since gained many brilliant victories. This 
 period of her life was not unmarked by- 
 vicissitudes, pain alternating with pleasure, 
 and disappointment with success. The 
 young actress found friends and favour; but 
 likewise she obtained her wholesome ex- 
 perience of hardship and of salutary mental 
 and spiritual discontent. 
 
 Miss Anderson made her first appear- 
 ance on the New York stage on November 
 12, 1877, two years after her debut at Louis- 
 ville. In the meantime she had been in 
 almost continual practice, and she had 
 gained auspicious reputation. A beautiful 
 and happy girl, she came to the capital 
 heralded by hopeful promise. Youth, beauty, 
 natural aptitude for dramatic art, and a 
 certain proficiency acquired in professional 
 experience, which though brief had been 
 useful, were known to be her qualifica- 
 tions. She did not disappoint augury. On 
 the contrary, her uncommon talents made 
 an immediate impression. Yet at the outset 
 of Miss Anderson's conquest of the Ameri- 
 can theatre her popularity was due in a 
 great measure to her condition of physical 
 
 Her first ap- 
 pearance as 
 Parthenia. 
 
 Her advent 
 in New York 
 as Pauline. 
 
 Cause of her 
 
 immediate 
 
 popularity. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 1877. 
 Dec. 14. 
 
 The writer's 
 first impres- 
 sions of her 
 genius. 
 
 bloom and personal worth. She appeared 
 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, as Pauline, 
 in " The Lady of Lyons," following, in this 
 respect, the time-honoured example of Mrs. 
 Mowatt. She acted there till December 
 21, and she impersonated in succession 
 Pauline, Juliet, Evadne, Meg Merrilies, and 
 Parthenia. She also played Lady Macbeth, 
 in the sleep scene. From this point 
 onward, through a period of nine years, her 
 professional deeds are recorded, and her 
 artistic progress is traced, in my contempo- 
 raneous journal of her public life. 
 
 Miss Anderson is a refreshment to the 
 theatre, and she comes upon this tired 
 period like a strain of rich music in the 
 middle of the night. It is long since the 
 stage has made such an acquisition. She 
 may not be able to act this part well, or 
 that part completely, or the other part at 
 all; but she is an actress by nature. In 
 almost all human beings there is a desire 
 for dramatic expression : it is an instinct of 
 the general heart : in this remarkable woman 
 the faculty is united with the desire, and 
 both are invested with adequate organs and 
 physical beauty. Miss Anderson is an in- 
 terpreter. Whether her mind can grasp with 
 
MARY ANDERSON. IX 
 
 intuitive sympathy and knowledge the 
 elemental experiences of humanity is a 
 question that she herself, in time, will 
 answer. The examination, meanwhile, of 
 particular performances by one so young 
 in art is mostly a barren labour. Mental 
 discipline and artistic method may be 
 taught, but education cannot give magnetic 
 fire and personal charm. There are gifts 
 that come from the schools ; there are others 
 that come from heaven. Certain human 
 beings, fortunate and rare, arise now and 
 then in the world, accredited with the power 
 and the nameless grace to move and to 
 charm. They take a place of gentle sov- 
 ereignty, not by virtue of their deeds but by 
 virtue of their existence. They are made influence of 
 potential to help the human race by a ™ dlvldual 
 
 1 x m J charm in 
 
 power which is above earthly influence and rare persons, 
 independent of human caprice. And they 
 do help it, — by filling its senses and suffu- 
 sing its heart with beauty; by the spon- 
 taneous and involuntary suggestion of its 
 divine possibilities, and by the elevation of 
 its soul. Miss Anderson is one of these 
 fortunate persons; and that fact is more 
 important to the profession which she has 
 adopted, and to her own future in that 
 
12 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 is less im- 
 portant. 
 
 Mechanism profession, than the question whether she 
 now acts a particular part well or ill. 
 Technical accuracy in acting, although a 
 merit, is not in a large sense important 
 to the world; and the public analysis of it 
 often seems a superfluous discussion of 
 trifles. But lovely personality and enno- 
 bling spirit, on the stage as elsewhere, is a 
 blessing to be welcomed and cherished. 
 Miss Anderson is young, healthful, hand- 
 some, artless, remarkable for pomp of 
 figure and music of voice, singular in her 
 large, sumptuous, natural action, and fas- 
 cinating with mysterious charm. As an 
 actress she has much to learn. As a 
 woman, — 
 
 " Of Nature's gifts she may with lilies boast, 
 And with the half-blown rose." 
 
 She plays 
 Bianco, in 
 " Fazio." 
 
 On December 17 Milman's tragedy of 
 " Fazio" was presented, and Miss Anderson 
 played Bianca. Her performance had mo- 
 ments of thrilling force and moments of 
 lovely gentleness ; but these were personal 
 to the actress rather than the character, 
 denotements of herself rather than traits of 
 an assumed identity. The simulation of 
 love was frigid, and therefore the subse- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 13 
 
 quent simulation of jealousy was deprived 
 of its full effect. In the bleak and lonely- 
 night scene there was no desolation such as 
 always bitterly enwraps the solitary mo- 
 ments of jealous love. It was not until the 
 death scene that the actress struck a note 
 of deep pathos. Here the condition of 
 Bianca touched her heart, and she spoke 
 and acted with forlorn tenderness. 
 
 On December 21, as a supplement to Her first 
 Parthenia. Miss Anderson presented Lady Ne wYork 
 Macbeth, in the sleep scene. Her per- Lady Mac- 
 formance was based on that of Charlotte beth - 
 Cushman. Nervous and a little flurried, it 
 nevertheless was good. Her demeanour and 
 attitude had a certain massive grandeur, 
 and they were entirely consonant with the 
 awful isolation of human misery which is 
 the spirit of the scene. Her voice, in the 
 rich variety of cadence that broke and 
 dispelled its characteristic monotone, de- 
 noted, if not the irremediable agony of a 
 conscience-stricken, heart-broken, hopeless 
 criminal, at least such perception of the 
 awful reality of sorrow as awoke the earnest 
 response of sympathy and grief. It would 
 not be easy for even the most sensitive and 
 experienced actress to throw herself at once 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Imitative but 
 powerful. 
 
 1878. 
 
 Makes her 
 first visit to 
 Europe, and 
 goes to the 
 home of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 into the piteous anguish and remorse with 
 which the sleep scene of Lady Macbeth 
 is surcharged. The highest and the best- 
 trained capacity could not, in this character, 
 surpass what has already been accomplished. 
 The work was uncertain and it was imita- 
 tive, but it was full of imagination and 
 power. Miss Anderson might not enact 
 Lady Macbeth adequately throughout ; but 
 her acting, in this portion of it, gave yet 
 another clear and cogent indication of latent 
 intensity and rich resource. The dressing 
 was simple and pictorial : a white robe, with 
 a straggling tress of chestnut hair escaping 
 through the folds of the head-gear. 
 
 At the Boston Theatre, on May 22," The 
 Lady of Lyons" was acted, for a benefit, 
 with John McCullough as Claude Melnotte 
 and Miss Anderson as Pauline. On May 
 29 she sailed from New York for Liverpool, 
 making her first visit to Europe, and about 
 the middle of July she passed some happy 
 days at Stratford-on-Avon. Later in the 
 summer she returned home, and on August 
 29, when the Fifth Avenue Theatre was re- 
 opened, she appeared there as Parthenia — 
 a numerous and refined company greeting 
 her with joyous welcome. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^ 
 
 Miss Anderson's impersonation of Par- August 30. 
 thenia has the attributes of youth, beauty, 
 innocence, ingenuousness, the warmth of 
 girlish emotion, the prettiness of girlish 
 caprice, the dignity of innate goodness, and 
 the consistency of spontaneous identifica- 
 tion. The part, as an ideal, has presented 
 no serious obstacle to the smooth and easy 
 flow of the artist's mind and feelings. Miss 
 Anderson becomes Parthenia by natural 
 sympathy. The simple truthfulness, the Gives a char- 
 unconscious capacity of heroism, and the acteristicper- 
 winning loveliness of this classic maiden ° rmanceo . 
 of poetry are in the spirit of the woman of "ingomar." 
 actual life. The glow of artistic instinct 
 gives them vitality, and dramatic skill gives 
 them expression. In the ideal that Miss 
 Anderson embodied — in the nature, the 
 person that she developed — there was not 
 a flaw. The actress of fact was the Par- Actress and 
 
 character 
 
 thenia of fiction — a creature as bright and matched, 
 sweet as the dew that sparkles upon the roses 
 of a morning in June. The substance of 
 Parthenia is readily within Miss Anderson's 
 grasp ; the form sometimes eludes her. The 
 defects of the performance are in its expres- 
 sion. There is a lack of repose in the 
 attitudes, and of clear utterance and just 
 
i6 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Promise 
 more import- 
 ant here than 
 performance. 
 
 Futility of 
 discussing 
 technicalities 
 
 emphasis in the enunciation. This state- 
 ment glances at blemishes needful to be 
 indicated and destined to be removed. Re- 
 specting the mind of this actress it may be 
 said — in the words of Desde?no?ia — " it yet 
 hath felt no age nor known no sorrow." She 
 is still on the threshold of her career, and 
 many bright hopes span with their bow of 
 promise the heaven of her future life. This 
 it is which makes her present efforts excep- 
 tionally interesting. This it is which in- 
 clines the observant thought to dwell more 
 upon the general character and tendency 
 of her powers than upon the details of her 
 professional mechanism. These technicali- 
 ties, indeed, are at all times cumbersome 
 and tedious. It cannot edify a reader to 
 learn that Smith was fine as Jawkins, and 
 Miss Jones exquisite as Lady Grace, but 
 that Green should have powdered his whis- 
 kers, and Tomkins should have left off his 
 spurs. There are hints of inexperience in 
 Miss Anderson's acting; but now it is a 
 much more considerable fact that the young 
 actress is certainly endowed with a genuine 
 capacity of dramatic expression and with 
 powers and graces that enable her to gratify 
 
MARY ANDERSON. I7 
 
 and benefit her generation in advancing the 
 best interests of the stage. 
 
 On September 5 Miss Anderson played 
 Julia for the first time in New York, and f e 7 play ' 
 
 7 Julia and 
 
 on September 19 she appeared as Juliet. Juliet. 
 In this character, to which she has given 
 incessant study, her advancement now 
 marks a signal artistic growth. The im- 
 pression she then imparted was slight. 
 
 Miss Anderson is so beautiful in Juliet Sept. 20. 
 that she defeats judgment. It is impossible, 
 looking upon that sweet young face, to 
 think clearly of the defects of her acting. 
 Where emotion is assumed but is not felt, 
 the exhibition of it will be intermittent. 
 Miss Anderson's Juliet is no more of one 
 piece, viewed as an ideal, than her execution 
 is of one piece, viewed as mechanism. In 
 the balcony scene much is said of love, but 
 love is not felt. The pretty action with Artificial 
 the flower, at the close, is artificial. There <i ualit y of 
 
 5 
 
 ;nt in Miss Anderson's nature — Ju i iet 
 and it is apparent in her voice — which 
 debars her at present from this feeling. She 
 toils toward it through the mind ; she does 
 not reach it with the heart. The same was 
 true, in other years, of Miss Kate Bateman. 
 
!8 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 The grace, the sweetness, the arch ways, 
 and the childish tones in Miss Ander- 
 son's personation are delicious. In the 
 potion scene she makes a superb effect. 
 Her imagination kindles to single passages ; 
 her faculties rally to isolated and often 
 superb bits of effect. The human touch 
 of relenting affection, at parting with the 
 Nurse, is one of these. The taking of the 
 drug is another — with all the action that 
 follows it. But in the scene of Juliefs re- 
 ception of the news of TybaWs death and 
 Ronierfs banishment, a condition that exacts 
 tremendous passion and sustained agony, 
 the actress is inadequate. Her execution of 
 Juliet is like her ideal. Her voice passes 
 from a sweet, low tone to a sudden clarion. 
 Thinking of Miss Anderson's Juliet one 
 Defects and thinks of the snow made vital and passion- 
 
 ments alike . 
 
 remarkable, ate ; of childhood transfigured into maturity ; 
 of white roses trying to blush. It is a per- 
 formance full of splendid faults — full, like- 
 wise, of splendid virtues and golden promise. 
 But this gifted and lovely woman has to 
 learn more of life before she will satisfy her- 
 self in Shakespeare's Juliet. 
 
 Sept 23. No one can see Miss Anderson act with- 
 
 out perceiving the good and tender heart, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. !q 
 
 the bright intelligence, the moral dignity, 
 the splendid natural capacity for dramatic 
 expression, and the superb physical adapta- impression 
 bility to the dramatic art which are her ofma s nifi - 
 
 J cent personal 
 
 attributes. Such a presence for the lofty, qualities, 
 statuesque, passionate heroines of the classic 
 drama has not come upon the stage for 
 many years. Such a voice — notwithstand- 
 ing, for lack of suitable culture, that its 
 registers are not yet perfectly blended — 
 has seldom been heard. The generation 
 that welcomed Ellen Tree would have 
 known how to welcome Mary Anderson — 
 and would not have paused to count and 
 curb its heart-beats of delighted exultation 
 in such genius and beauty. She is not, as 
 to art, a prodigy ; but she is, as to nature, — 
 the spirit no less than the sense, the soul 
 equally with the body, — a creature so 
 gloriously endowed that nothing should be 
 impossible to her in the pursuit which she 
 has chosen. Her Evadne is perhaps the 
 most eloquent of the manifestations which 
 at present justify this judgment. All persons Her success 
 who are acquainted with stage matters know in Evadne. 
 that this part reaches to heights of frenzied 
 anguish and to depths of pathetic despair, 
 and that it involves conditions of moral 
 
2 o MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 sublimity such as provide excellent dramatic 
 opportunities. It is pervaded, too, by pure 
 and sacred womanhood. It lacks unity — 
 because the author of it has enforced tran- 
 sitions which are impossible to human 
 nature. But it contains rare tragic passion. 
 Miss Anderson acted, in Evadne's parting 
 with Vicentio, with a pathos that was perfect. 
 
 Recalls Julia g mce ^q ^ est ^ays Q f T u li a Dean SUCh SL 
 Dean at her . . 
 
 best symmetrical, passionate, lovely portrayal of 
 
 Evadne's heroism, in the statue scene, has 
 not been given on our stage. 
 
 Sept. 28. Bianca is a virtuous, tender, gentle, but 
 
 passionate woman, who, becoming mad- 
 dened by jealousy — for which she has good 
 cause — betrays her husband to death; and, 
 thereupon, realizing what she has done, 
 lapses into frenzy and dies in piteous dejec- 
 tion, after a paroxysm of agony. This ideal 
 is not difficult to grasp, but it is immensely 
 difficult to express. When Miss Anderson 
 first appeared as Bianca her performance of 
 it was little more than experimental : it was 
 deficient in deep feeling, unity, and sym- 
 metrical form. The personation of it that 
 she now gives, on the contrary, reveals 
 
 The imper- g raS p f the subject, intelligent purpose, 
 
 proved. thoughtful design, and passion. The shafts 
 
 again. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 21 
 
 of feeling are not, indeed, as deeply sunk as 
 they will be hereafter ; the skill in sculpture, 
 tone, and tint is not as deft as it must one 
 day become; but the improved faculty is 
 obvious, and the growth is seen to be in the 
 right direction. An effort was made — and 
 made with just instinct and uncommon 
 force — to deepen the colour of the fore- 
 ground of domestic love. The suggestion 
 of Bianca's deep and wildly passionate 
 nature — as denoted at the moment when 
 she divines that Fazio has seen her rival — 
 was made with sumptuous warmth and 
 with a struggling, reckless agitation that 
 were properly and fearfully ominous. The Shows 
 subsequent delirium was singularly well £™ wthin 
 indicated, often reached, and to some of power, 
 extent sustained. The test thus met is 
 severe; for, at a certain point Bianca is 
 loosed from all moorings and dashed upon 
 the wild billows of stormy anguish. At 
 points, though, it was impossible not to see 
 looseness of method — as though the will 
 were outstripped by the impulse. This is 
 right as to feeling; but expression always 
 deepens the sincerity and effect of feeling 
 when it controls its means. The third act 
 became turbulent for lack of this controlling 
 
22 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Excess and 
 dispropor- 
 tion. 
 
 Effective 
 pathos. 
 
 Auspicious 
 indications 
 of her acting. 
 
 reserve and direction of resources. These 
 resources, however, were felt to be luxuriant. 
 The result of the treatment they received in 
 Miss Anderson's affluent method was to 
 make her Bianca, in execution, an alterna- 
 tion of tremendous outbursts with sudden 
 and surprising calms; strange peals of 
 melodious vocal thunder, with shrill cries, 
 and with tones as soft as the echo of the 
 prayer of childhood. Through these, not the 
 less, the actress exhibited a deep percep- 
 tion of the dreadful and deadly experience 
 of Bianca. The allusions to the children 
 were made in a spirit especially illuminative 
 of a clear and right ideal. The supplica- 
 tion to Aldabella was beautifully uttered, 
 and so as to carry a convincing weight of 
 significance. The breaking of the voice 
 was irresistible. The previous lines, in 
 parting with Fazio, — " There must be, in 
 this wide city," etc., — were uttered with all 
 the meaning that underlies this agonized 
 scene; and they never could have been 
 uttered better. There is room for pro- 
 founder passion and for delicate touches of 
 suggested sentiment; but the embodiment 
 is fraught with power, and it shows a steady 
 advance — from which those who are in- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 23 
 
 terested in the growth of tragic art may 
 derive happy auguries of the future of one 
 of the few players of whom there is reason 
 to be proud in the present period of the 
 American stage. 
 
 The season of 1878-79 was closed with 1879. 
 performances at Syracuse and Boston, May 
 22 and 24, and Miss Anderson passed 
 the summer of 1879 at Long Branch. In 
 June of that year she gave performances 
 at the Leland Opera House, Albany, in 
 association with John McCullough; and 
 there, on June 20, her brother, Mr. Joseph ? 6but of 
 
 , . J os - Ander- 
 
 Anderson, made his first appearance on the son. 
 stage, acting Stephen in "The Hunchback." 
 On September 9 she began a new season, 
 appearing first at Utica and thence travel- 
 ling through Canada and into the West and 
 South, and thus filling up x the year. 
 
 To speak of Miss Mary Anderson is to August 22. 
 name the hope of the American stage. No 
 beginner of late years has given promise of 
 such excellence or has done so much in The remark - 
 
 . able promise 
 
 actual performance; and there is no young of her career, 
 artist before the public for whom the future 
 seems so bright. Youth, beauty, sweetness, 
 power, the dramatic temperament, real and 
 rare talents, an honest ambition, a modest 
 
 / 
 
24 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 spirit, and high principles unite in this lady 
 and " speak her full of grace." Miss An- 
 derson has added to her repertory the 
 Adopts new P art °*" Th g Countess in Sheridan Knowles's 
 characters, play of " Love ; or, the Countess and the 
 Serf," — a piece that has been for a time dis- 
 used. Several brilliant names in American 
 stage history are associated with this strong 
 character — the most famous being that 
 of Mrs. Shaw (Elisa Marian Trewar), who 
 acted it with the brilliant Tom Hamblin 
 (1800-1853,) as Huon. 
 
 Another new part that she adopted and 
 played, this year, was the Duchess de Tor- 
 renueva in Planche's fine comedy of " Faint 
 Heart Never Won Fair Lady." This im- 
 personation she first gave at St. Louis, and 
 subsequently repeated at Brooklyn, and it 
 was recorded as a sprightly and dashing 
 effort in a new field. 
 Z 88o. Recognition of the increasing merit of 
 
 Miss Anderson's dramatic performances is 
 more and more frequently observed in the 
 American press as this year advances. She 
 continued to act until May 8, when she 
 ended her season at Portland, Maine, hav- 
 ing given two hundred and thirty-eight per- 
 formances.. The summer was passed at Long 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 25 
 
 Branch. She resumed the active work of Enacts ion 
 her profession on September 13 at Oswego. ^ hefirst 
 In the interval she had been studying Ion, 
 and this part she acted for the first time 
 in her life, on October 30, 1880, at the 
 Opera House in Detroit. 
 
 Acting poetic parts is writing poetry in March 21. 
 the air. An actor, with motion, face, and 
 voice, is just as much bound by the laws of 
 form as a poet is who works with written 
 words. Those writers who break away 
 from form do so not on account of their 
 strength but on account of their weakness. 
 It is more difficult for the poet to sustain 
 the flowing tide of his emotion and his 
 thought in, for example, the great Spen- Acquiring 
 serean stanza, than it would be for him to command of 
 write the loose hexameters of a Tupper, or the impl . e " 
 
 rr ' ments of 
 
 the melodious memoranda of a Walt Whit- form, 
 man, or the intoned, chanting sentences of 
 an Ossian. So with the actor. It is more 
 difficult fully to assume and evenly to sus- 
 tain an ideal individuality than it is to make 
 that individuality the pretext for a loose- 
 jointed, rambling, hap-hazard exhibition of 
 self and of the impulses and feelings of the Kindred 
 moment. And just as the poet must always 
 find himself fettered and curbed until he has poet. 
 3 
 
 methods of 
 actor and 
 
26 
 
 Necessity of 
 vital experi- 
 ence. 
 
 General 
 characteris- 
 tics of her 
 acting. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 acquired such a mastery of form that the 
 strong and free use of it is entirely natural 
 and easy, so the actor [who deals with the 
 same subjects, and, in a kindred way, bears 
 testimony also to the power and effect of 
 the great passions of human nature and the 
 influences of beauty in the universe] can- 
 not be free until experience has made the 
 use of form a second nature. That result 
 comes slowly. It develops from within. It 
 flows out of the action of the feelings of the 
 soul. It is the sequence of vital thought 
 and passion, acting upon the artistic tem- 
 perament. Of actors no less than of poets 
 it is profoundly true that they must " learn 
 in suffering what they teach in song" — and 
 that which teaches them the lesson of life 
 will, at the same time, teach them how to 
 convey it. " At last," says Wilhelm Meister, 
 " after great preparations, he disclosed to 
 me that true experience is just precisely 
 when one experiences what an experienced 
 man must experience in experiencing his 
 experience." 
 
 The impersonations which have been 
 given by Miss Anderson have covered a 
 broad area of human nature transfigured 
 into poetic ideals. She has enacted Evadne, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 2 J 
 
 Parthenia, Julia, Juliet, Meg Merrilies, Paul- 
 ine, and The Countess. It is only technical 
 criticism — useful but tedious, and always a 
 second-class pursuit — which would concern 
 itself with her specific method of treating 
 these parts, in detail. The vital point is the 
 consideration of her advancement. She is 
 an undeveloped genius and is destined to 
 a great future on the stage. Her loveliness 
 alone will carry her far in the public estima- 
 tion. It is singular and instructive to remark 
 with what a gradual movement her mind 
 progresses. 
 
 The most exacting part which has been 
 mentioned is Juliet ; and in her acting of 
 this Miss Anderson denotes that the level 
 she has now reached is but slightly removed 
 above that on which she stood a year ago. 
 Now, as then, during the first half of the Deficienc y 
 
 ' a of passion 
 
 tragedy she is the embodied spirit of the injuiiet 
 white lily — the soul of the eidelweiss, that 
 grows among the eternal snows of the Alps. 
 Her Juliet no more loves Romeo than the 
 stars of Orion love the icebergs of the Polar 
 Sea. It is a lovely girl playing at love — 
 and playing in perfect safety. No observer, 
 however sympathetic, can feel, either with 
 tenderness or dread, the actual presence of 
 
2 8 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 that tremendous and deadly passion. This 
 is because the artist is imitating something 
 of which her nature has not taken absolute 
 cognisance, and which intuition will not 
 She is supe- se i ze# Every other passion can better be 
 
 nor in tragic # J ^ r 
 
 emotion. imitated, even by inexperience, than the 
 passion of love. Through all the later 
 scenes of the tragedy, which are domi- 
 nated by tragic action, Miss Anderson 
 moves with splendid power, like one set 
 free to be herself. She is then a woman 
 in a tempest of passionate anguish, uttering 
 her heart with unrestrained freedom and 
 force. 
 
 Observation of other impersonations con- 
 firms the impression derived from this one. 
 Miss Anderson is doing all that can be done 
 to make artistic treatment supply the lack 
 of that pervasive spontaneity which is at once 
 
 heTdevefo^ ^e consequence and the sign of inspiration. 
 
 ment. Her works are growing in symmetry — but 
 
 neither in unity nor in splendour. She still 
 wins as a beauty, impresses as a prodigy, 
 and startles as a genius. The word has not 
 yet been spoken which is to give her soul 
 its entire freedom, arm it with all its powers, 
 and make the forms of art the slaves of her 
 will. The triumph of Miss Anderson now 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 2 9 
 
 is the triumph of an exceptional personality- 
 shrined in a beautiful person, but not yet 
 the triumph of a consummate actress. With merits^d 
 a superb voice, here is a defective elocution ; defects. 
 with a magnificent figure, here is a self-con- 
 scious manner in the attitudes ; with a noble 
 freedom and suppleness of physical machin- 
 ery, here is a capricious gesticulation ; with 
 a full and fine sense of opportunity for strong 
 and shining points, here is but an incipient 
 perception of the relative value of surrounding 
 characters and the coordination of adjuncts ; 
 with a brilliant faculty for stormy and ve- 
 hement declamation, here, as yet, is an 
 imperfect idea of the loveliness of quiet 
 touches, verbal shading, and suggestive 
 strokes ; with a vigorous, and often grand, 
 manner of address, here is a frequent lack 
 of concentration in listening ; with wonder- 
 ful intuitions as to the wilder moods of 
 human passion, here is a restricted sym- 
 pathy with the more elemental feelings — 
 from which naturally ensues a certain 
 vagueness in the effect of their manifesta- 
 tion. Here, in brief, is more tragic impulse 
 than human tenderness ; more of physical 
 strength and force of will than of spiritual 
 intensity; more of the ravishing opulence 
 
3Q 
 
 Herastonish- 
 ing natural 
 powers. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 of youthful womanhood than of the thrill- 
 ing frenzy of genius or the dominant 
 grandeur of intellectual character. Yet, 
 what a wealth of natural power is here ! 
 what glorious promise ! what splendid pos- 
 sibilities! Of just such a nature, surely, was 
 spoken the beautiful prophecy of Words- 
 worth : 
 
 The floating clouds their state shall lend 
 To her; for her the willow bend; 
 Nor shall she fail to see, 
 Even in the motions of the storm, 
 Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 
 By silent sympathy. 
 
 The stars of midnight shall be dear 
 
 To her; and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place 
 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 
 And beauty born of murmuring sound 
 
 Shall pass into her face. 
 
 Reentrance 
 in New York. 
 
 On December 13 Miss Anderson reap- 
 peared in New York, at the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre, as Evadne, and was cordially wel- 
 comed. She afterwards played Parthe7iia, 
 and, on December 20 for the first time in 
 that city, The Countess, in " Love." She 
 also repeated Julia > Bianca, and Pauline. 
 The novel feature of the engagement was 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 31 
 
 " Ion." The artistic result of her labours in 
 1880 is indicated in what follows. 
 
 A revival of Milman's tragedy of" Fazio " Dec. 28. 
 has presented Miss Anderson in the most 
 difficult character she has undertaken, and 
 has enabled her, in a powerful and affecting Her surpris- 
 embodiment of Bianca, to show forth not l ^ B ^^m 
 alone her brilliant natural faculties and for- "Fazio." 
 tunate graces of mind and person, but her 
 remarkable advancement in dramatic art. 
 The character of Bianca has not the intel- 
 lect of Lady Macbeth, and nowhere does it 
 rise to the awful altitude of the two or three 
 moments of hopeless and terrible remorse 
 in which that royal murderer is transfigured 
 into an image of immortal anguish. But 
 Bia?ica?s tender, womanlike nature is crazed 
 by a terrible conflict of passion, and the sit- ^J^° f 
 uations in which she is displayed are such nature, 
 as make a steady, ever-increasing drain 
 upon her forces, alike of suffering and ex- 
 pression, and therefore the part, though 
 easier to reach, is more difficult to sustain. 
 
 Miss Anderson began with sunshine, mak- 
 ing visible the profound earnestness, ardour, 
 and passionate intensity of Bianca's tem- 
 perament, and thus showing her to be 
 capable of the madness presently to come, 
 
32 
 
 Proportion 
 and symme- 
 try of her 
 Bia?ica. 
 
 Extraordi- 
 nary effects 
 of pathos. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 but giving no prefiguration of the latent 
 tragedy of her life. This may be called a 
 use of tone and colour, and certainly it was 
 directed with a subtle instinct. All the 
 foreground of the picture was warm with 
 an atmosphere of domestic love — with the 
 content, the trust, and the hopeful, eager 
 enjoyment of the fireside of home; and 
 through it all ran a faint, tremulous agita- 
 tion which without being prophetic was in 
 a certain strange way ominous. The key- 
 note of this work is struck when Bianca 
 says, " Fazio, thou hast seen Aldabella " ; 
 this point Miss Anderson made with a sup- 
 pressed passion, apprehensive and vengeful, 
 which was true to nature and finely effective 
 in art. The cold, metallic tones of settled 
 misery in which the denunciation of Fazio 
 was uttered were deeply eloquent as to what 
 was in the soul of the actress, besides being 
 exactly right as a vehicle for the feeling of 
 that crisis. The allusions to the children 
 and the adjuration to the scornful Aldabella 
 were as tender as infancy and as touching 
 as pathos could make them. No listener 
 could doubt that the actress had, through 
 the sympathetic exercise of the imagination, 
 grasped a full sense of Bianca } s trials and 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 33 
 
 condition and projected her spirit into a 
 consonant misery. The capacity to do this 
 is the main thing, because it is the gift of 
 nature, the illumination that the soul derives 
 from the spiritual forces within and around 
 it. The government of the mechanism by 
 which this capacity is used, being a matter 
 of taste and will, can be cultivated and is 
 susceptible of endless improvement. All 
 of Miss Anderson's recent performances 
 have indicated that this is the direction of 
 her study, effort, and self-discipline. 
 
 If experience could be acquired by im- 
 mediate application of the precepts of which 
 it is so liberal, perfection would be gained ^^^ 
 in a moment, and life would be exhausted ence. 
 on the threshold of maturity. Miss Ander- 
 son's experience is to be gained, as others 
 have gained it, through living, striving, and 
 suffering, and not through experimenting 
 on the ideas of other persons. It is impos- 
 sible that her works should have, at present, 
 the solidity, the splendour, the satisfying 
 fulness of knowledge and emotion which 
 appertain to riper years. For an actress who 
 has only been five seasons on the stage, she Need of dis- 
 . has already achieved results that are almost cr j minatin f 
 
 J critical judg- 
 
 without a parallel in the history of acting, ment. 
 3* 
 
 The nature 
 
34 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 To censure, for not doing more, an actress 
 who has already done so much, would be 
 folly as well as injustice. The public has 
 great reason to be satisfied that this young 
 and beautiful woman, so richly endowed, so 
 capable, and so earnest, is here to grace the 
 stage, and, in representations that are as 
 sweet, pure, and high, and well-nigh as skil- 
 ful as the best that have been seen, to exert 
 upon the popular heart the old immortal 
 charm of sculpture, eloquence, and poetry. 
 She had in the copious applause of a great 
 
 Re ™ ark ^ le throng of spectators, in several recalls upon 
 
 to the actress, the stage, in the significant hush of deep 
 emotion that often pervaded the house, and 
 in the tears that trembled in many eyes, a 
 whole-hearted tribute of sympathetic recog- 
 nition. It was a splendid revelation of a 
 woman's heart and a noble effort in acting, 
 and it justifies the most eager anticipation. 
 
 January i. Miss Anderson chose wisely when she 
 
 chose, as an addition to her repertory, the 
 
 Excellent as character of The Countess, in Knowles's 
 
 TkeCountess • . 
 
 in "Love." comedy of " Love. It suits well with her 
 statue-like, innocent, stately beauty, and it 
 finds a sympathetic response alike in the 
 intellectual coldness, the inherent gentle- 
 ness, the native, woman-like pride, and the 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 25 
 
 deep, passionate sincerity which have been 
 discerned, through her acting, to be the 
 prominent qualities of her temperament. 
 It suits with her style of art, likewise, in 
 the fortunate sequence of moods through 
 which it enables her to pass — beginning in 
 haughty, calm, self-imposed restraint, and 
 passing through affected scorn, royal pride, 
 and melting tenderness sternly held in 
 check, till at last it culminates in the con- 
 quest of the affections over the will. Miss 
 Anderson shows that she has grasped this peculiar 
 ideal in its breadth and delicacy; and her beauties of 
 
 . , , , the perform- 
 
 execution of it was remarkable for spon- ^^ 
 taneous grace and adequate power. The 
 suggestive by-play, in the first scene with 
 Huon, — showing love's resentment against 
 itself and its object, in a proud heart, — was 
 alike beautiful in fineness of tracery and 
 pathetic in repressed emotion. The hys- 
 terical recovery after the tumult of grief, in 
 the scene of the storm, carried the same 
 conflict of feelings to an impressive height. 
 There is a still more touching effect, pro- 
 duced in the silent observance of Huon 
 after his refusal to obey The Duke, wherein 
 the actress, with a fine intuition, lets her „ 
 
 ' ' Nature in 
 
 soul shine through her eyes and makes no acting. 
 
3^ 
 
 Powerful at 
 the climax. 
 
 January 4. 
 
 "Ion." 
 Record of its 
 several pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 effort to act. The application of the " nat- 
 ural " method has sometimes led Miss 
 Anderson almost to the needless extreme 
 of tameness ; in this instance it leads her 
 to an effect of nature that could not be 
 excelled in sweetness or artistic propriety. 
 To introduce, whether by facial expression 
 or a pause of significance, the illuminative 
 idea of the plan which had flashed upon the 
 mind of The Countess, when she bids Huon 
 sign the paper, would heighten the dramatic 
 interest of the moment and help the strong 
 climax which follows. That climax, the 
 mountain-peak of the comedy, is reached 
 at the passionate cry of The Countess, com- 
 manding her servitors to bring back the 
 fugitive Huon. Miss Anderson reached 
 this a little too suddenly, but she gave it 
 with a clarion call of anguish and with 
 splendid energy. In roundness of outline, 
 in blending of all its parts, in truth of ideal, 
 and in smoothness of execution, this is one 
 of her best works. 
 
 The tragedy of " Ion " has been presented 
 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and Miss An- 
 derson has enacted Ion, for the first time in 
 New York. This beautiful play dates back 
 to May 26, 1836, when it was brought out 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 37 
 
 in London, at Covent Garden, with Macready 
 as Ion. Bulwer said that Macready invested 
 the self-sacrifice of Ion " with exquisite 
 sweetness and dignity and pathos." The 
 tragedy was first acted in America at the 
 old National Theatre, in New York, De- 
 cember 14, 1836, with George Jones, the 
 late Count Joannes, as Ion, and Mr. Pick- 
 ering as Adrastus. On February 2, 1837, 
 it was presented at the old Park Theatre, 
 with Ellen Tree as Ion, Fredericks as Adras- 
 tus, Wheatley as Phocion, Richings as Ctesi- 
 phon, and Mrs. Gurner as Clemanthe. In 
 the fall of 1852, at the old Broadway, Mrs. 
 Mowatt acted Ion. Mr. Wallack revived 
 the play at his theatre, in later days, and 
 John Dyott won distinction as Adrastus. 
 Miss Anderson reproduces it, cast as follows : Miss Ander- 
 
 Ion Mar y Anderson. ^tadon 
 
 Adrastus Milnes Levick. of « Ion » ^ 
 
 Medon H. B. Norman. New York. 
 
 Agenor John McDonald. 
 
 Timocles T. F. Brennan. 
 
 Cleon J. Currier. 
 
 Phocion Atkins Lawrence. 
 
 Ctesiphon R. L. Downing. 
 
 Crythes T. L. Coleman. 
 
 Cassander Joseph Anderson. 
 
 Clemanthe Emma Maddern. 
 
 Irus , Laura Clancy. 
 
 Abra Mrs. Benton. 
 
38 
 
 "Ion," "ca- 
 viare to the 
 general." 
 
 Nature of 
 popularity. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand why the 
 tragedy of " Ion " has seldom been acted, 
 or why its hold upon the stage remains 
 slight and uncertain. It is deficient in fem- 
 inine interest; its vitality is of the spirit 
 rather than the blood ; its lofty moral feel- 
 ing is somewhat far removed from general 
 human sympathy; its poetry, though elo- 
 quent, is of the kind that is impelled by a 
 scholastic mental purpose rather than the 
 warm, spontaneous currents of the heart; it 
 is suffused with a cold, white light rather 
 than with colour; its persons are more the 
 representatives of abstract ideas and artistic 
 purposes than living human beings ; and its 
 central character, Ion, is so absolutely sex- 
 less, that it makes no difference whether it 
 be personated by a man or a woman. Alto- 
 gether it is an ideal creation ; and, as such, 
 it exacts an ideal sympathy, of which man- 
 kind is but slenderly capable. If ever 
 the time should come when Shelley is as 
 popular as Robert Burns, or Shakespeare's 
 " Tempest " pleases the multitude as deeply 
 as " The Lady of Lyons," then Talfourd's 
 tragedy of " Ion " will be as famous and as 
 much admired on the stage as it is now in 
 the closet. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 39 
 
 The revival of " Ion " from time to time 
 is not the less a desirable, admirable, and 
 useful achievement. It is a piece that is 
 fruitful of excellent lessons. It shows with 
 conspicuous clearness that simple, severe th e e a " ra g S e d 
 beauty of form in works of art which the of "ion." 
 ancient Greeks were the first to attain and 
 to teach. It uses the noble English tongue 
 with a copious affluence of wealth and 
 melody such as is rarely found outside of 
 Shakespeare, and such as lulls the sense of 
 harmony into a dream of delight. It de- 
 picts — in its incidents, its accessories, and 
 its suggested traits of ancient civilization — 
 an old, far-distant historic period, thickly 
 peopled with majestic shapes and great 
 ideas, and dimly invested with that air of 
 shadowy mystery which is so captivating to atmosTere 
 the imagination and so elevating to the Moral purity, 
 spiritual nature of man. It is instinct with 
 moral purity, and therein it streams upon 
 the soul like sunrise on the ocean — a 
 glory, a comfort, and a charm. Its stage 
 pictures please by the propriety of their nat- 
 ural sequence, by the spirited character of 
 their groupings, and by the sharp, clear, Fine stage 
 and steadily increasing effect which they p icturesan <i 
 
 J . ° J intellectual 
 
 give to the dramatic purpose of the piece, force. 
 
40 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Its sustained intellectuality — shown in the 
 unflagging directness, precision, and con- 
 tinuity with which its chief character is 
 made to develop itself in action, under the 
 well-contrived stress of propulsive circum- 
 stances — wins and holds the respect and 
 admiration of the thoughtful mind. Its 
 object — the noblest by which art can be 
 actuated — is likewise found to be deeply 
 impressive ; that object being to present in 
 self-sacrifice, a grand setting and with splendid emphasis 
 the beauty of self-sacrifice — the simple yet 
 glorious idea, which at once destroys all 
 meanness, envy, malice, fear, and puny self- 
 seeking, that the best use a man can make 
 of his life is to give it for the benefit of his 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 The simplicity of all this is another obsta- 
 cle which has ever stood considerably in the 
 way of the effective, practical illustration 
 and enforcement of " Ion " — simplicity be- 
 ing the one supreme quality most difficult 
 either to realize or to convey. Each motive 
 simplicity of Ion's conduct is elemental; each of his 
 and strength actg - g direct . h} s personality is like white 
 
 of the char- ... 
 
 acterof/<>«. marble. Virtue is his nature, readiness in 
 duty his condition, and in the several suc- 
 cessive situations in which he is displayed 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 he presents always the same grandeur of 
 heroic magnanimity. He will be the mes- 
 senger of the priests to the dangerous 
 Adrastus, and he has no fear of the menaced 
 doom of death. He fronts the formidable 
 King with a fearless brow, and charms and 
 subdues him. He joins with more than the 
 serenity of Brutus in the oath which devotes 
 the sinful monarch to sacrificial destruction. 
 He is himself ready to strike the awful blow 
 that the high gods of his religion have com- 
 manded. And when at last it is apparent 
 that his own death can alone preserve his 
 country from pestilence and ruin, he walks 
 to the grave as to a festival, and with his 
 own hand pours out his heart's blood upon 
 the altar of the offended deities of Greece, erature. 
 He is the Antinous of dramatic literature — 
 the " one entire and perfect chrysolite " of 
 beautiful young manhood, human goodness, 
 and serene self-sacrifice. It taxes all the re- 
 sources of exalted spirituality and of refined 
 mechanism to bring forth this brave and 
 lovely image of ideal excellence. 
 
 Miss Anderson's performance of Ion was 
 
 41 
 
 The Antin- 
 ous of lit- 
 
 The actress 
 
 observed with intense eagerness by a brill- exceeds ex- 
 iant assemblage. The young actress was 
 fortunate in it beyond promise or anticipa- boy. 
 
 pectation as 
 the Greek 
 
42 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 tion. The soulful innocence of her nature, 
 breathing through every look, seemed the 
 literal radiation of the spirit of Io?i. Her 
 figure, in the garments of the Greek boy, 
 was like a statue by Phidias. Her move- 
 ments had a large imperial grace, and her 
 equably-poised temperament — slow to ignite 
 and never yet profoundly disturbed — aided 
 this effect of animated marble. Her elocu- 
 tion partook of the symmetry which, like an 
 atmosphere, seemed to enfold the whole 
 effort; it was fluent, melodious, noble — 
 neither dropped into colloquial tameness 
 nor jarred by spasmodic breaks. More than 
 ever, as this performance proceeded, it could 
 be felt that this actress should sternly re- 
 strict herself within the fields of the imagi- 
 native drama, as far as possible removed 
 from "realism" and from the " emotional " 
 fonhtdlssic scn ° o1 of acting. Her style is the grand 
 drama. style, and more and more, as the years drift 
 
 away, she ought to make the traditions of 
 Mrs. Siddons and Charlotte Cushman live 
 again. Her embodiment of Ion is a satisfy- 
 ing augury that she can do it. The imper- 
 sonation had a splendid glow of imagination; 
 it was ethereal and exalted ; it was beauti- 
 ful in its refinement; and, in its denote- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 43 
 
 Tribute of 
 the Elks of 
 
 ments of capacity and unexplored resource, 
 it was very eloquent. Miss Anderson has 
 done nothing upon the stage that is sweeter, 
 purer, or higher than this. 
 
 The engagement ended, on January 8, 
 with Meg Merrilies, and Miss Anderson 
 ended her season, on May 7, at Trenton. 
 Shortly before closing this period of labour 
 she acted in Cincinnati, as Pauline, for the 
 benefit of the Benevolent Order of Elks, Cincinnati, 
 and that society presented to her an address 
 in which was well expressed the public senti- 
 ment of the time : 
 
 " To-day the Elks of Cincinnati have the honour of 
 paying tribute to a representative American actress. 
 It seems but yesterday since Miss Mary Anderson 
 first stepped upon the stage, a type of the beauty 
 and excellence of the girlhood of her noble State. 
 To-day she is the unchallenged exponent of the 
 younger heroines of classic tragedy. That she can 
 pause to respond, through the Elks, to the cry of 
 her brother and sister professionals in distress, and 
 lend them for a day the splendid aid of her genius 
 and her acquirements will not lessen the lustre of 
 her laurels." 
 
 On September 26 Miss Anderson began 
 at Troy the season of 1881-82, and there, 
 on September 28, she impersonated for the V ^ ^"' 
 first time in her life the character of Galatea, first time. 
 
44 
 
 Also 
 
 " Roland's 
 
 Daughter." 
 
 1882. 
 
 Restores the 
 original text 
 of " Romeo 
 and Juliet." 
 
 February 3. 
 
 Juliet again. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 in Mr. W. S. Gilbert's comedy of " Pygma- 
 lion and Galatea," with which her name 
 and memory are now closely entwined. On 
 October i she produced at Syracuse, for 
 the first time on our stage, the play of 
 "Roland's Daughter," a piece translated 
 and adapted from the French by the late 
 Miss Annie Ford (Mrs. Thornton), the brill- 
 iant, lamented daughter of the eminent 
 theatrical manager, Mr. John T. Ford, 
 of Baltimore; and in this she enacted 
 Berthe. 
 
 This year Miss Anderson acted at Booth's 
 Theatre in New York from January 2 to 
 January 28, beginning as Juliet and ending 
 as Parthenia. In producing " Romeo and 
 Juliet" she now restored the original text, 
 and it was seen that she had revised much 
 of the stage-business of Juliet. 
 
 Miss Anderson's performance of Juliet — 
 however, as an ideal, it may fall short of 
 what is accepted by the best thought of 
 critical literature as Shakespeare's concep- 
 tion, and whatever may be its defects of 
 execution — is an achievement of estimable 
 import. The quality that gives value to 
 an effort in the art of acting is its power 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 45 
 
 to irradiate a charming or an ennobling 
 influence. As to the element of accuracy, 
 although this has its relative bearing on the 
 central question, no spectator, aside from Spirit and 
 the technical critical student, gives himself p^ 1011 P ref - 
 
 ' ° erableto 
 
 much concern. Miss Anderson's perform- accuracy, 
 ance of Juliet might be absolutely correct, 
 and still, for the public, be of no conse- 
 quence whatever. The part stands there in 
 Shakespeare's tragedy, and any person who 
 is capable of comprehending that work can 
 understand what the part means. The thing 
 which is rightfully expected of an actress The ^ st 
 
 . . mustillumine 
 
 who undertakes it, the thing which alone the character, 
 makes her work of significance and precious 
 import to others, is that illumination, that 
 light and fire of her own nature, which she 
 is able to pour into the poetic mould, so as 
 to suffuse a correct form of art with the glow- 
 ing warmth of an immortal spirit. The right 
 form is indispensable as a basis. Juliet must 
 not be acted as if she were Mrs. Haller or The 
 Duchess of Malfi. But, for the transcendent 
 worth of a portrayal of Juliet, for the quality 
 that makes it an abiding treasure among 
 the intellectual and spiritual possessions of 
 the world, the observer must look at what 
 
4 6 
 
 Her Juliet 
 deeper and 
 finer in feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Increasing 
 effect of her 
 Juliet. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 the actress puts into it. Miss Anderson's 
 embodiment of Juliet was not only right in 
 stage convention, but it easily went beyond 
 that point and became thrilling and noble 
 with the loveliness of its spirit and the 
 glamour of its woful passion. Thus illum- 
 ined, it had the touch of that final and 
 crowning radiance which makes the dra- 
 matic art a beneficent power in human 
 society. The effect, upon Miss Anderson's 
 auditors, of her simple tenderness in the 
 scenes between Juliet and Romeo, of her 
 desolation in the moment after the final 
 parting with The Nurse, of her passionate 
 terror in the hysterical frenzy of the potion 
 scene, and of her noble, tragic recklessness 
 in the suicide, was that of profound sym- 
 pathy and emotion. There were spontane- 
 ous and emphatic plaudits, to bear witness 
 of this result ; there was the deeper applause 
 of tears ; there was the still deeper recog- 
 nition of that suddenly awakened and 
 always sublime melancholy which accom- 
 panies the broad contemplation of tragedy 
 and misery in human life. 
 
 There are considerations that slightly 
 qualify and define this estimate of the per- 
 formance. Miss Anderson's Juliet, notwith- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. *~ 
 
 standing the charm that it superadds to 
 stage proficiency, still leaves a sense of un- 
 fulfilment. To look closely at her method 
 of treatment — her postures, gestures, facial 
 play, pauses, movements, and stage busi- 
 ness — was to see that the structure of the 
 action had not, as to every detail, been 
 rigidly and exactly prepared in advance. It n ot To^Tai- 
 is unwise to trust to inspiration or to what ways trusted. 
 is called the impulse of the moment. Occa- 
 sionally such an impulse may be of inesti- 
 mable value ; but, as a rule, the only safe 
 way, and the great way, in acting is to 
 dominate every fibre of the work with 
 a clear and positive intellectual purpose. 
 There is not one person in a thousand who, 
 in a question of acting, can afford to leave Forethought 
 any detail, however seemingly insignificant *" n p ^^ 
 (for nothing is trivial in a picture that others sentiai. 
 must see), to the accident of chance or 
 caprice. Excess was the blemish that occa- 
 sionally marred this Juliet. Not in ideal. 
 There are no mysteries about the character 
 of Juliet. Miss Anderson understands it 
 perfectly and makes its significance per- 
 fectly apparent. But as to execution the 
 actress sometimes lost her grasp by allowing 
 feeling to run away with art. Some judges 
 
4 8 
 
 Facility of , 
 execution 
 must become 
 a second 
 nature. 
 
 Insufficiency 
 of the pas- 
 sion of her 
 Juliet. 
 
 Involuntary 
 action of 
 deep feeling. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 think this a merit, and so it might be if the 
 feelings, when they run away, would always 
 take the right road. There comes a time, 
 in the ripe maturity of an actor's experience, 
 when they generally do, and that time, no 
 doubt, will come for Miss Anderson. Her 
 instincts in dramatic art — as she has shown 
 in many characters — are magnificent. The 
 errors of her mechanism ensue from the 
 neglect to reduce those instincts to positive 
 principles and precise designs. 
 
 Another element of incompleteness in this 
 Juliet was a lack of volume in the passion. 
 The quality was the right quality, and it 
 made the work pathetic and beautiful. But 
 there was not enough of it. To touch this 
 note is to touch the most delicate attribute 
 by which dramatic art is affected. The 
 artistic mind may make, and ought to make, 
 a perfect plan of expression, but the grandest 
 and finest design cannot, in its fulfilment, 
 expend a wealth of the heart, which the 
 heart has not yet acquired. Art is inade- 
 quate here — because here the draft is upon 
 the depths of the soul wherein are garnered 
 up all the lessons of sorrow and misery that 
 are taught in the experience of a great 
 nature. The feeling that flows out of those 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 49 
 
 depths will take its own time and its own 
 way, will give its own tremendous force and 
 burning ardour to simulated love, and add 
 the midnight of its own anguish to the dark- 
 ness of simulated grief. To assert that 
 there are no such depths in Shakespeare's 
 Juliet, and therefore to infer that they are 
 not essential beneath a stage portrayal 
 of the characters, is to ignore the poetic 
 aspect of the part and of the tragedy, as a Representa- 
 representative conception of human love tlv ^ as P ectof 
 
 r x "Romeo and 
 
 tragically blighted and human misery tri- Juliet." 
 umphant in death. A school-girl may be 
 the volatile miss in her teens who is the 
 Juliet of commonplace prose. Miss Ander- 
 son takes no such view of the subject, but is 
 splendidly and consistently poetic in every 
 element of her work. Only it is to be said 
 that in some situations of poetical tragedy 
 there are heights to which the wings of the 
 imagination cannot soar, but to which an The heart 
 actor may better rise on the great waves of feel- J^ ^ 1 - ^ 
 ing — the ground-swell of the human heart, tion. 
 In the lighter passages of the tragedy — in 
 the balcony scene and the wheedling of The 
 Nurse — Miss Anderson was the personifi- 
 cation of blooming grace and winning, girl- 
 like fascination. In the stormy passages, 
 4 
 
5o 
 
 A better 
 queen than 
 lover. 
 
 Galatea and 
 Berths 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 which exact a tempest of power, she was a 
 superb woman. In the realm of Juliet's 
 tenderness and Juliet 's suffering, while she 
 did all that the imagination of a happy, 
 buoyant, youthful nature could be expected 
 to do, she yet left something to be accom- 
 plished in a riper time. It was felt, also, 
 that the imperial stature and grand gesticu- 
 lation of the actress make her more con- 
 sonant with queens than with lovers, more 
 fit for sovereignty than for suffering. It 
 cannot be easy for the royal and conquering 
 mind of a young Ze7iobia to merge itself in 
 the passionate heart of Juliet. 
 
 Miss Anderson presented Galatea for the 
 first time in New York on January 7, at 
 Booth's Theatre, and she was entirely suc- 
 cessful in it ; nor has her impersonation of 
 it undergone much change since that time. 
 On January 14 she first acted in New York 
 the part of Berthe\ in " The Daughter of 
 Roland," giving a performance nobly heroic 
 in ideal and effective in many points of ex- 
 ecution. Of her Galatea the present writer 
 then said: The aspect is beautiful. The 
 spirit is both guileless and. passionate. The 
 humourous parts are spoken and acted with 
 absolute simplicity. There is not one trace 
 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 51 
 
 of coquetry. The soul of the child is incar- 
 nated in the consummate purity of the 
 woman; and the significance of the ideal 
 and of the text is conveyed with the ex- 
 pertness and adequacy of accomplished art. 
 In Berihe Miss Anderson illustrates the 
 power of an earnest, ardent, impassioned 
 mind to electrify a somewhat cold and bar- 
 ren subject. The character is both heroic Character- 
 and romantic, but it figures in a succession *f* cs , of ,, 
 
 " Roland s 
 
 of declamatory scenes which by themselves Daughter.' 
 would arouse only a languid interest. The 
 personality of the actress diffuses itself 
 through them in a rich glow of splendour, 
 making the experience actual despite its sur- 
 rounding atmosphere of remoteness and un- 
 reality. In Berth? s confession of her love for 
 Gerald — which is a passage of rare delicacy 
 — the actress employs the lower tones of her 
 voice, together with a sweetly subdued man- 
 ner, so as to produce a remarkable effect of 
 tenderness. Her action and vocal treatment 
 when describing the combat are powerful 
 and victorious ; this exacting passage being 
 wrought up, with tumultuous feeling that 
 never once breaks out of the restraints of 
 art, to a spirited and satisfying climax. In 
 Berthe Miss Anderson finds occasion for 
 
52 
 
 Variety of 
 moods and 
 spirited 
 action. 
 
 January 18. 
 
 Again suc- 
 cessful as 
 The Count- 
 
 Complexity 
 of woman's 
 nature. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 the display of many contrasted moods, for 
 much lofty and sonorous declamation, and 
 for eloquent by-play — as when, standing 
 upon the throne, she hears the Saracen's 
 taunts, and sees him draw her dead father's 
 sword. The crowning excellence of her 
 impersonation is the consistent sustain- 
 ment of an exalted ideal. In the light of 
 such an embodiment the romantic heroism 
 and religious zeal of ancient chivalry be- 
 come living facts. Only a nature of pro- 
 found sincerity and innate nobleness could 
 carry such a part to such a height of 
 success. 
 
 A repetition of " Love " has again pre- 
 sented Miss Anderson as The Countess. It 
 is an embodiment in which passion is con- 
 trolled by intellectual pride, and in which, 
 little by little, — now flashing out through 
 irresistible impulse, now curbed and turned 
 to bitter arrogance by the reaction of self- 
 contempt, — the honest love in a woman's 
 heart is seen to increase and develop till it 
 overwhelms her nature. The observance 
 of such a personation is, therefore, an in- 
 voluntary analysis of feminine thoughts, 
 feelings, caprices, and thousand inexplicable 
 ways; and thus to see The Countess well 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^ 
 
 acted is to be made wiser in that knowledge 
 of human nature which the moralist tells us 
 is the proper study of mankind. To see the 
 part as it is acted by Miss Anderson is to 
 look upon a noble embodiment of proud 
 beauty, and to admire an expert assumption 
 of successive moods — simulated scorn suc- 
 ceeding to haughty self-restraint, and ten- 
 derness gradually subduing pride. She has 
 repose; she illustrates the value and force 
 of repressed emotion, and she acts unusually Fine fadal 
 well with the face — allowing the feelings play. 
 of the heart and the changing impulses of 
 the mind to show themselves in play of 
 feature no less than in voice and action. 
 Nothing could be finer in the way of 
 essentially dramatic expression than her 
 mute observance of the secretly beloved 
 Huon, after he has made his dangerous 
 choice and refused obedience to his ruler. 
 The command of The Countess to bring back . . . . 
 
 ~ An inspiring 
 
 the fugitive lover is always a climax in this climax, 
 comedy, and Miss Anderson gives it with 
 inspiring excitement and in a voice of clarion 
 might. It is before the love is finally 
 triumphant over the pride of The Countess 
 that the powers and resources of the actress 
 are at their best. When the culmination 
 
54 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Ultimate 
 
 Actress and 
 character 
 
 has been reached her nature seems to tire 
 of so much sustained fervency, and the last 
 
 dejection. scenes are somewhat listless. But this is a 
 blemish of execution, subject to caprice of 
 mood. The ideal is fine, the execution is 
 smooth, the character is made to stand out 
 in bold relief, and the various elements are 
 adroitly fused together. It has seldom hap- 
 pened that a part and its representative are 
 so well matched as in this instance. The 
 statuesque person of the actress, her almost 
 Gothic coldness of aspect and of intellect, 
 
 well matched, her variable youth, her capacity of thrilling 
 animation when aroused, and her ring- 
 ing melodious voice, "rich as woodland 
 thunder," combine to make her especially 
 consonant to this stately and fiery heroine ; 
 the strongest of the women that Sheridan 
 Knowles has enshrined in his antiquated, 
 artificial, queer versification. 
 
 April 22. Miss Anderson closed the season at 
 
 Williamsburgh, having acted in thirty-seven 
 cities since September 26, 1881. In all of 
 them she has been greeted with public 
 enthusiasm. Her growth in knowledge and 
 control of her own powers is steady and 
 
 toiled for*" sufficiently rapid. Her personation of 
 
 Galatea. Galatea has everywhere been accounted 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 55 
 
 one of the best works of her life, and un- 
 doubtedly it is one of the best performances 
 that now grace the stage. In Parthenia 
 and Evadne she has no contemporary equal, 
 and in portions of The Countess and Bianca 
 she has maintained a brilliant supremacy. 
 To have accomplished so much in spite of 
 / the lack of stage-training in childhood, and ^ 
 notwithstanding obstacles incident to im- 
 maturity, is to hold and merit an honoured 
 place in the front rank of the dramatic pro- 
 fession. The SUCCeSS Of SUCh an actreSS is Significance 
 
 a credit to the public taste, nor in the ^ he P r r °™ se 
 sternest critical mood can it be doubted cess. 
 that her future achievements will reward 
 her public for its forbearance toward the 
 faults of youth and its practical encour- 
 agement of true and fine abilities. 
 
 The season of 1882-83 was opened by 
 Miss Anderson in Brooklyn, September 25, 
 with Juliet, and she also enacted Evadne, 
 Julia, Galatea, Pauline, and Berthe. 
 
 Miss Anderson's treatment of the opening October 1. 
 scenes of Juliet — with a view to prefigure 
 the woful destiny of that heroine — is in a 
 high degree poetical, and it produces a 
 beautiful and touching effect. Her elocution 
 is made surprisingly fine, and her manner 
 
56 
 
 A delicate art 
 method. 
 
 Julia, in 
 
 "TheHunch- 
 
 back." 
 
 Nov. 20. 
 
 Louisville's 
 tribute to its 
 favourite. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 is heightened in repose by a careful repres- 
 sipn of force, and by a free use of quiet 
 gestures and low tones ; while — notably in 
 the character of Julia — she has conveyed 
 a sense of harmonious proportion, in the 
 gradual building up of the part and the 
 development of almost tragic intensity 
 under pressure of afflicting circumstances. 
 The suspense of suffering and trial in the 
 letter scene with Cliffords* evenly sustained, 
 and with earnest feeling and sweet, woman- 
 like grace. With a mechanism entirely 
 concealed, of all the transitions in the part, 
 with more emphasis in the lovely, almost 
 rustic, simplicity of the opening scene, and 
 with a more careful treatment of the last 
 five minutes of the piece, this performance 
 will be as perfect as anything of the kind 
 can be — and it will win for the young 
 actress many a wreath of laurel yet. 
 
 At Louisville, Kentucky, on November 
 11, Miss Anderson ended an engagement 
 which had been prosperous and brilliant to 
 a remarkable degree. Louisville, although 
 not her birthplace, is the city in which her 
 girlhood was passed, and its inhabitants feel 
 a natural pride in her career. Crowds of 
 enthusiastic spectators greeted her each 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ey 
 
 night, and at the close of the last perform- 
 ance a wreath of silver laurel was publicly- 
 presented to her, upon the stage, by the 
 Mayor of Louisville, in behalf of its citi- 
 zens. Miss Anderson expressed her grati- 
 tude in earnest and graceful words and with 
 touching sincerity. Mr. Henry Watterson, 
 in The Courier- Journal, fitly rounded the 
 city's tribute with an eloquent article, in 
 which the career of Miss Anderson is thus 
 commemorated : 
 
 That Mary Anderson went hence a poor girl in 
 quest of fame and fortune, and that she has come 
 back the most celebrated and important woman Co ™ mem - 
 upon the stage of her country, — bringing with her marks b 
 youth, beauty, and riches, — tells a story more fairy- Henry Wat- 
 like than any in which she appears as the mimic terson. 
 heroine. Whatever be the difference among critics 
 touching the incidents of her acting, it cannot be 
 denied that she is a great presence and figure of our 
 time. We should not omit from this resume of the 
 powerful traits of intellect and character which have 
 made the actress great the virtues of unaffectedness, 
 enthusiasm, and simple, unostentatious Christianity 
 which make the woman glorious. Whoever widens 
 the area of woman's work and points her a way to 
 her own maintenance and the emancipation of her 
 children makes a mark upon life's fly-leaf which 
 angels like to look at; and, whether the page so 
 marked bear a song or a sermon, a play or a tract, 
 the result, being good, is recorded all the same in 
 
 A* 
 
58 
 
 Noble both 
 as woman 
 and actress. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 heaven. Mary Anderson has made this mark, 
 broad and deep. Her genius has made her rich 
 and great ; but she is none the less a noble type of 
 the working woman. She has lifted up the brand 
 which was held so firmly in the hands of a long line 
 of good women, from Siddons to Cushman, and 
 kept it burning like an oriflamme ; and, standing 
 alone, a splendid representative of the heroic and 
 classic drama, she stands also conspicuous as a rep- 
 resentative of the womanhood of her country and 
 her time. 
 
 A Christmas 
 gift. 
 
 £883. 
 
 Accurate 
 dressing of 
 " The Lady 
 of Lyons." 
 
 January 16. 
 
 Pauline a 
 lovely em- 
 bodiment. 
 
 A military organization at Philadelphia, 
 for which Miss Anderson had done some 
 service, publicly presented to her, at the 
 Chestnut Street Opera House, a magnificent 
 crown, set with precious jewels. 
 
 On January i, this year, Miss Anderson 
 appeared at Washington. On January 15 
 she was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, 
 New York, and she remained there until 
 February 10. A revival of "The Lady of 
 Lyons " was now accomplished, its charac- 
 ters being scrupulously arrayed in dresses 
 of the time of the First Empire. 
 
 Miss Anderson is more than usually beau- 
 tiful in the Empress Josephine garb. In 
 all its physical attributes this embodiment 
 of Pauline was an image of peerless loveli- 
 ness. No woman has appeared upon the 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 59 
 
 stage in our time so entirely fitted as Miss 
 Anderson is — by stature, demeanour, intel- 
 lectual poise, and a tone of coldly spiritual 
 refinement — to represent Pride. She thrilled 
 her audience by the sincerity and firm and 
 well-veiled art with which she advanced to 
 the other exigence of the character, and 
 likewise depicted the passion of Love. It 
 is the struggle between these two emotions 
 that Bulwerhas illustrated in this play; and, 
 although the observer may sometimes smile 
 at the improbabilities, the fantastic expedi- This comedy 
 ents, the wild scheme, and the lingual fus- f^^ e " 
 tian of the comedy, this struggle is one that defects, 
 always will command sympathetic attention 
 when shown by an actress who is beautiful, 
 artistic, and in earnest. Miss Anderson's 
 expression of the tranquil ecstasy of con- 
 tent, in Mehwtte's wooing scene, might be 
 cited as a significant subtlety of her imper- 
 sonation. Her assumption of sarcasm, her 
 storm of passion, and her ultimate splendid 
 self-abandonment, in the cottage scenes, 
 revealed a variety of power and a depth of 
 passionate tenderness that well might startle of ^^Js 
 those observers who have mistakenly ac- refuted, 
 counted her hopelessly frigid in tempera- 
 ment and mechanical in style. At the 
 
6o 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 The actress 
 
 essentially 
 
 tragic. 
 
 beginning, with exquisite skill and propriety, 
 she gave to Pauline a tone of languid arti- 
 fice; but that was cast aside the moment 
 the character became dominated by genuine 
 feeling, and thereafter the treatment of the 
 ordeal with Melnotte was marked with deep 
 tenderness struggling through righteous, nat- 
 ural, woman-like resentment. The preemi- 
 nence and especial individuality of the 
 actress were seen to be tragical, — the out- 
 bursts, when they came, being somewhat 
 out of unison with the level mood of the 
 part, and, in fact, the wild utterances of a 
 personal nature much larger, broader, and 
 deeper than that which it assumed. So 
 much pathos, however, such lovely use of 
 gentleness, and such forlorn misery, in the 
 crushed condition of Pauline, have seldom 
 or never been infused into the part. 
 
 With the impoverished mental state of 
 that spectator who looks at a dramatic per- 
 formance merely to ascertain whether the 
 performer is strictly accurate and consistent 
 in method it is impossible to sympathize. 
 Life is short, and for most persons who 
 possess feeling and the power of thought its 
 
 Thepettiness . ^ few and i nfrequent To prow l 
 
 of superficial J J ~i r 
 
 criticism. around with a microscope and a tape- 
 
 January 26. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 6l 
 
 measure is to sadden it beyond endurance. 
 Nothing but spiritual starvation can come 
 of that parsimonious waste. There are 
 times, of course, when the mind must work 
 with all its Masonic implements. That is 
 another matter — the laying of the founda- 
 tions of judgment, broad and true in exact 
 knowledge and immutable principles. But 
 in the presence of artistic works which are 
 gracious and lovely in spirit — and therefore Thes ^^ 
 filled with help and cheer for the mind that the life, 
 is striving to poise itself in serenity and hope 
 amidst the frets and mutations of life — there 
 is no need of the idle and puny pursuit of 
 peeping about for superficial flaws. The 
 performances that Miss Anderson has given 
 are not such as promote controversy over 
 mistaken ideals. She is not an experimenter 
 upon Hamlet and King Lear. The parts 
 that she plays are completely within her 
 comprehension, and she states their mean- earness > 
 
 r ' power, and 
 
 ing with indubitable accuracy and unmis- charm, 
 takable force. Still more — and this is the 
 really vital fact in the matter — she invests 
 them with an irresistible charm. The hun- 
 dreds of able writers scattered throughout 
 America who for several years have been 
 telling her that when she acts better she 
 
62 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Proficiency 
 in mechan- 
 ism gained 
 by continual 
 practice. 
 
 "\ 
 
 Art glorified 
 by nature. 
 
 will be a better actress are quite safe in that 
 stronghold of opinion. The use of voice, 
 the management of drapery, the regulation 
 of gesture, the introduction of pauses such 
 as seem to happen of their own accord, the 
 ductile employment of attitude, the union 
 of facial expression whether with silence or 
 speech, the deft, seemingly unconscious but 
 perfectly precise subordination of theatrical 
 adjuncts to the spirit of a character and the 
 purpose of a scene — these and other essen- 
 tial elements of acting unite to form a com- 
 plex system of mechanism in which, for all 
 actors, continual practice is the only road to 
 perfect proficiency. Observers who choose 
 to amuse themselves in that way can readily 
 specify and dilate upon the rough places in 
 Miss Anderson's execution. In the mean- 
 time her works, while not deficient in art, 
 remain surcharged with the opulent vigour 
 of happy, unclouded, unsullied youth, the 
 exalted and lovely stateliness of a noble 
 mind, the radiance of almost peerless physi- 
 cal beauty, and the glamour of a romantic 
 spirit tremulous in its sensibility to the poetic 
 influences of nature and art. And these are 
 the conquerors. How often, in musing 
 over the victorious persons of human life, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. fy 
 
 the thinker comes back to Emerson's com- Character 
 prehensive statement of the whole truth of 1S Fate " 
 the subject : 
 
 Another is born 
 To make the sun forgotten . . . 
 I hold it of little matter 
 Whether your jewel be of pure water, 
 A rose diamond or a white, 
 But whether it dazzle me with light. 
 
 In the personation of Julia Miss Ander- _ 
 
 r ... Impressive 
 
 son was more than commonly impressive in in Julia. 
 her denotement of the majesty of grief. 
 With the lighter elements of the part, with 
 its innocence, sweetness, grace, glee, and 
 pride, and with its transit from rural sim- 
 plicity to superficial artifice and feather- 
 brained folly, she is easily conversant ; and 
 as to these her various condition and devi- 
 ous and piquant action were admirable. 
 There comes a time, however, in the expe- 
 rience of Julia, when almost the greatest 
 sorrow that a woman can feel has suddenly . raglc cnsi f 
 
 J ma woman s 
 
 aroused her to a sense of the tragic reality of life, 
 life, and thrown her for support upon the 
 resources of her own spiritual strength. At 
 certain moments in the fourth and fifth acts 
 of "The Hunchback" its heroine can rise 
 to a noble height of moral dignity. All 
 
6 4 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 littleness falls away from her. The tumult 
 of passion is hushed by the consciousness 
 of fault and of duty. The mood is one of 
 settled misery — but the soul will be true to 
 itself and adequate to every test that fate 
 may enjoin. It was in her exquisite repose, 
 Repose in at the extreme tension of the feeling thus 
 passion. indicated, that the actress attained to the 
 crowning excellence of her work. There is 
 a moment of this kind too in her perform- 
 ance of Galatea, — when the ill-fated girl 
 is hearing her doom of repudiation and 
 exile from the lips of the blind Pygmalion : 
 and here again Miss Anderson acted in a 
 vein of exquisite pathos. It is no common 
 intellect that understands, and it is no com- 
 mon achievement in the dramatic art that 
 The soul makes others understand, the absolute iso- 
 ;J!Z!f ° ne lation and loneliness of the human soul in 
 
 in great 
 
 moments. every one of the great experiences of mortal 
 life. Miss Anderson's mental and artistic 
 growth is remarkable. She will eventually 
 be hailed — perhaps by some who read 
 these words — at the summit of her profes- 
 sion as an actress of the great heroines of 
 classic tragedy. Toward that point she is 
 moving with the inexorable certainty of a 
 destined consummation. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 65 
 
 It is interesting to perceive — as the January 3 i. 
 thoughtful observer may do in looking at 
 Miss Anderson's personation of Parthenia Personal 
 — the power of inherent mental nobility ^ ze * r ™ n vl ab ] 
 and spiritual grace to invest a purely liter- stract ideal, 
 ary ideal with the attributes of human life 
 and make it a living, breathing, loving 
 woman. The Greek girl who goes forth 
 into the camp of barbarians to redeem her 
 father from slavery is a compound of many 
 excellent qualities, — of candour, courage, 
 honour, heroism, sweetness, and truth, — but, 
 to crown them all, she possesses childlike ^"""das 
 innocence. Without this, the cleverest tech- Parthenia. 
 nical embodiment of this character would 
 remain ineffective, because obviously artifi- 
 cial and remote from sympathy. Many 
 women no doubt possess, in various degrees, 
 most of the attributes that are shown in 
 Miss Anderson's embodiment; but not one 
 woman in ten thousand is of that essentially 
 childlike temperament which enables this 
 actress to crown her work with the simple 
 beauty of the wild violet. " Nature is above 
 art in that." 
 
 Miss Anderson has again impersonated February 4 . 
 Juliet and Bianca. In each part she has ^ /zV2,and . 
 
 ■*■ Btanca again 
 
 given a surprising exhibition alike of in- considered. 
 
66 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Woman and 
 actress 
 equally im- 
 plicated in 
 Juliet 
 
 Increased 
 harmony 
 of the per- 
 formance. 
 
 herent power and artistic growth. When 
 formerly she acted Juliet here, the perform- 
 ance, although right in ideal, lovely in spirit, 
 and full of tragic power, seemed deficient 
 in volume of passion. The darker aspects 
 of Juliet's experience appeared to have been 
 reached by means of the imagination rather 
 than the heart, and therefore to lack con- 
 summate reality ; and there were inequali- 
 ties in the structural form of the work. 
 Throughout Miss Anderson's impersonation 
 of Juliet now it is evident that the soul of 
 the woman within the actress is aroused 
 and swayed by the spirit of the character, 
 and not simply affected, in an intermittent 
 manner, by the exigencies of special scenes. 
 Deeper study, long brooding upon the mo- 
 tive of the part, and the involuntary insight 
 as to expression which is gained in frequent 
 acting of it have augmented Miss Ander- 
 son's ideal, in warmth, colour, and harmony. 
 The same passion which becomes frenzied 
 terror in the potion scene and wild and 
 awful yet sublime abandonment in that of 
 the suicide, is now distinctly visible through 
 the ardour and ecstasy of the moonlit con- 
 fession of love, in the beautiful scene of the 
 balcony. In the qualities thus indicated 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 67 
 
 the personation will continue to mature; 
 but already it has become a massive and 
 rounded image of love and grief. The 
 same woman's heart beats in every one of 
 
 Truth and 
 
 the phases of the experience that is por- not fiction, 
 trayed, and the spectator beholds it as life 
 and forgets that it is fiction. Dramatic art 
 could not better succeed than it does as 
 used by Miss Anderson in maintaining the 
 essential girlishness of Juliet during the bal- 
 cony scene and throughout the enticing, 
 capricious, eager interview with the tanta- 
 lizing Nurse, as well as in marking the 
 awakening of the woman's heart under the 
 stress of overwhelming passion. She has unityand 
 unified the work. There is no dissonance beauty of 
 
 , ...... m , . her Juliet. 
 
 anywhere visible in it. The mtense, reso- 
 lute, imaginative speech to Friar Law- 
 rence — " Bid me leap, rather than marry 
 Paris''' — falls in the perfect tone of nature 
 from the same lips that have been breathing 
 out the soft, caressing murmurs and golden 
 rapture of contented love. The passion, in 
 the final parting with Romeo, is that of com- 
 plete self-abandonment ; and in the potion 
 scene there is, in addition to remarkable 
 power, a use of voice that is indescribably 
 pathetic. Her Bianca — a part to which at 
 
68 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Power and 
 pathos of her 
 Bianca. 
 
 She agrees 
 to act in 
 England. 
 
 Farewell per- 
 formances in 
 the United 
 States. 
 
 The Cincin- 
 nati Festival. 
 
 first she was unequal — has now become a 
 work of much tenderness and dramatic 
 power, possessing all of Charlotte Cush- 
 man's intensity, combined with a poetic 
 grace and refined pathos distinctively its 
 own; a work in which an affluent and 
 prodigious force is evenly tempered with 
 discretion, and throughout which burns the 
 authentic, enkindling fire of genius. 
 
 Negotiations for some time in progress, 
 looking towards a professional visit to 
 Great Britain, were completed on February 
 10, and Miss Anderson signed an agree- 
 ment with Mr. Henry E. Abbey to appear 
 in London under his management. Before 
 leaving America, however, she acted in 
 many cities of the Republic, played a 
 farewell engagement in New York, at the 
 Grand Opera House, April 9 to April 21, 
 and took a prominent part in the proceed- 
 ings of a " Dramatic Festival," which was 
 held at Cincinnati from April 30 to May 5, 
 enacting in succession Julia, Desdemona, — 
 for the first and only time in her life, — and 
 Juliet. Her chief associates in that series 
 of performances were Miss Clara Morris, 
 Mr. Lawrence Barrett, Mr. James E. Mur- 
 doch, and the late John McCullough. She 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 6 9 
 
 was the most conspicuous and brilliant 
 figure upon the stage. It was the fortune 
 of her present biographer to witness those 
 performances, and to record the impression 
 they produced. 
 
 The comedy of " The Hunchback " ex- Cincinnati, 
 emplifies a rare power — the faculty some- May *' 
 times possessed by a man to understand , <The 
 and sympathise with a woman's heart. Hunchback. 
 How seldom this power is manifested in 
 dramatic literature the observer sees, when 
 considering how few the dramatic heroines 
 are, in comparison with the dramatic heroes. 
 Shakespeare's men are greater than his \ 
 women, and most of the women of most S 
 other dramatic writers are merely conven- 
 tional. But Julia is full of woman's nature, 
 and Master Walter's noble tenderness and 
 fine attitude towards her are thoroughly character - 
 
 . ° J istics of that 
 
 nght, lovely, and pathetic. It could be old comedy, 
 wished that her amiable Clifford were, for a 
 lover, less sagacious as to bargains and less 
 readily solicitous about his door-plate in 
 moments of grief and disaster. Still there 
 is a vital experience of passion and misery 
 in the somewhat stilted lines of "The 
 Hunchback," and this will always make it 
 a potent play in the hands of fine actors. 
 
jO MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 The piece has not here been treated as a 
 spectacle, but the stress is thrown upon the 
 acting. Mary Anderson as Julia, John 
 McCullough as Master Walter, and Law- 
 She is cordi- rence Barrett as Clifford are the chief names 
 ally weicom- m t h e cast> mj ss Anderson was welcomed 
 
 ed at Cincin- . ... .. . 
 
 nati. by the great audience with a far resounding 
 
 tumult of gladness. You know her gracious 
 and lovely figure; her thoughtful, gentle 
 presence; her eager, sensitive countenance; 
 her regal, yet delicate dignity upon the 
 stage. The stately and sweet image of 
 woman and queen, she stood here in a 
 garden of roses, the loveliest flower of them 
 all, and there was not one heart in the vast 
 assemblage that did not beat with pride and 
 joy in the success of the brave and true 
 American girl. Her performance of Julia 
 
 Attributes of was a g am admirable for its propriety of 
 
 her acting as < m ° . 
 
 Julia. ideal, its gradual growth in dramatic develop- * 
 
 ment, its freedom from conventional points, 
 its deep tenderness and its final magnificent 
 burst of eloquent passion. Her voice bore 
 wonderfully well the great strain to which 
 it was subjected. She has never acted the 
 part with greater abandonment of self or 
 richer variety of treatment, and never 
 under such trying circumstances. Just 
 
MARY ANDERSON. y l 
 
 after her first entrance a part of a drop Escapes a 
 came crashing to the stage in front of her, dan s erous 
 and after Julia had fainted in act second 
 another drop, the wrong one, came down 
 behind instead of before her, so that she 
 had to rise and falter from the stage. Her 
 adroit presence of mind in these emergencies 
 matched the need of the occasion. After 
 the third curtain a large banner of flowers Po ular 
 depending from a green standard was applause. 
 borne to her across the footlights inscribed 
 " America's Pride," and the appearance of 
 this tribute was the signal for a wild uproar 
 of delight. This night belonged exclusively 
 to the actress, and it always will be memo- 
 rable in her career. 
 
 Miss Anderson has acted Desdemona for Cincinnati, 
 the first time in her life. Her ideal of the Ma ^ 3- 
 fair Venetian was seen to be true, because 
 accordant with what is said of Desdemona P ays f es *~ 
 
 mona for the 
 
 by Brabantio and Cassio. Portions of the first time, 
 execution were exquisite in finish. The for- 
 lorn bewilderment of the injured wife, at the 
 Moor's mysterious jealousy and rage, was 
 pathetic and lovely. The sudden cry of 
 agony that Desdemona was made to utter 
 when accused by Othello thrilled every 
 heart. The performance was a little defi- 
 
72 
 
 Sails for 
 England. 
 
 Her first ap- 
 pearance in 
 London. 
 
 Plays Par- 
 thenia. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 cient in smoothness, but it was affluent 
 with sacred, womanlike feeling. The vow 
 was spoken with beautiful sincerity. 
 
 On Tuesday, May 29, 1883, Miss Ander- 
 son sailed from New York, aboard the 
 "Arizona," for Liverpool, not again to see 
 her native land for upwards of two years, 
 and destined in the meantime to establish 
 her professional renown as firmly in Eng- 
 land as she had already established it in 
 America. Of her career upon the British 
 stage it was the privilege of her present 
 biographer to see but a portion. The con- 
 temporary records of it, however, are ample 
 and minute. Miss Anderson's first appear- 
 ance in London was made on September 1, 
 1883, at the Lyceum Theatre, in the char- 
 acter of Parthenia in " Ingomar." Her 
 choice of this play was censured, but her 
 acting was generally admired and the charm 
 of her personality was admitted and warmly 
 extolled. Public interest for a stranger can- 
 not be readily excited in London, but it 
 soon began to make itself cordially manifest 
 towards Miss Anderson; and when once 
 she had gained popularity she never lost it. 
 The character of Parthenia, exacting an 
 artless temperament, a noble spirit, and 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 girlish charm, proved well chosen for this 
 first appearance, since its chief requirement 
 is that the actress should be herself, and 
 being herself she could not fail to win the 
 friendship of the public. After that the 
 path to success was smooth and pleasant. 
 On October 27 Miss Anderson produced 
 " The Lady of Lyons," and impersonated 
 Pauline. On December 8 she enacted 
 Galatea for the first time in England, and 
 she was playing that part when the year 
 ended. 
 
 Mr. W. S. Gilbert, taking his story from 
 a French original, had by this time written 
 a new play for Miss Anderson, and this 
 piece, called " Comedy and Tragedy," she 
 brought forward in association with " Pyg- 
 malion and Galatea," on January 26. Her 
 first London engagement was ended on 
 April 5, and thereafter she made her first 
 tour of the country, appearing in Edinburgh 
 (April 28), Glasgow (May 5), Manchester 
 (May 12), Liverpool, Dublin, and Birming- 
 ham, and closing the season on June 7. 
 The rest of the summer she passed in travel, 
 making incidentally a trip to Verona, there 
 to study the local scenery, architecture, 
 dresses, and manners, with a view to her 
 5 
 
 73 
 
 Plays Pau- 
 line and 
 Galatea. 
 
 1884. 
 
 First appear- 
 ance as 
 Clarice. 
 
 First tour of 
 Great Britain 
 and visit to 
 Italy. 
 
74 
 
 Her produc- 
 tion of 
 "Romeo and 
 Juhet " at 
 the London 
 Lyceum 
 Theatre. 
 
 1885. 
 Plays Julia. 
 
 End of her 
 second 
 season in 
 England. 
 
 Attitude of 
 the British 
 press. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 projected production of " Romeo and 
 Juliet." She did not act again until Sep- 
 tember 6, when was begun, with Galatea 
 and Clarice, her second London engage- 
 ment at the Lyceum. On November 1 she 
 there presented " Romeo and Juliet," and 
 impersonated the heroine of that immortal 
 tragedy ; and with this revival she filled out 
 the year 1884, and entered upon its suc- 
 cessor, in much prosperity. 
 
 On February 24, 1885, the career of 
 " Romeo and Juliet " being ended, Miss 
 Anderson brought forward "The Hunch- 
 back," and enacted Julia. A revival of 
 "Ingomar" was effected on April 13, and 
 on the 25th of that month Miss Anderson 
 ended her second season at the London 
 Lyceum. 
 
 Elaborate discussion of Miss Anderson's 
 professional exploits and experience in 
 Great Britain is not intended in this chroni- 
 cle. Her acting was amply and thoughtfully 
 considered throughout the British press, and 
 it continues to be a prominent subject in 
 British periodical literature. It has prompted 
 some controversy, but in general its worth 
 has been recognized. The most conspicuous 
 of the many English tributes that were 
 
MARY ANDERSON. yr 
 
 elicited by her performance of Juliet, was 
 written in the Nineteenth Century, by Lord £^j*l 
 Lytton ("Owen Meredith"). Portions of Lytton. 
 that composition are signally thoughtful 
 and eloquent. The voice of censure when- 
 ever audible was commonly heard to iterate 
 the old charge of artifice and coldness. ™ e jS 
 Various judges, discussing the art of Miss considered. 
 Anderson, objected to it that they were not 
 able ever to forget that she is an actress; 
 and from this alleged fact they drew the 
 remarkable deduction that she lacks dra- 
 matic ability. The chief canon and first 
 exaction of current dramatic criticism, in- 
 deed, appears to be that the actor must be 
 so entirely and thoroughly an actor that he 
 will seem to be not an actor at all. This 
 idea of self-abandonment as the crown and 
 glory of all acting, is by no means a new 
 one ; but it happens to be just now insisted 
 upon, with more than usual emphasis, by a 
 number of critics who seem to have only 
 recently found it out. It is the ancient doc- 
 trine of the art to conceal art. A class of 
 the public, in all the great capitals of the 
 world, is highly educated, at present, in the Ars cdare 
 epicureanism of art; and this class demands, artem. 
 for its enjoyment of the drama, perfect 
 
76 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 machinery perfectly well employed. Its 
 appetite, furthermore, is critical rather than 
 sympathetic, and more physical than spirit- 
 ual. Its delight is in vivisection. It gives 
 more heed to analysis of the actor than to 
 analysis of the character that the actor has 
 undertaken to portray, or to his method in 
 portraying it. The question is no longer 
 whether an actor has formed, and can pre- 
 sent, a true ideal of an author's conception ; 
 but whether the actor, in his or her own 
 flesh and blood, is the living reality, of such 
 I. c . tm f ls and such simulated emotions. An artist 
 
 i imitation, 
 
 ; and personal who maintains the dignified reticence of a 
 T^id 7 b se lf _res P ectm g human being, and keeps the 
 sacrificed. world at arm's length, is characterized as 
 " cold " ; but the abdication of all privacy 
 and all sanctity is " genius." Up to a cer- 
 tain point there is reason beneath these 
 views ; but surely it ought never to be for- 
 gotten that acting, after all, is nothing more 
 thanjmitation, and that imitation, if carried 
 too far, becomes obnoxious. After art has 
 done its utmost there will yet always remain 
 a realm of human feeling and experience 
 too sacred for even the footsteps of art to 
 enter. 
 
II 
 
 ROSALIND AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon, 
 August 30, 1885. 
 
 his storied city, so placid and 
 
 dream-like, sitting here upon Shebe . ns 
 
 the Avon side, serene in the the season of 
 
 great light of an immortal fame, l88s_86 ^ 
 
 00 . "As You 
 
 had for some time been deeply excited by Like it." 
 proclamation of the event which occurred 
 last night — the first appearance of Miss 
 Mary Anderson as Rosalind in Shake- 
 speare's beautiful comedy of "As You 
 Like It." Coming here from Salisbury, 
 where I had been dreaming in the great 
 cathedral and wandering among the grim 
 Druid altars of Stonehenge, I found the 
 town placarded with the name of this fair on-Avon. 
 and famous lady ; the shop- windows teem- 
 77 
 
 Excitement 
 at Stratford- 
 
78 
 
 Customary- 
 wanderings 
 of the 
 
 Shakespeare 
 pilgrim. 
 
 Shake- 
 sperean 
 haunts. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 ing with pictures of her; two of the hotels, 
 the Red Horse and the Shakespeare, pre- 
 empted by her theatrical manager, Mr. 
 Henry E. Abbey, for the accommodation 
 of her dramatic company ; every reserved 
 seat in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre 
 already sold; many lodgings booked for 
 expected visitors ; arrangements made for 
 special railway trains to be run from Leam- 
 ington and back on the night of the per- 
 formance; and Miss Andersx«r"'the chief 
 topic of conversation whenever and wher- 
 ever people were assembled. Stratford is a 
 place that I have visited often and fre- 
 quented long, but not till now had I seen 
 it aroused. In the ordinary course of things 
 the visitor saunters through a solitude to 
 the birthplace; pauses at New Place, the 
 Guild Chapel, and the Grammar School; 
 looks at Gainsborough's portrait of Garrick, 
 in the Town Hall (to the character, mean- 
 ing, grace, and beautiful colour of which the 
 engraved copy does no adequate justice); 
 talks with the eccentric, kindly, pleasant 
 antiquary John Marshall, amid his Shake- 
 spearean relics ; explores old Trinity, inside 
 and out, musing at the tomb of Shakespeare 
 and strolling among the thick graves in the 
 
MARY ANDERSON. jg 
 
 quiet churchyard ; walks to Shottery, to see 
 Anne Hathaway's cottage and perhaps to 
 receive a sprig of rosemary from the friendly 
 hand of its occupant, Mrs. Baker ; visits the 
 Memorial Theatre, where the library and 
 the picture-gallery are slowly increasing in 
 extent and value ; drives to Wilmecote, four 
 or five miles away, to enter the picturesque . 
 timbered farm-house from which, it is said, 
 Mary Arden, the mother of Shakespeare, Ani htsail 
 was married; and, when night has fallen on the Avon, 
 and the moonbeams are bathing the sweet 
 landscape in silver dew, takes a boat upon 
 the Avon and rows down to where the spire 
 of Shakespeare's church and the great elms 
 around it are reflected in the depths of the 
 dark, shining stream. Many a calm and 
 beneficent hour may be passed in this way, 
 amid these hallowed scenes; but now I 
 found that the spell of peace which com- 
 monly rests upon this shrine had been com- 
 pletely broken. Yesterday all was memory Popularity of 
 and reverie ; to-day is all bustle and expec- . *** 
 
 ' J r Anderson 
 
 tation. Americans, indeed, have but a faint in England, 
 idea of the popularity of Miss Mary Ander- 
 son in England, or the sincere, fervent 
 interest that is felt by the best classes of 
 English people in her professional move- 
 
8o 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 She eclipses 
 her chief 
 American 
 predecessors 
 on the Eng- 
 lish stage. 
 
 Eminent and 
 admired 
 actors of the 
 Old World. 
 
 ments. She has been upon the English 
 stage for two seasons ; she has acted Par- 
 thetiia, Patdi?ie, Galatea, Clarice, Julia, and 
 Juliet ; and in her practical success she has 
 surpassed the achievement of any American 
 performer in legitimate drama who preceded 
 her in this land. That may, perhaps, sound 
 like an extravagant statement, when it is 
 remembered that among her predecessors 
 here were Edwin Forrest, Edwin L. Daven- 
 port, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. Mowatt, 
 Joseph Jefferson, Edwin Booth, and Law- 
 rence Barrett. The fact nevertheless re- 
 mains. Miss Anderson's English career has 
 been attended with ample prosperity as well 
 as brilliant reputation, and no dramatic 
 name is at this time more highly esteemed 
 in England. The question is not one of 
 greatness or even of rank. Mr. Irving, 
 Miss Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendall, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bancroft, Mr. Toole, Miss Sarah Bern- 
 hardt, Mrs. Langtry, Mr. Wilson Barrett — 
 each has eminence and a public following. 
 But the beautiful and brilliant woman who 
 came here so modestly, who so well repre- 
 sents what is best in the American stage, 
 and who has so richly adorned by her 
 personal worth the laurels gained by her 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 8l 
 
 genuine merit, possesses the affectionate Exceptional 
 good-will of the whole people, and thus ^ rfMary 
 
 ° . r c i Anderson. 
 
 stands in exceptional repute. I have found 
 her name known and respected and her 
 portrait displayed in remote, secluded ham- 
 lets where one would not suppose that the 
 inhabitants had ever heard of a theatre or 
 an actor. When, therefore, it was made 
 known that Miss Anderson would enact 
 Rosalind for the first time in her life, and at 
 Stratford-on-Avon for the benefit of the 
 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, it was nat- 
 ural that a wave of excitement, to which Londoners 
 
 • , _ -r , . interested in 
 
 even mighty London gave an impetus, ^5^^^ 
 should soon surge around this usually peace- performance, 
 ful haven of Shakespearean pilgrimage. 
 Such a wave I found here; and until to- 
 day — when all is over and the actors are 
 gone and the representatives of the London 
 press have returned to the capital, and the 
 crowd has dispersed— Stratford has not ^ ow ^ debb 
 
 A of public 
 
 seemed in the least like itself. Now it is feeling. 
 once more as silent as a cloister and as 
 slumberous as the bower of the Sleeping 
 Beauty in the wood. But from this time it 
 will possess a new charm for the American 
 pilgrim — being associated henceforth with 
 the pure fame and the sweet and gentle pres- 
 5* 
 
82 
 
 The 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Memorial 
 Theatre. 
 
 Local hon- 
 ours to the 
 actress. 
 
 Visits old 
 shrines and 
 old friends. 
 
 Merry hours 
 in Stratford. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 ence of the authentic queen of the American 
 stage. 
 
 The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre will 
 hold nearly seven hundred persons. Its 
 reserved portion contains four hundred 
 and eighty seats. All of these were sold 
 within an hour and a half of the opening of 
 the box-office, on August 25th. Miss An- 
 derson came down on the 27th, with her 
 company, and rested at the Red Horse, 
 and thus she was enabled to devote two 
 evenings precedent to the performance to a 
 dress rehearsal of the comedy. Many social 
 attentions were offered to her. Under the 
 escort of the Mayor of Stratford she visited 
 Clopton House, — a picturesque and famous 
 old place, the former residence of Sir Hugh 
 Clopton, who was a Lord Mayor of Lon- 
 don in 1492, reign of Henry VII., and who 
 built the great bridge that still spans the 
 Avon, on the Oxford high-road. She was 
 seen also at the Shakespeare birthplace in 
 Henley street, where the Misses Chataway 
 welcomed her as an old friend. But for 
 the most part she remained in seclusion, 
 awaiting what was felt to be a serious pro- 
 fessional ordeal. All about the town mean- 
 while her professional associates dispersed 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 83 
 
 themselves, to view the relics of the great 
 poet and to " fleet the time merrily, as they 
 did in the golden age." Stratford can sel- 
 dom have been as gay as it was during these 
 two or three days; never surely was it 
 gayer. From London came down a large A P ress 
 
 j . . deputation 
 
 deputation of journalists. The trains brought from London, 
 many an eager throng from the teeming 
 hotels of sprightly Leamington. One party 
 of twenty-five Americans came in from the 
 sylvan hamlet of Broadway. Visitors to 
 Trinity Church found that flowers had been FIowers 
 scattered upon the gravestone of Shake- strewn on 
 speare and upon the slabs that cover the Shake - 
 
 speare' s 
 
 dust of his wife and daughter. When the tomb, 
 day of the performance came a bright sun 
 and a soft breeze made the old town brill- 
 iant and balmy, and but for the falling 
 leaves and the bare aspect of field and 
 meadow there was no hint that summer 
 had passed. A more distinguished or a Adistin- 
 more judicious audience than was assem- Science, 
 bled in the Memorial Theatre could not be 
 wished and has not often been seen. Mr. 
 Forbes Robertson, an intellectual and grace- 
 ful actor, thoughtful in spirit and polished 
 in method, began the performance, coming 
 on as Orlando. No performer other than 
 
84 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Miss Anderson, however, could expect to 
 attract especial notice on this night. It 
 MissAnder- was for ner tnat tne audience reserved its 
 son plays enthusiasm, and this, when at length she 
 S'fimliml a PP eared as Rosalind, burst forth in vocifer- 
 in her life. ous plaudits and cheers, so that it was long 
 before the familiar voice, so copious, reso- 
 nant, and tender, rolled out its music upon 
 the eager throng and her action could pro- 
 ceed. Before the night ended she was called 
 eight times before the curtain, and she was 
 cheered with a warmth of enthusiasm unu- 
 sual in this country. 
 Analysis of The nature of Rosalind is intended to 
 the character combine a tender heart with a fanciful and 
 sparkling mind. The salient and obvious 
 attribute to her character is archness ; but 
 the archness plays over gentleness and 
 strength. Her mood is usually merry and 
 she loves to trifle ; but, while she teases the 
 object of her secret passion, she always 
 does this in a thoroughly kind and good- 
 natured manner. Her nerves are finely 
 braced; her intellect is alert; her wit is 
 incessantly nimble, and she shoots the 
 arrows of her raillery in all directions. Yet 
 she is quick to pity and to help ; her love is 
 profoundly affectionate, her thought always 
 
 of Rosalind. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 85 
 
 generous and noble. Gentleness and pa- Archness 
 tience are ascribed to her even by her veU j°s 
 
 J tenderness. 
 
 enemy, and it is particularly noted that all 
 the people praise her for her virtues. There 
 is no boldness in Rosalind, beyond the out- 
 side show of defiant resolution. Inwardly i 
 she shrinks from all offence, with the sensi- ' ! 
 bility of a timid maiden. She can dazzle, 
 but also she can melt. Not without a spe- 
 cial and significant design has the poet 
 surrounded this blooming figure with the 
 opulent foliage, teeming life, brisk winds 
 and rustic freedom of the Forest of Arden. 
 Not without meaning has he made her to 
 be extolled and beloved by so many and 
 such good and true hearts. Celia loves her. 
 Orlando, one of Shakespeare's sanest and 
 soundest men, is immediately captivated by 
 her. The wise Touchstone — laughing at AuniversaI 
 himself and life and all the world — is favourite, 
 always tender of this wayward princess. 
 Through her first interview with Orlando 
 there shines a wistful, tremulous earnestness, 
 a half-grieved, half-doubting, almost child- 
 like meekness, that is irresistibly winning. 
 In her just and high resentment of the 
 Duke Frederick's cruel sentence of banish- 
 ment, there is a perfectly royal pride. And 
 
86 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Brave and 
 cheerful. 
 
 Love a 
 necessity to 
 Rosalind. 
 
 The natural 
 and the 
 assumed 
 
 when at length she turns to the unknown 
 wilderness and the adventurous quest of 
 fortune, it is with the cheerful buoyancy of 
 a pure heart, the elasticity of a fresh and 
 ardent mind, and that golden spirit of the 
 imagination which, while it conjures up the 
 pathway of exile, only brightens it with the 
 sunshine of hope. Here, surely, if anywhere 
 in Shakespeare, are commingled the tender- 
 ness and the splendour which man adores 
 in woman. 
 
 At the outset of the play of "As You Like 
 It," Rosalindas nature has reached that 
 period of a woman's development when, 
 unconsciously to herself, love has become a 
 necessity. Her merry question to Celia, 
 " What think you of falling in love ? " is 
 more than playful, for it is the involuntary 
 sign of what is passing in the secret depths 
 of her heart. That heart is full of passionate 
 tenderness, hungry for the right object on 
 which to bestow itself; and its owner is dis- 
 turbed by this without knowing why. She 
 is a little saddened with trouble, also, be- 
 cause of her father's exile and her uncle's 
 aversion, — which latter fact her keen, 
 womanlike intuition would not fail to 
 divine, — and she veils herself behind a 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 87 
 
 gleeful manner, natural to her, but not now 
 entirely genuine. " I show more mirth than 
 I am mistress of." Miss Anderson's denote- 
 ment of this mood was not less firm than 
 delicate, and it evinced a subtle instinct of 
 truth. Tall, regal, faultlessly beautiful, clad 
 in a rich, simple robe of flowered gold, b ^iftd 
 cheerful in demeanour, but earnest with a appearance 
 sweet, thoughtful gravity, she gave an in- ^^J 
 stantaneous impression of the royal state, Rosalind. 
 the exuberant physical vitality, the finely 
 poised intellect, and the affectionate, sen- 
 sitive, variable, exultant temperament that 
 constitute Rosalind. Her change from pen- 
 sive pre-occupation to arch levity was made 
 with charming grace ; and at the close of 
 the wrestling-match she had shown that the 
 character was easily within her grasp. Upon 
 first seeing Orlando this Rosalind became 
 instantly attentive; and after their first 
 colloquy, as she turned away, saying, " Pray 
 Heaven I be deceived in you ! " her back- 
 ward look upon him, intense and full of 
 sweet wonder and incipient fondness, told 
 that fate had already spoken, and that love 
 would soon be in full possession of her 
 heart. Miss Anderson introduced new Newtr f"- 
 
 . ment of the 
 
 "business" for the embellishment of the wrestling. 
 
88 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Felicitous 
 stage-busi- 
 
 A fine 
 moment of 
 tragic force. 
 
 wrestling contest. The custom prevalent 
 at court games in Europe since the usage 
 was first established by the ancient Greeks 
 of awarding to the victor a wreath of ivy or 
 of laurel, or a palm-branch, was followed in 
 this instance, and it became instrumental 
 in a touching effect at the moment when 
 Rosalind gives her chain to Orlando. Those 
 judges who observe the significant force of 
 appropriate details in a dramatic perform- 
 ance could not miss being charmed with 
 this stroke of thoughtful art. In bestowing 
 her gift Rosalind dropped the chain slowly 
 into the extended left hand of Orlando — 
 slowly because with a lingering grasp of it, 
 as though she would caress the hand into 
 which it fell — while he, already enslaved 
 by her radiant and bewildering beauty, 
 suffered his victorious wreath to drop un- 
 heeded to the ground. Miss Anderson's 
 bearing was nobly impressive in the subse- 
 quent interview with the angry and hostile 
 Duke Frederick; and her superb delivery 
 of the resentful speech, "Treason is not 
 inherited, my lord," — her stately figure 
 towering in affluent power, and her fiery 
 spirit blazing forth in vehement indig- 
 nation, — created a perfect illusion and for 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 one electrical moment set forth the con- 
 summate image of tragic majesty. Miss 
 Anderson's sudden repression of this right- 
 eous anger, upon the thought of Celia whom 
 Rosalind loves, was not the least of the 
 beauties of this treatment. In the ensuing 
 plot of adventurous exile her glowing 
 animal spirits, eager self-reliance, and merry 
 almost jocund humour asserted themselves 
 with charming effect. The exit, made in a 
 burst of gladness, was followed by delighted 
 applause — calling her twice before the 
 audience after the curtain fell. 
 
 The irresistible fascination and the ex- 
 ultant free spirit of Rosalind are not, how- ^eTboT 
 ever, fully disclosed until she has put on her dress, 
 boy's dress and dashed into the joyous 
 freedom of the woods. The treatment that 
 Miss Anderson would accord to this aspect 
 of the character was awaited with eager 
 interest. It is toward the end of the day 
 when, in this artist's management of "As 
 You Like It," Rosalind and her compan- 
 ions, Celia and Touchstone, come wandering 
 into the forest of Arden. A soft sunset 
 light streams through the woods, and you pi ^? 
 can almost hear the low murmur of the 
 brook and the anxious, plaintive note of the 
 
 89 
 
 Rosalind in 
 
9 o 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 birds that call their mates to rest. The song 
 of the Duke's foresters, returning from the 
 chase, is faintly heard at distance, dying 
 away in the shadowy woodland glades. 
 Upon this lovely rustic scene, enchanted 
 with the soft influences of the falling night, 
 the exiled Rosalind and her co-mates in 
 travel made their weary entrance, almost 
 worn out with fatigue, and listless with long 
 endurance. Miss Anderson was not now to 
 play a boy's part for the first time. Play- 
 goers of New York have not forgotten her 
 essay in Ion (January 3, 1881), at the Fifth 
 Avenue Theatre, nor the grace, refinement 
 and nobility of feeling and demeanour with 
 which she filled that character. Her per- 
 sonality in Rosalind was equally free, 
 MissAnder- natura i an( j re fined, less classic, or not 
 
 son s Gany- ' # ' 
 
 mede dress, classic at all, and still more beautiful. No 
 prettier Rosalind dress could be desired. 
 A russet " doublet and hose," the sleeves 
 of the former slashed with white puffs, a soft 
 leather jerkin, long boots, a shapely velvet 
 hat, a dark red mantle thrown carelessly 
 around the body and carried with easy neg- 
 ligence, a kirtle-axe for the hip and a boar- 
 spear for the hand made up this garb ; and 
 never was poetic gipsy raiment worn with 
 
of the actress. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 more bewitching grace. Rosalindas first boy 
 scene gives to her but little opportunity. Expressh 
 Deft and expressive dramatic touches were points, 
 made by Miss Anderson, at " Doublet and 
 hose ought to show itself courageous to 
 petticoat," and at "Alas, poor shepherd, 
 searching of thy wound, I have by hard 
 adventure found my own." The sense of 
 humour and the knowledge of human nature 
 here indicated on the part of the actress 
 were remarkable : nor could a thoughtful Personal 
 observer fail to remark, in this scene, — what a ^ tocrac y 
 indeed was characteristic of Miss Anderson's 
 bearing throughout the impersonation, — an 
 innate aristocratic superiority, the natural 
 attribute of a princess. She rounded and 
 closed this passage, in an expressive exit, 
 with an assumption of spirit and strength 
 very human and tender, almost pathetic, in 
 its cheer and encouragement for the weary 
 comrades of her pilgrimage. 
 
 When Rosalind is next seen a few days 
 may be supposed to have passed. There is 
 no more fatigue now, and there will be no 
 more real trouble. It is bright daylight, 
 and the adventurous youth, as assumed by 
 Miss Anderson, came rambling aimlessly 
 through the forest, singing as he strode. 
 
 9i 
 
9 2 
 
 New and 
 commend- 
 able use of the 
 introduced 
 song. 
 
 A wonderful 
 voice. 
 
 Rosalind in- 
 standy aware 
 of the iden- 
 tity of her 
 rhymester. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Usually the song, "When daisies pied and 
 violets blue " (from" Love's Labour's Lost "), 
 is introduced at a later stage of the repre- 
 sentation of " As You Like it " (act iv. 
 scene i), and is given as a musical feature or 
 vocal exploit. Miss Anderson, on the con- 
 trary, invested Rosalind with a mingled 
 mood, suggesting the spontaneous enjoy- 
 ment of rich physical vitality just a little 
 subdued by pensive pre-occupation. Her 
 voice, sweetly melodious and deeply sympa- 
 thetic, — the richest, grandest woman voice 
 to be heard in these days from the dramatic 
 stage, — was audible before she entered ; and 
 she gave the song only in part and as an 
 incident. When she came into view she 
 was lounging, and the song was continued 
 by her till she had noticed Orlando's paper 
 hung upon a tree, and had taken it down 
 and glanced with an air of momentary 
 bewilderment and puzzled surprise at its 
 contents. Then her voice slowly died away. 
 The felicity of this treatment — the obvious 
 touch of nature — can be mentioned only 
 to be praised. Miss Anderson made Rosa- 
 lind almost instantly cognisant, by intui- 
 tion, of the source of the versified tribute; 
 and during the subsequent colloquy with 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 93 
 
 Celia her bearing was that of a delighted 
 lover who guards her own delicious secret 
 beneath an assumption of indifference, and 
 only waits to be told what she is already- 
 enraptured to know. The start, at u What 
 shall I do with my doublet and hose ? " was 
 made with a precipitate access of confusion, 
 in the sudden remembrance of an awkward 
 predicament which the tumult of her pleas- 
 ure had hitherto caused her to forget. 
 Throughout the ensuing scene with Orlando 
 Miss Anderson delighted the listener, alike 
 with the exuberance of her glee and the 
 incessant felicity with which she denoted 
 the tenderness that it only half conceals. 
 At the question, archly enough uttered but 
 seriously meant : " Are you so much in love vened iove. 
 as your rhymes speak ? " her pretty action 
 of pressing her hand to her bosom, where 
 those rhymes were hidden, may be named 
 as a special excellence of treatment; and 
 when Orlando, who has turned away from 
 his questioner, answers sadly, " Neither 
 rhyme nor reason can express how much," 
 her acted caress, which is very nearly de- 
 tected by him, giving her the pretext for an 
 arch transition, becomes charmingly elo- 
 quent and illuminative of Rosalindas nature. 
 
 Subtle 
 expression of 
 
£4 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 "A swashing The reproof scene, with Silvius and Phoebe, 
 
 and a martial wag carr i e d w i t h a g 00( J assumption of 
 
 manly swagger and with a surprising variety 
 of intonation and of dramatic embellish- 
 ment in the use of the text. The sterner 
 critics of Rosalind, who stand fast for ancient 
 usage, thought that they saw here an excess 
 of the element of frolic, and that the tone 
 of the part was lowered. I do not recall 
 any performer of Rosalind who gave the 
 mirth of this passage in a more human and 
 natural manner, or so as to impart a greater 
 pleasure. Frequent repetition of the part 
 will enable Miss Anderson to strengthen it 
 in unity, to sustain it evenly at the highest 
 byrepetition. elevation of womanlike sentiment, to carry 
 it with incessant and invariable dash and 
 sparkle, and to conceal every vestige of a 
 personal consciousness of artistic intention 
 and method. There is no comedy part 
 more difficult. For a first performance of 
 Rosalind her work was a marvel, alike of 
 ideal and execution. Only genius could 
 have prompted the assumption of that sweet 
 ecstasy of triumph with which, amid all her 
 glee, she contrived to irradiate the scene of 
 the mock marriage. In the swoon scene 
 she was easily victorious, using all at once 
 
 Symmetry 
 and smooth- 
 ness to come 
 
MARY ANDERSON. g$ 
 
 those characteristic tragical means so en- Tragical 
 tirely at her command. No dramatic voice effe " and 
 
 J pathos. 
 
 that ever spoke the line " I would I were 
 at home " has imparted to it such pathos as 
 it had when it fell from her lips y and when 
 at last this peerless creature, clad in spot- 
 less white and dazzling in the superb beauty 
 of her auspicious youth, stood forth to part 
 the tangled skein of destiny and so wind up 
 the piece, it seemed for one instant as if a 
 spirit had alighted upon the earth. Such a 
 vision comes but seldom, and it should not shake- 
 be hailed with cold and common words. I s P eare ' s 
 
 own words 
 
 thought of what the great magician himself applied as a 
 has said : tribute - 
 
 Women will love her, that she is more worth 
 Than any man ; men, that she is 
 The rarest of all women. 
 
 To-day (August 30) Miss Anderson left 
 Stratford, aboard a special train for Leeds. 
 Her dramatic company went by the same MissAnder- 
 express. There was a crowd at the station son star * s on 
 and the actress was loudly cheered as her cial tour ^j 
 carriage left the platform. Many of her her voyage 
 personal friends, American as well as Eng- 
 lish, were present to say farewell. Miss 
 Anderson visits in succession Leeds, Edin- 
 
9 6 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 burgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, playing one 
 week in each of those cities, and she will 
 then embark aboard the " Gallia" at Queens- 
 town, September 27, and sail for America. 
 The cast with which "As You Like It" 
 has here been produced shows the constitu- 
 tion of the dramatic company with which 
 she will traverse the American cities. The 
 stage manager is Mr. Napier Lothian, jr. 
 The musical director is Mr. Andrew Levey, 
 of London. Miss Anderson's personal rep- 
 resentative is Mr. Charles J. Abud, late 
 of the London Lyceum Theatre. The 
 comedy was cast as follows : Duke, in exile, 
 Like it." Mr. Henry Vernon; Duke Frederick, Mr. 
 Sidney Hayes ; Jacques, Mr. F. H. Macklin ; 
 Amiens, Mr. Wilson; Le Beau, Mr. Arthur 
 Lewis ; Charles, the Wrestler, Mr. V. Henry ; 
 Oliver, Mr. Joseph Anderson; Jacques-le- 
 Bois, Mr. Gillespie; Orlando, Mr. Forbes 
 Robertson; Adam, Mr. Kenneth Black; 
 Touchstone, Mr. J. G. Taylor; Corin, Mr. 
 Sainsbury; Silvius, Mr. Bindloss; William, 
 Mr. Gay tie; Celia, Miss Tilbury; Phoebe, 
 Miss Ander- Miss Calvert ; Audrey, Mrs. Billington. The 
 son's own stage version of the comedy that is used by 
 ofTe^ 1011 Miss Anderson is one that she has made 
 comedy. for herself. It does not restore the original 
 
 The cast of 
 "As You 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 97 
 
 form of the piece, and it cuts some portions 
 of the text. Hymen and his verses, together 
 with parts of the shepherd talk, are discarded. 
 Touchstone has been pruned. The speeches 
 of the First Lord are still allotted to 
 Jacques — as, indeed, seems an inevitable 
 necessity. Miss Anderson spoke the epi- 
 logue — a piece of fustian, unworthy of ; a y^n dw 
 Shakespeare, which has always been a blot play, 
 upon the pure poetic beauty of the play. 
 Mr. Forbes Robertson deeply pleased by 
 his performance of Orlando. He has grace, 
 earnestness, sentiment, character, and his 
 method is thoughtful and delicate. 
 
 The gain, above expenses, of this benefit 
 performance, was one hundred pounds. It 
 is the intention of Mr. Charles E. Flower, Results of 
 the public-spirited director of the Shake- ^J^^ce 
 speare Memorial Theatre, to use this money at Stratford. 
 for the purchase of two marble tablets 
 which are needed to complete the decora- 
 tion of the front of the building. One of 
 these, emblematic of Comedy, will present 
 a scene from " As You Like It," and in this 
 the image of Miss Anderson's lovely Rosa- 
 lind will be perpetuated where first it was re- 
 vealed. The other, emblematic of Tragedy, 
 will present the grave-yard scene from 
 6 
 
9 8 
 
 Purposed 
 decoration of 
 the Memorial 
 Theatre. 
 
 An example 
 that should 
 be followed. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 " Hamlet." History, typified by the scene, 
 in " King John," between Hubert and 
 Prince Arthur, already adorns the theatre 
 front, filling a niche in the centre. Designs 
 for the companion pieces exist. When these 
 have been placed the exterior of the 
 Memorial will be completed. Suitable dec- 
 oration of the theatre and the embellish- 
 ment of the adjacent grounds upon the 
 bank of Avon will then remain to be 
 accomplished. Miss Anderson, playing at 
 this theatre and for its benefit, and acting 
 Rosalind for the first time, has done herself 
 honour in a professional sense, has rendered 
 a generous service to a worthy institution, 
 and has set an example of practical liberality 
 which, perhaps, will not be lost upon other 
 eminent leaders of the stage. To Shake- 
 speare all such actors have owed, and must 
 ever owe in great measure, their prosperity 
 and renown — for it was he who made the 
 ladder upon which they climb. Surely they 
 ought to seize with pride and pleasure the 
 opportunity of perfecting a noble monument 
 to his memory, which likewise will prove a 
 continual means of cultivation and happi- 
 ness, upon the hallowed soil of his birthplace 
 and his tomb. 
 
Ill 
 
 ROSALIND IN NEW YORK 
 
 he return of Miss Mary Ander- October 13, 
 
 son to the American stage was l88s " 
 made last night at the Star 
 Theatre, and was hailed by a 
 
 great audience with feelings of pride and Miss 
 pleasure. Miss Anderson came forward as n erson . 
 
 ■r reappears in 
 
 Rosalind, in Shakespeare's comedy of " As New York. 
 You Like It," acting this part for the first 
 time in America, and thus presenting herself 
 in a realm of art and a line of character 
 entirely different from those with which she 
 has hitherto been identified in the public 
 mind. It is seldom that such a strong im- 
 pulse is afforded to popular emotion and to 
 critical interest as that which pervaded this 
 remarkable occasion. Endeared to the 
 American people through their knowledge 
 of her noble bearing and her signal pro- 
 
I0 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 fessional triumphs across the sea, and long 
 The good- since precious to them for her brilliant 
 American 6 m i n( -l> ner exemplary simplicity and sweet- 
 audience, ness of character, and her aspiring and 
 dignified professional career, Miss Anderson 
 would have been greeted with honest glad- 
 ness and active sympathy, whatever had 
 been her choice of a vehicle of reentrance. 
 When she left her home two years ago 
 (May, 1883), she went forth crowned with 
 good wishes and " golden opinions " and 
 cheered onward by confident prophecy — 
 which has been more than fulfilled — of 
 „ . artistic conquest and true success. Her 
 
 Her return is n 
 
 welcomed. return is a momentous event in the experi- 
 ence of the American stage and the American 
 theatrical public, and by itself, in any of 
 the old characters, it would have sufficed to 
 draw together a numerous and representa- 
 tive assemblage. To come back as the most 
 delicious feminine creation of the greatest 
 of poets was to exceed expectancy and 
 to freight the fair occasion with a lavish 
 plenitude of delight. The eager audience 
 recognised this golden excess and honoured 
 it in a spirit worthy of such an hour and 
 well befitting this capital. It is not the 
 American way to give reluctant welcome 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 IOI 
 
 even to a stranger : how much less to the 
 cherished favourite whom heart and judg- 
 ment alike have approved and accepted! 
 Miss Anderson, when first she entered as 
 Rosalind, was hailed with cheer after cheer, 
 and for a long time the movement of the 
 play had to pause. Not for many a day 
 has public good-will made such a manifes- 
 tation of itself in a theatre, and never was 
 there a better reason for it. 
 
 A production of the comedy of "As You 
 Like It," if suitably accomplished, should 
 liberate the spectator from that tyranny of 
 the commonplace which is the usual con- 
 dition of human existence and lure him into 
 a land of dreams and fancies, " far from the 
 madding crowd's ignoble strife." But this 
 play is so completely saturated with the 
 more evanescent quality of poetry that a 
 perfectly adequate presentation of it in every 
 particular — a presentation entirely accord- 
 ant with its spirit — is perhaps impracticable. 
 The work seems simple enough, and it 
 ought to be easy to define and convey its 
 charm. Yet something subtle at the heart 
 of it constantly eludes the analytic touch. 
 While, however, the nature of its power 
 remains mysterious, there can be no doubt 
 
 The spirit of 
 a memorable 
 night. 
 
 Influence 
 and effect of 
 "As You 
 Like It." 
 
 Subtle 
 poetry of the 
 
 comedy. 
 
102 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Should be 
 acted with 
 feeling and 
 freedom. 
 
 The English 
 pastoral 
 scenery is 
 employed. 
 
 of the nature of its influence. It transfigures 
 common life, and it swathes every object 
 and every thought in a golden haze of 
 romance. Drifted on its current the im- 
 agination floats away, like the wild-flower 
 on the autumn brook, in aimless and in- 
 dolent happiness. It is essentially a play 
 to be enjoyed and not to be studied ; and 
 surely the right acting of it requires, of all 
 things else, that the players having formed 
 and tested and justified their plan, with not 
 too rigid respect for the actual, should give 
 a free way to their poetic feeling, and, as 
 far as possible, invest the piece with its own 
 pastoral glamour. Things do not fall out 
 in real life as they fall out in this comedy. 
 Rosalindas airy exploit must not be tried by 
 the test of probability. No lioness ranges 
 the woods of France. We are in Arden; 
 but all around us are the great elms, and 
 verdurous meadows, and tangled wild- 
 flowers, and fragrant summer airs of beautiful 
 Warwickshire. The piece is full of charac- 
 ter, truth, wisdom, and deep and sweet 
 feeling, but its entire substance is treated 
 with the caprice of a poet's fancy. As we 
 ramble through these woodland dells we 
 shall hear the mingled voices of philosophy, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 I03 
 
 folly, and humour, the flying echo of the 
 hunter's horn, the soft music of the lover's 
 lute, and the tinkle of the shepherd's bell. 
 The sun shines always in the Forest of 
 Arden ; the brooks sing as they glide ; and 
 the soft, happy laughter of the sweetest of impediments 
 all women floats gaily on the scented sum- ^ trical 
 mer wind. It is no wonder that a theatrical performance, 
 performance should fall somewhat short of 
 sustaining this illusion. Yet the theatrical , 
 performance, however imperfect, revives a 
 delicious subject and imparts a momentary 
 freedom and joy — the forgetfulness of 
 common life, the blissful realisation of an 
 ideal world. Even to approximate to ex- 
 cellence in the treatment of this comedy is 
 therefore to confer a public benefit. Miss 
 Anderson has accomplished more than an 
 ordinary revival of "As You Like It"; for, 
 while treating each detail of the work in a Miss 
 spirit of fine intelligence and sympathy, she Ander ^ on ' s 
 has reproduced the character of J?osa/md, f Rosalind. 
 with admirable art, with all the physical 
 beauty that the part implies, and with all 
 its soul of tender womanhood, all its rich 
 vitality of changing emotion, its strength 
 of mind, its starlight of sentiment, its glan- 
 cing raillery, and its exuberant mirth. Old 
 
io4 
 
 Rosalinds of 
 the past 
 
 Nisbett, 
 Ellen Tree, , 
 Helen 
 Faucit, 
 Adelaide 
 Neilson. . 
 
 Miss Ander- 
 son makes 
 Rosali7id a 
 deep-hearted 
 woman. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 play-goers, doubtless, can recall Rosalinds, 
 of the Dora Jordan order, who invested the 
 character with carnal appetite and a semi- 
 dissolute air of reckless revelry ; experienced 
 stagers who knew much more of the world 
 than it is wholesome to know; elderly 
 experts, entirely proficient in theatrical 
 mechanism. There have been noble and 
 winning embodiments of Rosalind, likewise, 
 which are not to be forgotten or discredited. 
 Nobody doubts that Mrs. Nisbett was 
 delicious in it ; or that Ellen Tree presented 
 it in stately and lissom beauty; or that 
 Helen Faucit acted it with nobility and 
 sweetness, and with her characteristic spir- 
 itual exaltation. The late Adelaide Neilson 
 was charming in it — only she divested 
 it of serious attributes and turned it to 
 frolic. But Miss Anderson has shown her- 
 self incomparable as an image of the superb 
 beauty of Rosalind; while no previous per- 
 former of the part, in our stage annals, has 
 indicated what this artist makes the vital 
 and dominant fact, that underneath her 
 mischief, her pretty swagger, her nimble 
 satire, and her silver playfulness, Rosalind 
 is an affectionate, passionate woman, as 
 deep-hearted as Juliet, though different in 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 I0 5 
 
 temperament and mentality, as fond and 
 clinging as Viola, and as constant as Imogen. 
 Because the comedy is poetical, there 
 has ever been a tendency in critical com- 
 ment to over-freight it with meaning, and 
 especially to surcharge the elusive character 
 of Rosalind with vagueness and subtleties. 
 Yet poetry is the exact reverse of com- 
 plexity, and there can be but one true ideal 
 of this character — instantly visible when 
 Shakespeare's text is subjected to the highest 
 and most obvious interpretation it will bear. 
 Miss Anderson, with the simple, frank, No forced 1 
 straightforward judgment characteristic of j„ te te ^° / 
 her mind, has turned away from all subtle- don. 
 ties of construction, and taken the straight 
 path. Shakespeare's method in delineating 
 his women is almost invariably to cause 
 expression of character under the influence 
 of love. " Man's love," said Byron, " is of 
 man's life a thing apart — 'tis woman's whole 
 existence." Shakespeare had already imaged 
 a kindred thought. His men, that really 
 love, — not like Henry V. or Benedick, but 
 like Romeo and Othello, — are men that 
 have something of the woman in them; 
 while most of his women would be nothing 
 if they were not lovers. Each of them 
 6* 
 
io6 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Shake- 
 speare's 
 women 
 differently- 
 affected by 
 the same 
 sovereign 
 passion. 
 
 Rosalind an 
 
 irresistible 
 
 woman. 
 
 loves, and each of them shows a different 
 nature under the stress of the sovereign 
 passion. Viola, hopeless and patient, will 
 let concealment prey upon her life. Helena, 
 made of stronger fibre, will palter with 
 unchastity to win her happiness in love's 
 fulfilment. Juliet will have love or death, 
 and she is never so happy or so great as 
 when she plunges the dagger into her heart. 
 Imogen will bare her fond bosom to every 
 storm of hardship and cruelty, exultant in 
 simple fidelity and adoration. Rosalind 
 also loves, and she could suffer, and she 
 would be true : but she would do no des- 
 perate deed, and she would come at last to 
 live in the mind more than in. the heart. 
 Her resources of mentality are not less 
 strong than brilliant. But Rosalind was 
 born for victory, not defeat ; and when she 
 wishes to conquer love she will be so en- 
 chanting that all the perfumed airs around 
 her beauteous head will stir and whisper 
 with the rustle of his coming wings. To 
 act Rosalind rightly is to assume this con- 
 dition in Shakespeare's play. Miss Ander- 
 son has seen this, and has done it. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, in signing his most 
 superb portrait of Sarah Siddons, wrote his 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 107 
 
 delicate 
 touches. 
 
 name upon the hem of her garment. It is Beauty of 
 often in the light and delicate touches that 
 an actor discloses the keen faculty of per- 
 ception, the gentle and right feeling, and! 
 the unerring instinct of taste which are such 
 admirable and charming attributes to the 
 artistic nature. Miss Anderson has lavished 
 upon her performance of Rosalind the most 
 affectionate care as to detail and finish. 
 More than any previous representative of 
 Rosalind that our stage has disclosed, this 
 actress expresses the noble pride and the 
 shrinking, sensitive modesty of a true 
 woman who truly loves. " My pride fell 
 with my fortunes" is not a truth about ^ os f ind 
 
 J m both proud 
 
 Rosalind — ■. it is only an excuse. She is as and tender. 
 proud as she is tender, and the love with 
 which she honours and hallows Orlando, 
 though ardent and generous, is dominated 
 by a strong character, active morality, and 
 fine intellect. Miss Anderson shows this 
 equally by temperament and art. In her 
 impersonation the atmosphere of the charac- 
 ter, like the fragrance of the rose, surrounds 
 it and explains it. This Rosalind has not Miss Ander- 
 put on male attire as one of Moliere's son ' su f eof 
 
 x . m . the male 
 
 dissolute heroines might have put it on, for attu . e . 
 the purpose of an intrigue or a frolic^ but 
 
io8 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 The fine use 
 of trans- 
 parency. 
 
 as a disguise beneath which she may protect 
 her changed and menaced state, and per- 
 haps retrieve her fallen fortune; and once 
 being in this disguise she will make use of 
 her opportunity, as best she may, to test 
 the depth and sincerity of the love that she 
 has inspired, and in which her great, pure, 
 tender heart both trembles and exults. Miss 
 Anderson struck the key-note of her im- 
 personation, and disclosed her true and 
 subtle perception of the beautiful quality of 
 transparency in acting, — the device that lets 
 the deeper feeling and interior condition of 
 the heart glimmer forth through the veil 
 of an assumed or a more superficial mood, — 
 when, in saying to Orlando, " Sir, you have 
 wrestled well, and — overthrown more than 
 your enemies," she made the last words a 
 speech " aside " and to him inaudible. The 
 sweet woman-nature thus denoted is un- 
 doubtedly at the heart of Shakespeare's 
 ideal. With this ideal the whole of Miss 
 Anderson's impersonation is level and har- 
 
 „ „ monious. Her Rosalind is neither a sensual 
 
 Her Rosa- 
 lind denned, rake nor a flippant hoyden; nor, on the 
 
 other hand, is it in the least degree sug- 
 gestive of an insipid prude : it is a noble, 
 brilliant, pure, lovely woman, glorious in 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 109 
 
 the affluent vitality of her beautiful youth, 
 and enchanting in the healthful, gleeful, 
 sparkling freedom of her bright mind and 
 her happy heart. 
 
 It is only six weeks since, at Stratford 
 in England, in the Shakespeare Memorial 
 Theatre, Miss Anderson acted Rosalind for 
 the first time in her life. Throughout the Ranges in 
 
 the perform- 
 
 representation last night her acting dis- ancc 
 played only this difference, that in the 
 masquerade scenes it had more dash and 
 sparkle, and that it derived additional 
 fluency, all along its line, from a more 
 effectual concealment of the expedients of 
 art. The vague stirring of love in the heart 
 of Rosalind, — which she herself does not 
 understand, — the unrestful mood, the sad- 
 ness which is due to her regretful percep- 
 tion of her unfortunate circumstances, the 
 show of mirth which would be natural 
 under happy conditions but which now is a A su erb 
 little forced, the condition of being Rosalind woman, 
 and not of acting a part, the abundant, 
 healthful vitality, the finely poised mind, 
 the tenderness, the sweetly grave tempera- 
 ment, the royal superiority, which yet is 
 touched with a submissive meekness, — 
 these attributes were all again crystallized 
 
no 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Suggestion 
 of previous 
 life. 
 
 "When 
 daisies pied 
 and violets 
 blue." 
 
 into a lovely image of young and blooming 
 womanhood. The Princess, as it chances 
 in this play, has been but slightly mentioned 
 before she enters : in the acting version she 
 commonly is not mentioned at all. Her 
 coming, therefore, is a little abrupt. Miss 
 Anderson did not fail to evince her con- 
 sciousness that every character has its back- 
 ground of previous life. Her entrance as 
 Rosalind was in the continuance of a con- 
 dition of being, and not the beginning of it. 
 The change from pensive pre-occupation to 
 arch levity told at once its story of sorrow 
 sweetly veiled and of a deep nature under- 
 neath the laugh. The troubled wonder in 
 the backward look at Orlando was eloquent 
 equally of celestial purity and latent human 
 passion. Nothing could be more expressive 
 of Rosalind's ardour and delicacy than Miss 
 Anderson's graceful action with the chain. 
 The fine burst of filial resentment, suddenly 
 curbed by the solicitude of friendship, when 
 Rosalind defends her banished father, had 
 its legitimate effect of power. In the boy's 
 dress it was found that a royal nature never 
 ceases to be royal. The original and right 
 use of the song ("When daisies pied"), 
 making it the spontaneous overflow of joy 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ni 
 
 in the heart of a healthful, happy girl, was 
 felt to be one of those deft touches of nature 
 which show the finest instinct of art. All 
 through the forest scenes with Orlando Miss 
 Anderson makes Rosalind repress, beneath 
 frolic and banter, the passion that longs to 
 speak. The furtive caress is indicative of Thefurtive 
 
 caress and 
 
 the spint of the performance. In the re- its meaning, 
 proof of Phoebe the almost jocular mirth 
 was equally natural. The pathos in the 
 swoon scene springs out of the under-tide 
 of earnestness that has preceded it. The 
 final entrance of the Princess, in her bridal 
 garments of spotless white, presented an 
 image of dazzling loveliness. Miss Ander- 
 son spoke the epilogue for the first time T1 ^ ebad - 
 
 x x epilogue is 
 
 since her performance at Stratford. In part discarded, 
 spurious, and in all a tawdry, uncouth piece 
 of writing, that epilogue ought long since 
 to have been discarded. It is inharmonious 
 with Rosalind's character, and it never had 
 any effect beyond that of taking the actress 
 out of the part and the picture, and degrad- 
 ing her to the level of a coarse taste. Miss 
 Anderson now closes the piece with a dance. 
 The foes are reconciled; the lovers are 
 mated; and while the woods are ringing 
 with music, and every face is shining with 
 
112 
 
 Quality of 
 spiritual 
 freedom in 
 the actress. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 happiness, the curtain falls upon a scene of 
 sylvan beauty and " true delights." 
 
 In the presence of a work of art thus 
 luminous with the authentic fire of genius, 
 and thus resplendent against a rich back- 
 ground of such thought and feeling as con- 
 stitute the highest and finest experience, it 
 seems desirable that something more should 
 be set down than simply the record of it, or 
 the mere cold description of its attributes 
 and its effect. The quality that most of all 
 commends Miss Anderson to sympathy and 
 admiration — more especially of those ob- 
 servers who, through experience and suffer- 
 ing, have learned to know the world and to 
 place something like a right estimate upon 
 human life — is her spiritual freedom. Care 
 has not laid its leaden hand upon her heart. 
 Grief has not stained the whiteness of her 
 spirit. The galling fetters of convention 
 have not crippled her life. Accumulated 
 burdens of error and folly have not arrived 
 to deaden her enthusiasm and imbitter her 
 mind. Disappointment has not withered 
 for her the bloom of ambition or blighted 
 the smile upon the face of hope. Time, with 
 its insidious and saddening touch, has not 
 yet curbed for her the starry visions of pur- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 113 
 
 pose or the joyous tumult of action. Satiety 
 and monotony have not made a desert round 
 her path. But still for her the birds of morn- 
 
 ,, j 1 •-, , Happiness of 
 
 ing sing in the summer woods, while her her f ^ te and 
 footsteps fall, not on the faded leaves of loss condition. 
 and sorrow, but on the blown roses of youth 
 and joy. Strong in noble and serene woman- 
 hood, untouched by either the evil or the 
 sordid, unwholesome dulness of contiguous 
 lives, not secure through penury of feeling 
 and not imperilled through reckless drift of 
 emotion, rich equally in mental gifts and 
 physical equipments, this favoured creature 
 is the living fulfilment of the old poetic ideal 
 of gipsy freedom and classic grace. Byron " Egeria." 
 saw it, in his " Egeria." Wordsworth saw it, 
 in his " Phantom of Delight." Seldom have 
 human eyes beheld it in actual human form. 
 Yet is it one of the richest and grandest pos- 
 sibilities of existence. Once, at the outset, 
 comes to every human soul the opportunity necked 
 of its choice. Here at least is one being by evil or 
 who has chosen well. Every emanation of foolishch °i ce 
 
 . . . . of conduct at 
 
 her art is eloquent of innate royal supen- the outset of 
 ority. Whatever its walk of life might be, life - 
 such a nature, it is easy to perceive, would 
 still keep its imperial dominance, equally of 
 its circumstances and itself. The success 
 
U4 
 
 Noble in 
 herself. 
 
 The lesson 
 of her 
 personality. 
 
 The music of 
 "As You 
 Like It" 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 of Miss Anderson is not the accident of 
 superficial beauty and frivolous caprice. Her 
 art is noble, but her self is more noble than 
 her art. Great in her achievements and 
 greater still in her nature, the presence of 
 such a woman touches, in many and many 
 a heart, that chord of sorrow which vibrates 
 back to the error that lost the world. Each 
 of her performances gives its special revela- 
 tion of genius and imparts its special and 
 peculiar charm; but, higher and better than 
 all her works, because a stately and splendid 
 monition to the soul and not merely a 
 superb delight to the sense, abides the 
 woman herself — to teach us what loveliness 
 is possible in human life, and to make us 
 think on the nobleness that may yet remain 
 among the wastes of experience and the 
 wrecks of time. 
 
 One of the principal beauties of "As You 
 Like It " is its use of plaintive song warbled 
 in the ears of exiles, " under the shade of 
 melancholy boughs," and expressive of the 
 sad wisdom of experience, the humane ten- 
 derness of a great nature toward the frailty 
 of mankind — that strange, half-sad, half- 
 cheerful poetry of contemplation which is 
 suggested by the contrast of nature's re- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 115 
 
 pose with man's restless, evanescent, dubious 
 condition. The loss of any of this music 
 seems a serious loss to the play. The por- 
 tions that were given had a touching effect. 
 Mr. Johnston Forbes-Robertson made his 
 
 r ... . Mr. Forbes- 
 
 first appearance in America, representing Robertsonas 
 Orlando. The beauty of this character is Orlando. 
 that it shall be invested with the affluent 
 and therefore calm vitality of youthful man- 
 liness, with galliard grace, and with occa- 
 sional quiet and gentle drollery that plays 
 over a mood of pensive pre-occupation. 
 Mr. Robertson by indefinable peculiarities 
 is shown to be a man of introspective intel- 
 lect, pensive temperament, sombre imagina- 
 tion, and a mental tendency to drift toward 
 such views of life and such conditions of 
 art as are more accordant with the Hamlets 
 and Romeos of the drama than with the 
 lighter lovers of Shakespearean comedy. 
 His performance of Orlando, all the same, 
 was full of right feeling expressed with in- 
 cessant grace and admirable skill. His 
 manly tenderness in the scene with Adam, 
 his impetuosity in the first encounter with 
 the exiles, his nonchalant humour in the col- 
 loquy with Jacques, his good-natured, kindly, 
 half-amused, half-perplexed toleration of 
 
Other 
 
 associate 
 
 U6 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 the mysterious, winsome boy who would be 
 taken for Rosalind, and throughout the im- 
 personation his air of high breeding and his 
 perfect taste commended him to the public 
 sympathy and laid for him the basis of a 
 performers, permanent popularity. Mrs. Adeline Bil- 
 lington, an actress long esteemed upon the 
 English stage for her fine talents, her versa- 
 tility, and her conscientious work, made also 
 her first appearance here, in the rustic part 
 of Audrey. Mrs. Billington has played 
 higher parts and will play them again. She 
 showed the true artistic spirit in giving a 
 zealous presentment of this little character. 
 Her humour is rich, her art discreet. Mr. 
 Macklin came forward as Jacques, the sated 
 libertine and world-wearied philosopher. 
 This actor has dignity, sadness, and a vein 
 of caustic humour. The ignoble conduct 
 and the saturnine temperament of Oliver 
 render him repugnant to sympathy. Mr. 
 Joseph Anderson's sincerity made him for- 
 midable and inspired curiosity as to the 
 workings of his dark and sinister mind. 
 
 
IV 
 GALATEA AND CLARICE. 
 
 wo of Mr. W. S. Gilbert's plays, October 23. 
 " Pygmalion and Galatea " and 
 " Comedy and Tragedy," were 
 presented last night and Miss 
 Anderson acted in them, as Galatea and 
 Clarice. Her Galatea furnishes a shining 
 and remarkable example of what may be 
 accomplished, through the medium of the 
 dramatic art, when a character in itself 
 slender receives the investiture of a noble 
 and poetical personality. As she stands in 
 the text of Mr. Gilbert's play, Galatea is defined, 
 little more than a sweet and pleasing image 
 of simple girlhood; but Galatea as em- 
 bodied by Miss Anderson is a superb type 
 equally of woman's ideal grandeur and 
 woman's human loveliness. The charm that 
 the actress diffuses through the character is 
 
HJJ MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 that of angelic innocence pervading a pure 
 and sinless but human and passionate love, 
 and expressing itself in artless words and 
 ways, which sometimes bring a smile to the 
 lips and sometimes smite the heart with a 
 parted by the su dden sense of grief and desolation. But 
 actress. the meaning with which she has freighted 
 
 the experience of Galatea is productive, for 
 the character, of a power which transcends 
 its charm. The meaning is the hopeless- 
 ness of an ideal love or an ideal life, under 
 such conditions of existence as those which 
 environ the human race. Such a love may- 
 be cherished in the heart ; such a life may 
 be lived in the mind ; but the one can 
 have no fulfilment and the other must be 
 lonely and cold. In other words, the ideal 
 Fulfilment of and the actual in human life are confronted 
 the ideal is ^ut not conjoined. Still more, since experi- 
 
 lmpossible in > m ± 
 
 human life, ence is inexorably operative and must always 
 bring its consequence, any practical surren- 
 der to the ideal is a choice of suffering and 
 perhaps of death. A great ideal love must 
 destroy either itself or the being who feels 
 it. True passion is not a wisp-light, it is a 
 consuming flame, and either it must find 
 fruition or it will burn the human heart to 
 dust and ashes. There is no creature so 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 lonely as the dweller in the intellect. These 
 are the truths that Miss Anderson makes 
 clear and impressive in her performance of 
 Galatea. Within such integuments of scene 
 and language as the dramatist has furnished 
 she shows the soul of a great woman — a 
 woman greater than this author has con- 
 ceived or drawn — made glorious with an 
 ideal love, convulsed by a crushing experi- 
 ence of blight and grief, and finally sancti- 
 fied by self-abnegation and death. Her 
 Galatea is the dream of a poet, turned from 
 marble into flesh and blood. Her passion 
 for Pygmalion is as pure as heaven, yet ten- 
 der as woman's heart. But she has come 
 into a world of selfishness and sin; a 
 world in which lower creatures abide and 
 prevail ; a world in which everything is pre- 
 empted, and in which she can have no part. 
 The actual is her enemy and it repudiates 
 her presence. The nature upon which she 
 has set her heart, though allured to her for 
 a little while, follows its innate law of self- 
 ishness and falls away from her in her 
 extremest need. She has no life except in 
 her love. It fails her, and she must perish. 
 The ideal has dashed itself against the 
 actual, in a world of common natures, and 
 
 119 
 
 The actress 
 elevates the 
 character. 
 
 Galatea 
 interpreted 
 as too pure 
 and delicate 
 for this 
 world. 
 
 The actual 
 defeats the 
 ideal. 
 
120 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 it is shattered. The one mute gesture of 
 supplication with which Miss Anderson 
 makes this lonely and forlorn creature turn 
 back once more and for the last time toward 
 the man she loves has a whole life of ex- 
 perience in it — a world of meaning — and 
 in itself it is one of the most beautiful touches 
 of dramatic art and one of the most eloquent 
 and pathetic denotements of human feeling 
 that have been seen. 
 
 From the first this performance of Galatea 
 has been, technically, one of Miss Ander- 
 son's best works. It presented at the outset 
 but few and trivial blemishes, and these 
 have disappeared ; so that if it be viewed 
 and meaning, simply as dramatic execution, and without 
 reference to its deep, interior meaning, it is 
 a delight to the faculty of taste and a joy to 
 the sense of sweet and gentle humour, while 
 to the love of beauty it is a supreme content- 
 ment. The perfect Greek dress, the white 
 loveliness of the statue, the eager, radiant 
 face, the subtle suggestion of pain as well 
 as rapture in the process of awakening from 
 the marble, the grace of movement, the 
 consummate repose, the finely modulated 
 of it^ action, the honest eyes, the softly musical 
 specified. voice — these attributes and graces, and 
 
 Her perform 
 ance fine in 
 execution 
 
Artless and 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. I2 i 
 
 many more like these, might be named 
 among its felicities of exterior and of art. 
 No trace of self-consciousness mars the 
 fresh bloom of the Greek girl's innocence. 
 Truth is in every look and every tone. In 
 reverie she has the sweetly grave manner 
 and the winning, confiding helplessness of a 
 child. Her horror at sight of the dead fawn 
 and her terror at sight of its destroyer are 
 so entirely earnest and natural that they 
 create a distinct illusion and impress as 
 much as they amuse. Her artlessness and 
 her quief, spontaneous glee, in the comic gleeful, 
 scene with Chrysos, are expressed with a 
 delicious variety of elocution and made to 
 communicate a rich glow of enjoyment. 
 Her action and her passionate vehemence 
 of supplication that Cynisca will spare Pyg- 
 malion make a superb tragic picture. Her 
 pathos in the closing scene has the cruel 
 reality of pain, and is indeed a wonderful 
 simulation of misery — not the trivial pique 
 and perplexity that flow from wounded 
 pride, but the utter woe of a broken heart. 
 Every portion of the texture of her work is, 
 to these ends, animated by a fine intelli- 
 gence and finished with delicate skill. But 
 she goes further than this. There is always 
 7 
 
I2 2 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 in the work of a true artist that soul be- 
 neath the surface which illumines the out- 
 within°the ward fabric and makes it precious to all 
 body of art. minds that are able to comprehend it. If 
 this were not so the only possible question 
 as to acting would be a question of correct- 
 ness and detail; and from that point of 
 view very little discussion of the subject 
 would amply suffice for the public need. In 
 presence of an actor who is merely skilful 
 in the use of artistic expedients, the mind 
 remains quiescent because the heart is un- 
 touched. It cannot signify much to others 
 whether such a performer executes a task 
 well or ill. The charm of personality must 
 shine through the mechanism. It is what 
 the actor_js x far more than what the actor 
 does, that conquers in the realm of the 
 human mind. Miss Anderson's performances 
 
 becret source r 
 
 of her power. — because of her constant, healthful growth 
 in a broad culture and a fine experience, and 
 because of the high poetic soul, the gipsy- 
 like freedom of spirit with which she is 
 endowed — are remarkable for this victorious 
 power, and it is upon this, their permanent 
 value, that thought inclines chiefly to linger. 
 In acting Galatea she has brought out more 
 than all the thought that is in the play. 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 123 
 
 That irremediable wrench or warp in human 
 nature which seems for ever present to the The sad 
 author's mind — that incongruity, now gro- komgnmy 
 
 1 • • 1 1 1 • i • 1 pervading 
 
 tesque and now pitiable, which is constantly life# 
 visible to him between goodness and innate 
 depravity, between loveliness and the deba- 
 sing influences of a corrupt world — is readily 
 manifested. But it remained for this actress, 
 with her sweeter perception and deeper and 
 gentler insight, to give a broader application 
 to elemental truths. Long ago her acting 
 of Galatea gave solemn enforcement to the 
 afflicting fact that affection, fidelity and self- 
 sacrifice are commonly lavished on worth- M i ssAnder _ 
 less natures, and that the deadliest wound son's acting. 
 to love is its knowledge, when cast aside 
 and forsaken, that it never was even once 
 understood by the object of its worship. 
 The impersonation as it now stands, while 
 mournfully pathetic with this comment upon 
 human life, is impressive with the loftier 
 lesson that the ideal is unattainable and that 
 a great nature must be sufficient to itself, 
 enduring all things even unto death. That 
 white marble statue, when all is over, when 
 the play is ended and the heart has ceased 
 to beat, — that crystal image of purity and 
 truth, — is no longer now the symbol of 
 
124 
 
 Galatea 
 triumphant 
 in death. 
 
 Alleged 
 coldness of 
 Miss Ander- 
 son's acting. 
 
 The soul is 
 more sacred 
 than any art 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 sorrow and defeat, but the emblem of a 
 divine triumph. Life and love are for the 
 frail and fleeting creatures of" the common 
 world. No more worship of a shadow ! No 
 more dependence on the shallow and fickle 
 heart of man ! No more of disappointment, 
 of denial, and the weary, wasting, withering 
 sickness of speechless grief! Tears will 
 never dim those glorious eyes, nor sorrow 
 mar again the perfect peace of that celestial 
 brow. Mortal life was too narrow, too weak 
 and poor for that immortal spirit. The statue 
 is the victor. 
 
 It has been said of Miss Anderson that 
 her acting is cold; that it is deficient of 
 sentiment ; that it never touches the heart ; 
 that it indicates a person of mind and mech- 
 anism, but not a person of sensibility. 
 Those judges who take this view of the 
 subject are, doubtless, sincere in their opin- 
 ion. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
 see how such an opinion can prevail in the 
 presence of such a performance as this. 
 Surely a dignified reticence of self-respect 
 may be maintained in acting, as in every- 
 thing else, without the sacrifice of emotion. 
 Art is noble, but the sanctity of the human 
 soul is nobler yet. Miss Anderson, more 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 125 
 
 perhaps than any other woman upon the 
 stage in our time, possesses and exhibits 
 that fine aristocratical superiority which 
 comes of innate nobleness. If there be 
 any coldness in her acting, that coldness is 
 here. She does not employ delirium and 
 convulsion. But the performances of Galatea 
 and Clarice that she gave — and gave in 
 such a way as to thrill a great audience and 
 beguile it of its tears as well as its enthusi- 
 astic plaudits — were vital with the strongest 
 and finest feeling of a true woman's heart. 
 
 As Clarice, Miss Anderson points a strik- 
 ing contrast and gives a puissant and con- 
 vincing evidence of her artistic power. 
 Galatea is ideal. Clarice is actual. And The play of 
 the situation in which Clarice is placed im- and ° me y 
 peratively commands the simultaneous por- Tragedy." 
 trayal of a terrific struggle in a woman's 
 heart and of the exercise of mimetic talents 
 by an accomplished actress. There is but 
 little in the play, aside from this situation. 
 Clarice is a wife, and herself and her hus- 
 band are actors. She has been pursued 
 and persecuted with great insolence by a 
 Regent of France. Her husband has chal- 
 lenged this oppressor, but the challenge has 
 been declined with contempt. A prince 
 
126 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 A thrilling 
 
 dramatic 
 
 situation. 
 
 Trans- 
 parency in 
 acting. 
 
 Appropriate 
 scenery. 
 
 cannot fight with an actor. In their desper- 
 ate resentment these wronged and infuriated 
 lovers contrive a plot to lure the Regent 
 into their power and compel him to submit 
 to the arbitrament of the sword. The plot 
 succeeds. The two men depart into a 
 garden to fight their duel, in which one of 
 them must surely die. Clarice, momentarily 
 left alone, is soon the centre of a brilliant 
 throng of guests whom she must entertain. 
 They ask a specimen of her art — an illus- 
 tration of comedy and tragedy. Clarice, 
 listening all the while for the sounds of the 
 combat outside, and knowing that perhaps 
 her husband may in a moment fall by the 
 hand of their loathsome enemy, must act 
 the part of a strolling player. This she does, 
 and this is the situation. Transparency in 
 acting — when you are saying and presenting 
 one thing, and thinking and being an- 
 other — was lately used by Miss Anderson, 
 as Rosalind, with an effect of winning sweet- 
 ness. She used it as Clarice with an effect 
 of overwhelming tragic power. 
 
 For these two plays only two sets of 
 scenery are required. One of them is a 
 simple Greek interior — the workshop of a 
 sculptor, in ancient Athens. It was com- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 127 
 
 posed with simplicity but not with penury. 
 The classic life should never be presented 
 as either starved or frigid. Miss Anderson 
 has given scholarlike attention to each 
 detail of the stage embellishment. The set 
 for " Comedy and Tragedy" is a handsome 
 interior, in a Parisian house, in the time of 
 Louis XV. and the Regent Orleans. 
 
 The pathetic experience of Galatea is, 
 perhaps, made somewhat less forlorn when 
 Pygmalion is represented as horror-stricken 
 and remorseful over his own ruthless and 
 cruel extinction of her beautiful life. This 
 is the view of Pyg?nalion presented by 
 Mr. Robertson. His appearance was es- 
 sentially classic, his bearing noble, his p yg maiwn. 
 delivery of the text flexible, graceful, and 
 finely intelligent ; his touches of playful 
 humour were made with winning sweetness, 
 and his performance was instinct with in- 
 cessant refinement. In the after-piece Mr. 
 Robertson embodied D'Aulnay with manly 
 grace, making him both gentle and impetu- 
 ous ; and Mr. Macklin invested the dissolute 
 Regent with appropriate attributes of ele- 
 gance, hauteur, and menace. The prepara- 
 tions for the central scene of this play are, 
 perhaps, a little awkward ; the plot is a little 
 
 Mr. Robert- 
 son as 
 
128 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 Miss Ander- 
 son as the 
 strolling 
 player. 
 
 incongruous. Only the most outrageous 
 provocation could lead a noble-minded 
 woman to descend to Clarice's scheme for 
 revenge. But the situation, once attained, 
 has a prodigious dramatic value. Miss An- 
 derson has pressed within the compass of 
 this brief piece an astonishing display of 
 versatile professional skill. Her treatment 
 of the strolling-actor speech is such as would 
 only be possible to a close and deep ob- 
 server of human life and a proficient deline- 
 ator of the varying phases of human nature. 
 But there remains a certain natural incon- 
 gruity between the character and the actress ; 
 and artifice does not sit easily upon her 
 artistic method. 
 
V 
 
 PAULINE 
 
 Pauline 
 again. 
 
 expenence 
 
 >iss Anderson has embodied still November 3 . 
 another image of beauty and 
 nobleness in woman; still an- 
 other representative type of the 
 of a woman's heart. She has 
 appeared as Pauline, in the comedy of " The 
 Lady of Lyons." Like her previous works, 
 this performance conspicuously shows the 
 power and value of devoted earnestness in 
 the service of art for its own sake. In other 
 hands "The Lady of Lyons" has sometimes 
 seemed to be trivial ; in her hands it is shown 
 to be worthy of the best thought that can be 
 expended upon it. This, on the threshold 
 of achievement, is a victory. 
 
 It long has been a critical custom to 
 deride this comedy; but the custom is 
 neither just nor wise. There is, no doubt, 
 7* I2 9 
 
 Unwise to 
 disparage 
 " The Lady 
 of Lyons." 
 
130 
 
 Theatrical 
 value of the 
 old comedy. 
 
 Love easily 
 satirised, but 
 not the less 
 noble. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 improbability at the basis of its plot; ex- 
 travagance in some of its incidents ; such an 
 excess of sentiment in its spirit as must 
 naturally repel the conventional mind ; and 
 there is a distinct tinge of artifice in its 
 language. Yet it embodies a representative 
 experience and it presents an exalted 
 ideal of the passion of love, and of human 
 nature as affected by that passion, which is 
 of almost universal significance. It can 
 easily be turned into ridicule — but so can 
 everything else in life. Its story, like 
 that of " Ruy Bias," for example, or that of 
 "The Stranger," is the story of a man's 
 idolatry for a woman, and what came of 
 it ; and this theme has ever been the easy 
 prey of the scorner. Lord Byron — who of 
 all the poets had been most capable of feel- 
 ing it — long ago led the satirists in this 
 path, making human love the especial mark 
 of that heart-broken satire of his which so 
 often shows the woful eyes behind the mock- 
 ing laugh. But the truth is not to be re- 
 pelled by laughter. There are, and always 
 will be, men and women capable of sublime 
 conduct under the stress of human passion ; 
 and the work of art which presents in an 
 adequate manner this possible aspect of 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 131 
 
 experience possesses a potent beneficent 
 influence that no ridicule can invalidate — 
 for it ennobles all persons who can under- 
 stand it, by its simple teaching of fidelity to 
 the religion of the heart, no matter what 
 adverse circumstances may environ the out- 
 ward life. 
 
 " The Lady of Lyons " is a work of this 
 kind. It can be spoiled by insincerity in 
 the stage treatment of it. It exacts pro- 
 found earnestness and apt suitability in M *w dd «** 
 
 *■ J redeemed by 
 
 those who represent it. When acted in the sincerity, 
 right spirit it is truthful, tender, pathetic, 
 and impressive. The extravagances are for- 
 gotten. The tawdriness of the style passes 
 unnoticed. It cannot, indeed, be said that 
 Bulwer has treated the theme of self-sacri- 
 fice for love's sake with the stalwart strength 
 and in the large, broad manner of a Victor 
 Hugo, as shown in such a book as " The 
 Toilers of the Sea " ; but certainly he has 
 treated it well. It was his favourite theme. Alesso ? from 
 
 .bulwer s 
 
 It runs through many of his works. The novels. 
 novels of " Godolphin," "Harold," and 
 "Zanoni" might particularly be cited as 
 examples of his ideal. Magnanimity, self- 
 sacrifice, devotion, dignity, sweetness — 
 these are the elements of character and 
 
132 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 conduct that he aimed especially to extol ; 
 and these attributes, as much exemplified 
 by Pauline as by Claude Melnotte, are ex- 
 tolled with passionate fervour in " The Lady 
 of Lyons." 
 
 An accomplished artist in acting is able 
 
 to assume and portray many diverse and 
 
 contrasted parts. Yet it will be perceived 
 
 by students of this subject, if they duly 
 
 Necessity of nee d the lessons of experience, that the best 
 
 correspond- pieces of acting that ever have been given — 
 
 ence between ^^ ^^ haye j mparte( i the most Q f h ap _ 
 an actor and > x x 
 
 an ideal. piness and attracted the most of human 
 sympathy — are such as rest upon harmony 
 between the ideal and the actor. The best 
 actor, indeed, is not one who presents his 
 every-day self. There can be no art with- 
 out imagination. But the most potent and 
 the most salutary acting ensues when the 
 actor can freely impart to an ideal form 
 that higher self, that rare compound of 
 imagination, feeling, spirit, and character, 
 which is within and above his ordinary and 
 usual identity. 
 
 Miss Anderson's ideal of Pauline is in- 
 tuitive rather than reflective. She has 
 evidently given careful thought to the 
 artistic form and expression of the work; 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^3 
 
 but she has assumed the investiture of its Miss Ander- 
 
 spirit spontaneously and without meditation J^J^ 
 
 or effort. The cold elegance, the uncon- Pauline. 
 
 scious haughtiness, the icy refinement, and 
 
 the pure and beautiful simplicity of Pauline's 
 
 nature are elements included in her own ; 
 
 so that her presence, before anything is said 
 
 or done, at once explains and justifies the 
 
 circumstances that surround her. Fate is 
 
 character. This effect in acting ought never 
 
 to be overlooked — for, indeed, the whole 
 
 vital question of the matter depends upon 
 
 its presence or its absence. The ordinary 
 
 actor can obtain no effect without labour for intrinsic 
 
 it : and even then it excites no ardour of charm more 
 
 * victorious 
 
 responsive feeling. Genius, on the other than labour. 
 hand, conquers instantly by its intrinsic 
 charm. The rich and royal nature that 
 burns beneath Miss Anderson's acting is the 
 crowning glory of it, and this will give to 
 her a permanent and noble fame through 
 whatever years of conquest remain before 
 her, and long after the petty voices of con- 
 temporary detraction are silent in the dust. 
 Her quality, like her career, is unique and 
 incomparable. More wildness of human 
 passion, more of the desolate pathos of the 
 ruined life and the wandering soul, was 
 
134 
 
 Adelaide 
 Neilson and 
 Ellen Terry. 
 
 Characteris- 
 tic attributes 
 of Mary 
 Anderson. 
 
 Under- 
 currents of 
 meaning. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 seen in the acting of Adelaide Neilson. 
 More of a certain exquisite frenzy, more 
 physical abandonment, and a more assured 
 command of the arts of high comedy are 
 seen in that of Miss Ellen Terry. But no 
 other union, such as exists in Miss Ander- 
 son, of cold intellect with affluent physical 
 beauty, perfect refinement of womanhood, 
 and fairy-like grace and liberty of condition, 
 — the fine aerial human spirit typifying the 
 glorious freedom of the sea-bird that skims 
 the white-crested billows of the lonely sea, — 
 has appeared upon the stage of our time. 
 Each successive performance of hers only 
 deepens this conviction ; and in presence of 
 this finished work Of art — a work that 
 charms by grace of artistic form and fas- 
 cinates by a lovely vitality of nature — it is 
 but justice that this judgment should be 
 expressed with explicit force. 
 
 For it is by no means easy to convey to 
 others, as this actress has conveyed, not 
 simply the experience of her heroine, but, 
 back of that experience, the lesson of what 
 woman endures and suffers when she loves. 
 The subject is one upon which it seems 
 almost a sacrilege to touch. In her treat- 
 ment of the two cottage scenes Miss 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ,or 
 
 Anderson not only expressed the resentment 
 of wounded honour, the struggle of a proud 
 spirit to subdue a passionate love, the be- 
 wildered, afflicting sense of impending loss 
 and sorrow, the ecstasy of exultation over 
 vindicated worth, and the sharp, blighting ^^ 8 ^ 
 sense of irremediable bereavement ; but, by scenes, 
 the light which is within her own spirit, by 
 a deep, sympathetic intuition, she displayed 
 the whole pathetic picture of what is pass- 
 ing in many human hearts, and thus for one 
 superb moment illumined the whole dark 
 abyss of human grief. During the first 
 cottage scene she gives supremacy to 
 Pauline's pride. It is only at the close that 
 she allows the heart to speak; but when 
 that moment comes her expression of the 
 piteous helplessness of an angelic woman 
 who loves and suffers in vain is more 
 pathetic than words can say, and has a 
 meaning that no true man can contemplate 
 except with humility and awe. The picture pic^^n e 
 in the fifth act, when Pauline is discovered Act v. 
 sitting by the fireside, will long be remem- 
 bered for its exquisite grace. Mr. Forbes- 
 Robertson acted Claude Melnotte for the 
 first time in his life, and he accomplished a 
 delicate task with artistic discretion. 
 
Nov. 12. 
 
 Miss Ander- 
 son's crown- 
 ing victory. 
 
 VI 
 
 JULIET 
 
 ast night, in presence of a great 
 representative audience, Miss 
 Anderson impersonated Shake- 
 speare's Juliet, and therein she 
 gave a performance which is worthy to be 
 recorded as the crowning splendour of her 
 professional life. The tragedy of " Romeo 
 and Juliet" was set upon the stage in a 
 magnificent scenic dress, and with a careful 
 cast of its characters, and the general drift 
 of it was to create a natural and pathetic 
 illusion. The effort has been made in this 
 revival, and has succeeded, to display the 
 beginning, the progress, and the fulfilment 
 of a tragical experience in human life, amid 
 surroundings that are truthful to the element 
 of fact in the dramatic story, and at the 
 same time harmonious with the exalted 
 
 il6 
 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 spirit — now voluptuous and romantic, now 
 passionate, tragic, and terrible, but always 
 tremulous with vague menace and impend- 
 ing danger — by which that story is en- 
 wrapt. An old civilisation, the repose of 
 massive towers, the solidity and picturesque 
 beauty of time-worn buildings, the strength 
 and peace of aged and mossy trees, the 
 cool gloom and awful splendour of ancient 
 churches, the mystery and silence of dark 
 cathedral crypts, the climate of the South, 
 the glimmering glory of moonlit summer 
 nights — all these were needful, in Shake- 
 speare's scheme, as a background to the 
 story of " Romeo and Juliet." For such a 
 background his text makes ample provision. 
 But the play is not treated correctly when 
 it is treated as a pageant. Just as a man 
 should not be subordinate to his apparel, 
 so a play should not be subordinate to its 
 attire. The true and right way is to let the 
 scenery grow out of the drama and crystal- 
 lise around it. This law has been respected 
 in the present Shakespearean revival; and 
 therefore, although the embellishment is 
 elaborate, the result of it is natural. The 
 tragedy has not been produced to show 
 how well a scenic artist can paint or how 
 
 137 
 
 Essential 
 features of 
 her produc- 
 tion of 
 "Romeo and 
 Juliet." 
 
 The scenery 
 is a conse- 
 quence of the 
 play. 
 
138 
 
 Distin- 
 guished 
 scenic artists. 
 
 A truthful 
 and beautiful 
 setting. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 skilfully a stage machinist can work his 
 cords, but it has been brought forward for 
 the sake of what it contains and what it sig- 
 nifies, and it has simply been provided with 
 such illustration as might help to make the 
 spectator forget that he is looking at a fic- 
 tion, and thus render more real to his imag- 
 ination and his heart a poetic picture, at 
 once beautiful and terrible, of the passion 
 and agony of human life that is shipwrecked 
 by human love. There are seventeen dis- 
 tinct scenes. They were painted from 
 sketches made in Verona. The most and 
 the best of them were produced by O'Conor, 
 Hawes Craven, and Bruce Smith. Several 
 of the paintings are worthy of a permanent 
 place in the archives of art. The public 
 square and the churchyard, by O'Conor, 
 the grove of sycamores, by Craven, and the 
 Friar's cell, by Bruce Smith, will be remem- 
 bered as perfect works for the purpose that 
 they serve — and something more. It may 
 be said, indeed, — and it never could truth- 
 fully be said before, with reference to any 
 revival that has been made of " Romeo and 
 Juliet," — that whoever looks upon the scenes 
 which have been provided by Miss Ander- 
 son for this production has looked upon 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 139 
 
 Verona itself, has listened to the rustling 
 of leaves in the scented air of the southern 
 night, and heard the nightingale sing in the 
 dusky Italian woods. 
 
 It often must have been observed that 
 Shakespeare expends his intellectual force 
 more lavishly upon the study and analysis shake- 
 of man than upon the study and analysis speare's men 
 of woman. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello, ™ r °^ n u th a n 
 Iago, Brutus, Cassius, Coriolanus, Shy lock, his women. 
 Falstaff — each of these is an elaborate, 
 comprehensive, profound, and completed 
 study. There is scarcely one of Shake- 
 speare's women who, in close comparison 
 with either of these men, seems much more 
 than a sketch. Imogen, Cleopatra, and Rosa- 
 lind are, perhaps, the most specifically de- 
 picted of all his heroines. Juliet, drawn 
 with a few bold touches and simply placed sk "^ e f 
 in a few great representative situations, seems Juliet. 
 rather to be outlined and suggested than 
 actually and minutely portrayed. In this 
 beautiful and lamentable image of passion- 
 ate devotion and still more passionate sor- 
 row the poet's object seems to have been to 
 declare, once for all, what a true woman's 
 heart feels and suffers when it loves and ~ . & , . 
 
 Drift of the 
 
 loses its love. Such an utterance, he must tragedy. 
 
140 
 
 It was writ- 
 ten in Shake- 
 speare's 
 youth. 
 
 Superiority 
 of the later 
 tragedies. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 have felt, would be an essential part of his 
 authentic and celestial message to the hu- 
 man race. He gave it, however, before he 
 had attained to a complete mastery of him- 
 self and his literary implements, and before 
 yet his conquest of the entire domain of 
 human thought and feeling had been accom- 
 plished. He was only twenty-seven when 
 he first touched this subject, and, although 
 he returned upon it in later years, his work 
 was not relieved of that florid strain, that 
 artificial use of rhymed lines, that sketch- 
 like treatment of character, and that slight 
 vagueness of general significance which are 
 the indications of his immaturity. His 
 tragedy of " Romeo and Juliet " is, undoubt- 
 edly, a powerful, noble, eloquent exposition 
 of passion and misery ; but, somewhat un- 
 like the greater tragedies of his perfect 
 maturity, it does not entirely and profoundly 
 display the character through the emotion. 
 When he came to depict Lady Macbeth and 
 Cleopatra he could show human passions 
 inextricably blended with the diversified at- 
 tributes of definite human personality. He 
 did not do this with Juliet. When this 
 afflicted woman is separated from her pas- 
 sion and her misery she fades, as an actual 
 
MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 (41 
 
 identity, almost into the realm of conjecture. 
 When first presented in the play she is sim- 
 ply a beautiful girl, sweet, innocent, artless, 
 obedient, whose heart has not yet been Ju/ f eias & xl 
 
 J t and as 
 
 awakened, and whose mind and will, con- woman, 
 tented in the physical joy of blooming 
 youthful life, are merely pleased and pas- , 
 sive. Throughout the whole of her first - - 
 scene, which is not a short one, she only 
 speaks about fifty words. It is only when 
 her eyes have looked into the eyes of Romeo 
 and her heart has leaped to his that she 
 becomes a woman indeed, and begins to 
 reveal, in her words and in her conduct, the 
 attributes of her individual nature. Yet 
 even then, in the line of treatment that 
 Shakespeare chose to follow, there remains ^^J^ 1 "" 
 much scope for the actress of Juliet to rein- actress, 
 force the character with her own personality. 
 Miss Anderson has observed and has com- 
 pletely fulfilled this opportune condition. 
 By the affluence of her own nature, by the 
 extraordinary correspondence existing be- 
 tween herself and the Shakespearean ideal, 
 and by a finished and beautiful art, — through 
 which her impetuous feeling is guided with Miss Ander- 
 firm intellectual purpose, and made all the so " V° lvl " 
 
 r r 7 ual character 
 
 more affecting by repose, — she has imparted and power. 
 
142 
 
 The best 
 Juliet of our 
 time. 
 
 Nature of 
 true love. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 to Juliet an individual life of definite and 
 delightful character, as well as a tempest of 
 emotion and the dark and desolate grandeur 
 of tragic death. 
 
 In January, 1882, when Miss Anderson 
 last enacted Juliet here, she had become the 
 best Juliet on the American stage ; and as 
 such she was then described and character- 
 ised in print, by the writer of these words. 
 She is more than that now. Her perform- 
 ance at that time was right in stage con- 
 vention, magnetic and noble in loveliness 
 of spirit, touched with the glamour of woful 
 passion, and fraught with a tremendous 
 energy of sincere purpose. In the scenes 
 with Romeo she made Juliet tender and 
 simple. The love that she denoted was not 
 the animal love that devours and destroys 
 (that sensual frenzy of the beast which so 
 much of contemporary criticism has declared 
 to be the only true and genuine article), but 
 the love that hallows and cherishes, and 
 would give all to procure the possession and 
 the happiness of its object. Her desolation 
 in that supreme moment when, after the last 
 parting with the JVurse, the poor, doomed 
 girl enters into her bleak and tragic solitude, 
 was instinct with a sublime pathos. Her 
 
MARY ANDERSON. j^ 
 
 frenzy in the climax of the potion scene and 
 her utter recklessness of passionate misery 
 in the suicide were thrilling and piteous, 
 and they were expressed with well-con- 
 sidered art. Her present performance of 
 Juliet follows the precise lines which are 
 thus suggested ; but in a strange and subde 
 way, which it is much more easy to feel than 
 to describe, the actress has converted what Passion ilIu . 
 formerly was mostly a piece of stage art into mines art. 
 a vital and burning reality of positive human ! 
 life. Her mechanism is widely different 
 from what it used to be. All formality has 
 disappeared. The first entrance of Juliet, as 
 she puts aside the curtain .and stands in the 
 stairway arch, is the easy, natural disclosure 
 of the simple girl amid her accustomed 
 domestic surroundings. This felicity of 
 grace in the treatment of external matters — 
 the form, the ceremony, the convention, ra< ; ean 
 
 J 7 7 precision of 
 
 the photography of ordinary life — pervaded details. 
 the impersonation. No detail has been left 
 to chance. The stricken figure of the 
 beautiful girl, who has already had her 
 death-blow at the hand of love, standing 
 there in the darkening hall when the revel 
 is ended and the guests are gone away, is 
 seen at once to be a perfect emblem of 
 
144 
 
 The touch of 
 foreboding. 
 
 Omits 
 Juliet's 
 scene of 
 frenzy. 
 
 Composure 
 at the sum- 
 mit of ex- 
 citement. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 consummate dramatic art. On the balcony 
 she has the absorbed manner of true reverie, 
 and her ardour is sweetly touched and sub- 
 dued by the vague apprehension, no less 
 than the maiden purity, that is at her heart. 
 " I have no joy in this contract to-night." 
 In the teasing scene with the Nurse all her 
 stage business is devised to create and 
 sustain the effect of entirely childlike petu- 
 lance, wilfulness, caprice, and charm. The 
 cloud has lifted now, and the vague omen 
 is for a moment forgotten. Julie fs " ban- 
 ished "scene Miss Anderson now omits — 
 just as Miss Neilson did, and wisely; for it 
 conflicts with Romeo's kindred scene, and it 
 anticipates a dramatic effect which should 
 not arrive so soon. Her parting with Romeo 
 has the sad reality of literal grief, and it is 
 managed in such a way as to deepen an 
 almost insufferable sense of bereavement 
 and hopeless sorrow. Her calm despair — 
 which is obviously the extreme tension of 
 suffering and dead stillness of excitement — 
 after the Nurse has gone, and the time has 
 come for taking the dread alternative of a 
 simulated death, was so actual that it seemed 
 to strike a blow upon the heart. In the 
 final crisis — the awakening in the tomb, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^ 
 
 the perception of defeat and ruin, and the 
 
 fatal act which now alone can repair what 
 
 fate has ravaged — she rose easily into 
 
 tragic grandeur, making the theatre and all 
 
 its accessories to be forgotten, and leaving 
 
 only the solemn and awful conviction that final effect. 
 
 there are times when only death can be 
 
 deemed triumphant and it is better to die 
 
 than to live. 
 
 For the continuity of this achievement a 
 more studious art and continual practice 
 might account ; but for its vitality of identi- 
 fication and its afflicting significance the 
 motive must be sought in something deeper 
 than the impulse of art. It is no longer the The heart 
 imagination that speaks, through this re- now . tr ^" 
 markable performance; it is the heart, imagination. 
 Miss Anderson found Juliet— as all ob- 
 servers find her — a shadowy ideal of love 
 and grief. She has left her a distinct and 
 superb woman, animated throughout the 
 whole line of her conduct, from the moment 
 when she becomes aware of herself, with 
 noble principle and heroic fidelity, not less 
 than with passionate, heroic love. She has 
 presented a personality that can be defined 
 and described. Nothing but the intuition _ . . . 
 
 ° 1 he intuition 
 
 of genius could have accomplished this of genius. 
 8 
 
146 
 
 Shake- 
 
 portraiture 
 of human 
 misery. 
 
 His great 
 men and 
 women are 
 worldly 
 failures. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 result — at once bringing the character 
 into brilliant relief, and writing, as in lines 
 of white fire upon a midnight sky, that 
 hopeless word which is the final result and 
 comprehensive lesson of all the tragic plays 
 of Shakespeare — misery. 
 
 For that is where his thought ended. He 
 reflected the evanescent and mournful pag- 
 eant of human life as he saw it to exist, and 
 he suggested no relief to the picture. He 
 may not have been sufficiently mature to 
 put forth all his power in " Romeo and 
 Juliet," but in so far as he did exert that 
 power he exerted it in the direction of the 
 truth. Misery and not happiness is the 
 predominant theme of this play — as it 
 afterward was of " Hamlet " and kindred 
 works. This world is not a rose garden, 
 and happiness is not the earthly destiny of 
 man. The great men and women in Shake- 
 speare are those that the common mind of 
 the world would invariably regard as fail- 
 ures. Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello, 
 Coriolanus, Timon — all of them drift into 
 ruin. Romeo fails ; not only because fate is 
 against him, but because of a certain per- 
 verse melancholy and ingrained, enervating 
 dejection which taints his spirit and would 
 
MARY ANDERSON. I47 
 
 inevitably defeat his life. Juliet, thrilled 
 and absorbed with passionate idolatry of 
 another human being, utterly overwhelmed 
 with emotion that heeds no reason and 
 brooks no restraint, is the personification 
 of love, and therefore fatal to herself. The 
 glittering Mercutio, the choleric, gallant 
 Tybalt, the fair and gentle Paris, the gay The dismal 
 and amiable Benvolio — all perish in their JjJ^j^^, 
 youthful prime. Romeo 's mother dies of a and Juliet" 
 broken heart. All through the woof of life 
 runs this thread of perversion and calamity. 
 But at the basis of Juliet's personality and 
 experience, equally with those of Romeo, 
 there is a deeper and darker truth — a sort 
 of preordination of evil which is to spring 
 from the sovereign emotion of humanity. 
 All great passion isolates the heart by which Great love 
 it is possessed. Certain natures are born to ' 'JJ^ of 
 sorrow, and the impending calamity of a great sorrow, 
 malignant fate darkens with sombre pre- 
 sentiment even their dawn of life, and 
 sequesters them in a mournful strangeness 
 from their fellow-creatures of the earth. The 
 key-note is sounded by Juliet, the moment 
 her heart awakens: "Too early seen un- 
 known, and known too late." The same Presenti . 
 presentiment has already settled upon the ment. 
 
148 
 
 Miss Ander- 
 son's Juliet 
 a great per- 
 formance. 
 
 Stage embel- 
 lishment. 
 
 Historic 
 period. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 soul of Romeo : " My mind misgives some 
 consequence yet hanging in the stars." It 
 is because Miss Anderson has at length 
 grasped this whole subject in this spirit and 
 developed Juliet under this inexorable light 
 of truth that her impersonation should be 
 recognised and recorded as an achievement 
 of true greatness in the art to which she 
 has devoted her life, and which she has so 
 long made tributary to results of public 
 beneficence as well as personal renown. 
 
 In the setting of this tragedy, under Miss 
 Anderson's direction, the time, the place, 
 the climate, the period of the year, the 
 duration of the action, and the character of 
 the piece have been thoughtfully considered. 
 The year of the story of " Romeo and 
 Juliet," judging from an allusion made by 
 the Nurse, — " 'tis since the earthquake now 
 eleven years," — is 1359; Verona having 
 been visited by a dreadful earthquake in 
 1348. Another allusion made by the Nurse 
 signifies the season of the year and almost 
 the exact date. Juliet will be fourteen 
 years of age on Lammas eve — which is the 
 first of August — and when the play opens 
 it wants a "fortnight and odd days" of 
 that date. The action begins, accordingly, 
 
MARY ANDERSON. I49 
 
 on or about the 14th of July, and Shake- Time of 
 speare has so carefully dated its incidents action " 
 as to show that they fall out within five 
 days. Such details have been respected, 
 and the result is a scholar-like and superb 
 production. 
 
 Morning and midnight touch their lips 
 together in this brilliant, desolate tragedy. 
 No one who has had youth can think 
 of it without remembering a sacred time 
 when the flowers smelt sweeter than they 
 do now, and the winds were softer, and Love ' s 
 
 young 
 
 in the hush of the night there was a dream, 
 celestial mystery, and the stars seemed 
 friends, and the affairs of human beings 
 were infinitely remote and trivial. Then 
 one pair of eyes was worshipped, and one 
 voice was all there is of music, and life 
 was exalted into sanctity. That time can 
 never be called back. Scarcely, in the tur- 
 moil of the world, does any man realise 
 that ever it existed. But Shakespeare knew Shake 
 it and could surcharge his mind with its speare's 
 spirit and colour, and he has poured that knowl ^ d & e 
 
 ' r m 7 * i of the human 
 
 spirit through the current of this exquisite heart 
 poem of love, disappointment, and irre- 
 mediable anguish. Sometimes, whether in 
 reading these scenes or viewing them, one 
 
150 
 
 What the 
 tragedy of 
 " Romeo 
 and Juliet " 
 should teach. 
 
 Rest at last. 
 
 MARY ANDERSON. 
 
 feels a sudden throb of infinite pain, and 
 seems to hear in his heart a mournful voice 
 speaking unintelligible words of sorrow. 
 Not to all natures comes forth this subtle 
 meaning ; but surely that nature is not to be 
 envied which, under the stress and strain of 
 this tragedy, is not made more sympathetic 
 with the terrible earnestness of love ; more 
 tender toward youth; more wishful to 
 sweeten and prolong its period of romance, 
 and to shield it from contact with the 
 selfishness and the dreary commonplaces of 
 the world. Nor is that nature enviable 
 which is not touched by the awful, closing 
 picture of love's calamity and ruin. Never, 
 surely, were passion, anguish, and death so 
 well enshrined as under the starless sky that 
 bends over the broken tomb of the Capulets, 
 while the cold night- wind moans around it, 
 and dark branches wave in sorrow above 
 the white, still faces of those true lovers 
 who have died for love. Never was there 
 a sadder spectacle! Yet never did a spec- 
 tacle so sad present at last a sense of relief 
 so sweet, so absolute, so holy. The sternest 
 moralist upon mortal destiny, as he muses 
 beside that hallowed sepulchre, may well be 
 tempted to murmur the sad words of Swin- 
 
MARY ANDERSON. ^j 
 
 burne, in " The Garden of Proserpine " — impiora 
 pagan, yet deeply significant, hopeless, yet pace * 
 full of comfort : 
 
 From too much love of living, 
 
 From hope and fear set free, 
 We thank with brief thanksgiving 
 
 Whatever gods may be — 
 That no life lives for ever, 
 That dead men rise up never, 
 That even the weariest river 
 
 Flows somewhere safe to sea. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Miss Anderson's theatrical business affairs, from 
 the time of her first appearance on the stage till the 
 time of her first professional visit to England, were 
 managed, under her personal direction, by Dr. Ham- 
 ilton Griffin. Her two seasons in England, 1883-85, 
 and her tour of America, 1885-86, were directed by 
 Mr. Henry E. Abbey. Miss Anderson sailed from 
 Queenstown on September 28, 1883, aboard the 
 Gallia, and landed in New York on October 6. Her 
 English dramatic company, brought over for this 
 American tour, comprised the following actors : John- 
 stone Forbes Robertson, Frank Henry Macklin, 
 James George Taylor, Kenneth Black, Sidney Hayes, 
 Arthur Lewis, Henry Vernon, Thomas Bindloss, 
 Lewis Gillispee, Henry Sainsbury, Thomas Gaytie, 
 Joseph Anderson, Mr. Stewart, Adeline (Mrs. John) 
 Billington, Adelaide (Mrs. Charles) Calvert, Blanche 
 (Mrs. F. H)Macklin,Miss Zeffie Tilbury, and Mrs. 
 K. Black. Miss Eloise Willis, Miss Mary Ayrton 
 (Mrs. C. J. A bud), Mr. Thomas Strong, and Mr. 
 
Joshua Mintz were subsequently added to it. Miss 
 Anderson's American season, beginning on October 
 12, i88j, and ending on May 22, 1886, lasted thirty- 
 one weeks. She gave two hundred and ten perform' 
 ances, visiting, in succession, New York, Boston, 
 Providence, New Haven, Hartford, Worcester, Spring- 
 field, Troy, Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, Albany, Brook- 
 lyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, 
 Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, 
 Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Omaha, Denver, 
 Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Francisco, Chicago, 
 Boston, and New York. Her farewell week in New 
 York was signalised by the production of "Ingomar," 
 May 18, 1 886. She took leave of the American 
 public on Saturday evening, May 22, and sailed, on 
 June 3, aboard the Britannic, for her adopted home 
 in England. 
 
THE STAGE LIFE 
 
 MARY ANDERSON 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER 
 
 'Like a great sea-mark, standing every flato 
 And saving those that eye thee." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 GEORGE J. COOMBES 
 
 1886 
 
v.t -\;t* 
 
 
 LIBRARY^OF CONGRESS 
 
 010 638 676 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■♦.v.** 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I , 4r!*k*! i wfR 
 
 ■ 
 
 i ■ 
 
 »V/,V k y, fin/