Mary Anderson Part 2

It stood in the chimney corner of his study, and till the day of his death was always his favorite seat.

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

At the Boston Theater occurred an accident which shows the marvelous courage and power of endurance possessed by the young actress. In the play of "Meg Merrilies," she had to appear suddenly in one scene at the top of a cliff, some fifteen feet above the stage. To avoid the danger of falling over, it was necessary to use a staff. Mary Anderson had managed to find one of Cushman's, but the point having become smooth through use, she told one of the people of the theater to put a small nail at the bottom.

Instead of this, he affixed a good-sized spike, and one night Mary Anderson, coming out as usual, drove this right through her foot, in her sudden stop on the cliffs brink. Without flinching, or moving a muscle, with Spartan fort.i.tude she played the scene to the end, though almost fainting with pain, till on the fall of the curtain the spiked staff was drawn out, not without force. Longfellow was much concerned at this accident, and on nights she did not play would sit by her side in her box, and wrap the furred overcoat he used to wear carefully round her wounded foot.

From Boston Mary Anderson proceeded to New York to fulfill a two weeks'

engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theater. She opened with a good company in "The Lady of Lyons." General Sherman had advised her to read no papers, but one morning to her great encouragement, some good friend thrust under her door a very favorable notice in the New York _Herald_. The engagement proved a great success, and was ultimately extended to six weeks, the actress playing two new parts, Juliet and The Daughter of Roland. She had pa.s.sed the last ordeal successfully, and might rejoice as she stood on the crest of the hill of Fame that the ambition of her young life was at length realized. Her subsequent theatrical career in the States and Canada need not be recorded here. She had become America's representative _tragedienne_; there was none to dispute her claims. Year after year she continued to increase an already brilliant reputation, and to ama.s.s one of the largest fortunes it has ever been the happy lot of any artist to secure.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.

In the summer of 1879, was paid Mary Anderson's first visit to Europe. It had long been eagerly antic.i.p.ated. In the lands of the Old World was the cradle of the Art she loved so well, and it was with feelings almost of awe that she entered their portals. She had few if any introductions, and spent a month in London wandering curiously through the conventional scenes usually visited by a stranger. Westminster Abbey was among her favorite haunts; its ancient aisles, its storied windows, its thousand memories of a past which antedated by so many centuries the civilization of her native land, appealed deeply to the ardent imagination of the impa.s.sioned girl. Here was a world of which she had read and dreamed, but whose over-mastering, living influence was now for the first time felt. It seemed like the first glimpse of verdant forest, of enameled meadow, of crystal stream, of pure sky to one who had been blind. It was another atmosphere, another life. Brief as was her visit, it gave an impulse to those germs which lie deep in every poetic soul. She saw there was an illimitable world of Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardly trodden--and she went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancient fountains of Poetry and Art. From that time an intellectual change seems to have pa.s.sed over her. Her studies took new channels, and her impersonations were mellowed and glorified from her personal contact with the a.s.sociations of a great past.

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

Much of the time of Mary Anderson's European visit was spent in Paris.

Through the kindness of General Sherman she obtained introductions to Ristori and other distinguished artists, and, to her delight, secured also the _entree_ behind the scenes of the Theatre Francais. Its magnificent green-room, the walls lined with portraits of departed celebrities of that famous theater, amazed her by its splendor; and to her it was a strange and curious sight to see the actors in "Hernani" come in and play cards in their gorgeous stage costumes at intervals in the performance. On one of these occasions she naively asked Sarah Bernhardt why her portrait did not appear on the walls? The great artist replied that she hoped Mary Anderson did not wish her dead, as only under such circ.u.mstances could an appearance there be permitted to her. "Behind the scenes" of the Theatre Francais was a source of never-wearying interest, and Mary Anderson thought the effects of light attained there far surpa.s.sed anything she had witnessed on the English or American stage.

The verdict of Ristori, before whom she recited, was highly favorable, and the great _tragedienne_ predicted a brilliant career for the young actress, and declared she would be a great success with an English company in Paris, while the "divine Sarah" affirmed that she had never seen greater originality. On the return journey from Paris a brief stay was made at the quaint city of Rouen. Joan of Arc's stake, and the house where, tradition has it, she resided, were sacred spots to Mary Anderson; and the ancient towers, the curious old streets, overlooking the fertile valley through which the Seine wanders like a silver thread, are memories which have since remained to her ever green. During her first visit to England Mary Anderson never dreamt of the possibility that she herself might appear on the English stage. Indeed the effect of her first European tour was depressing and disheartening. She saw only how much there was for her to see, how much to learn in the world of Art. A feeling of home-sickness came over her, and she longed to be back at her seaside home where she could watch the wild restless Atlantic as it swept in upon the New Jersey sh.o.r.e, and listen to the sad music of the weary waves. This was the instinct of a true artist nature, which had depths capable of being stirred by the touch of what is great and n.o.ble.

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

CHAPTER VI.

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

The interval of five years which elapsed between Mary Anderson's first and second visits to Europe was busily occupied by starring tours in the States and Canada. Mr. Henry Abbey's first proposal, in 1883, for an engagement at the Lyceum was met with the same negative which had been given to that of Mr. Augustus Harris. But, happening some time afterward to meet her step-father, Dr. Griffin, in Baltimore, Mr. Abbey again urged his offer, to which a somewhat reluctant consent was at length given. The most ambitious moment of her artist-life seemed to have arrived at last.

If she attained success, the crown was set on all the previous triumphs of her art; if failure were the issue, she would return to America discredited, if not disgraced, as an actress. The very crisis of her stage-life had come now in earnest. It found her despondent, almost despairing; at the last moment she was ready to draw back. She had then none of the many friends who afterward welcomed her with heartfelt sincerity whenever the curtain rose on her performance. She saw Irving in "Louis XI." and "Shylock." The brilliant powers of the great actor filled her at once with admiration and with dread, when she remembered how soon she too must face the same audiences. She sought to distract herself by making a round of the London theaters, but the most amusing of farces could hardly draw from her a pa.s.sing smile, or lift for a moment the weight of apprehension which pressed on her heart. The very play in which she was destined first to present herself before a London audience was condemned beforehand. To make a _debut_ as Parthenia was to court certain failure. The very actors who rehea.r.s.ed with her were Job's comforters. She saw in their faces a dreary vista of empty houses, of hostile critics, of general disaster. She almost broke down under the trial, and the sight of her first play-bill which told that the die was irrevocably cast for good or evil made her heart sink with fear. On going down to the theater upon the opening night she found, with mingled pleasure and surprise, that on both sides of the Atlantic fellow artists were regarding her with kindly sympathizing hearts. Her dressing-room was filled with beautiful floral offerings from many distinguished actors in England and America, while telegrams from Booth, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, Irving, Ellen Terry, Christine Nilsson, and Lillie Langtry, bade her be of good courage, and wished her success. The overture smote like a dirge on her ear, and when the callboy came to announce that the moment of her entrance was at hand, it reminded her of nothing so much as the feeling of mourners when the sable mute appears at the door, as a signal to form the procession to the tomb. But in a moment the ordeal was safely pa.s.sed, and pa.s.sed forever so far as an English audience is concerned. Seldom has any actress received so warm and enthusiastic a reception. Mary Anderson confesses now that never till that moment did she experience anything so generous and so sympathetic, and offered to one who was then but "a stranger in a strange land." Mary Anderson's Parthenia was a brilliant success. Her glorious youth, her strange beauty, her admirable impersonation of a part of exceptional difficulty, won their way to all hearts. A certain amount of nervousness and timidity was inevitable to a first performance. The sudden revulsion of feeling, from deep despondency to complete triumphant success, made it difficult, at times, for the actress to master her feelings sufficiently to make her words audible through the house. One candid youth in the gallery endeavored to encourage her with a kindly "Speak up, Mary." The words recalled her in an instant to herself, and for the rest of the evening she had regained her wonted self-possession.

From that time till Mary Anderson's first Lyceum season closed, the world of London flocked to see her. The house was packed nightly from floor to ceiling, and she is said to have played to more money than the distinguished lessee of the theater himself. Among the visitors with whom Mary Anderson was a special favorite were the prince and princess. They witnessed each of her performances more than once, and both did her the honor to make her personal acquaintance, and compliment her on her success. So many absurd stories have been circulated as to Mary Anderson's alleged unwillingness to meet the Prince of Wales, that the true story may as well be told once for all here. On one of the early performances of "Ingomar," the prince and princess occupied the royal box, and the prince caused it to be intimated to Mary Anderson that he should be glad to be introduced to her after the third act. The little republican naively responded that she never saw any one till after the close of the performance. H.R.H. promptly rejoined that he always left the theater immediately the curtain fell. Meanwhile the manager represented to her the ungraciousness of not complying with a request which half the actresses in London would have sacrificed their diamonds to receive. And so at the close of the third act Mary Anderson presented herself, leaning on her father's arm, in the anteroom of the royal box. Only the prince was there, and "He said to me," relates Mary Anderson, "more charming things than were ever said to me, in a few minutes, in all my life. I was delighted with his kindness, and with his simple pleasant manner, which put me at my ease in a moment; but I was rather surprised that the princess did not see me as well." The piece over, and there came a second message, that the princess also wished to be introduced. With her winning smile she took Mary Anderson's hand in hers, and thanking her for the pleasure she had afforded by her charming impersonation, graciously presented Mary with her own bouquet.

The true version of another story, this time as to the Princess of Wales and Mary Anderson, may as well now be given. One evening Count Gleichen happened to be dining _tete-a-tete_ with the prince and princess at Marlborough House. When they adjourned to the drawing-room, the princess showed the count some photographs of a young lady, remarking upon her singular beauty, and suggesting what a charming subject she would make for his chisel. The count was fain to confess that he did not even know who the lady was, and had to be informed that she was the new American actress, beautiful Mary Anderson. He expressed the pleasure it would give him to have so charming a model in his studio, and asked the princess whether he was at liberty to tell Mary Anderson that the suggestion came from her, to which the princess replied that he certainly might do so.

Three replicas of the bust will be executed, of which Count Gleichen intends to present one to her royal highness, another to Mary Anderson's mother, while the third will be placed in the Grosvenor Gallery. This is really all the foundation for the story of a royal command to Count Gleichen to execute a bust of Mary Anderson for the Princess of Wales.

Among those who were constant visitors at the Lyceum was Lord Lytton, or as Mary Anderson loves to call him, "Owen Meredith." Her representation of his father's heroine in "The Lady of Lyons" naturally interested him greatly, and it is possible he may himself write for her a special play.

Between them there soon sprung up one of those warm friendships often seen between two artist natures, and Lord Lytton paid Mary Anderson the compliment of lending her an unpublished ma.n.u.script play of his father's to read. Tennyson, too, sought the acquaintance of one who in his verse would make a charming picture. He was invited to meet her at dinner at a London house, and was her cavalier on the occasion. The author of "The Princess" did not in truth succeed in supplanting in her regard the bard of her native land, Longfellow; but he so won on Mary's heart that she afterward presented him with the gift--somewhat unpoetic, it must be admitted--of a bottle of priceless Kentucky whisky, of a fabulous age!

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

Mary Anderson's success in London was fully indorsed by the verdict of the great provincial towns. Everywhere she was received with enthusiasm, and hundreds were nightly turned from the doors of the theaters where she appeared. In Edinburgh she played to a house of 450, a larger sum than was ever taken at the doors of the Lyceum. The receipts of the week in Manchester were larger than those of any preceding week in the theatrical history of the great Northern town. Taken as a whole, her success has been without a parallel on the English stage. If she has not altogether escaped hostile criticism in the press, she has won the sympathies of the public in a way which no artist of other than English birth has succeeded in doing before her. They have come and gone, dazzled us for a time, but have left behind them no endearing remembrance. Mary Anderson has found her way to our hearts. It seems almost impossible that she can ever leave us to resume again the old life of a wandering star across the great American continent. It may be rash to venture a prophecy as to what the future may bring forth; but thus much we may say with truth, that, whenever Mary Anderson departs finally from our sh.o.r.es, the name of England will remain graven on her heart.

CHAPTER VII.

IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND.

Almost every traveler from either side of the Atlantic, with the faintest pretensions to distinction, bursts forth on his return to his native sh.o.r.es in a volume of "Impressions." Archaeologists and philosophers, novelists and divines, apostles of sweetness and light, and star actors, are accustomed thus to favor the public with volumes which the public could very often be well content to spare. It is but natural that we should wish to know what Mary Anderson thinks of the "fast-anch.o.r.ed isle"

and the folk who dwell therein. I wish, indeed, that these "Impressions"

could have been given in her own words. The work would have been much better done, and far more interesting; but failing this, I must endeavor, following a recent ill.u.s.trious example, to give them at second hand.

During the earlier months of her stay among us, she lived somewhat the life of a recluse. Shut up in a pretty villa under the shadow of the Hampstead Hills, she saw little society but that of a few fellow artists, who found their way to her on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, she almost shrank from the idea of entering general society. The English world she wished to know was a world of the past, peopled by the creations of genius; not the modern world, which crowds London drawing-rooms. She saw the English people from the stage, and they were to her little more than audiences which vanished from her life when the curtain descended. From her earliest years she had been, in common with many of her countrymen, a pa.s.sionate admirer of the great English novelist, d.i.c.kens. Much of her leisure was spent in pilgrimages to the spots round London which he has made immortal.

Now and then, with her brother for a protector, she would go to lunch at an ancient hostelry in the Borough, where one of the scenes of d.i.c.kens'

stories is laid, but which has degenerated now almost to the rank of a public-house. Here she would try to people the place in fancy with the characters of the novel. "To listen to the talk of the people at such places," she once said to me, "was better than any play I ever saw."

Stratford-on-Avon too, was, of course, revisited, and many days were spent in lingering lovingly over the memorials of her favorite Shakespeare. She soon became well known to the guardians of the spot, and many privileges were granted to her not accorded on her first visit, four years before, when she was regarded but as a unit in the crowd of pa.s.sing visitors who throng to the shrine of the great master of English dramatic art. On one occasion when she was in the church of Stratford-on-Avon, the ancient clerk asked her if she would mind being locked in while he went home to his tea. Nothing loath she consented, and remained shut up in the still solemnity of the place. Kneeling down by the grave of Shakespeare, she took out a pocket "Romeo and Juliet" and recited Juliet's death scene close to the spot where the great master, who created her, lay in his long sleep. But presently the wind rose to a storm, the branches of the surrounding trees dashed against the windows, darkness spread through the ghostly aisles, and terror-stricken, Mary fled to the door, glad enough to be released by the returning janitor.

Rural England with its moss-grown farmhouses, its gray steeples, its white cottages cl.u.s.tering under their shadow, its tiny fields, its green hedgerows, garrisoned by the mighty elms, charmed Mary Anderson beyond expression, contrasting so strongly with the vast prairies, the primeval forests, the mighty rivers of her own giant land. These were the boundaries of her horizon in the earlier months of her stay among us; she knew little but the England of the past, and the England as the stranger sees it, who pa.s.ses on his travels through its smiling landscapes. But a change of residence to Kensington brought Mary Anderson more within reach of those whom she had so charmed upon the stage, and who longed to have the opportunity of knowing her personally. By degrees her drawing-rooms became the scene of an informal Sunday afternoon reception. Artists and novelists, poets and sculptors, statesmen and divines, journalists and people of fashion crowded to see her, and came away wondering at the skill and power with which this young girl, evidently fresh to society, could hold her own, and converse fluently and intelligently on almost any subject. If the verdict of London society was that Mary Anderson was as clever in the drawing-room as she was attractive on the stage, she, in her turn, was charmed to speak face to face with many whose names and whose works had long been familiar to her. It was a new world of art and intellect and genius to which she was suddenly introduced, and which seemed to her all the more brilliant after the somewhat prosaic uniformity of society in her own republican land. To say that she admires and loves England with all her heart may be safely a.s.serted. To say that it has almost succeeded in stealing away her heart from the land of her birth, she would hardly like to hear said. But we think her mind is somewhat that of Captain Macheath, in the "Beggars' Opera"--

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

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

One instance of Mary Anderson's kind and womanly sympathy to some of the poorest of London's waifs and strays should not be unrecorded here. It was represented to her at Christmas time that funds were needed for a dinner to a number of poor boys in Seven Dials. She willingly found them, and a good old-fashioned English dinner was given, at her expense, in the Board School Room to some three hundred hungry little fellows, who crowded through the snow of the wintry New Year's Day to its hospitable roof.

Though she is not of our faith, Mary Anderson was true to the precepts of that Christian Charity which, at such seasons, knows no distinction of creed; and of all the kind acts which she has done quietly and unostentatiously since she came among us, this is one which commends her perhaps most of all to our affection and regard.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VERDICT OF THE CRITICS.

"_Quot homines, tot sententiae._"

It may, perhaps, be interesting to record here some of the criticisms which have appeared in several of the leading London and provincial journals on Mary Anderson's performances, and especially on her _debut_ at the Lyceum. Such notices are forgotten almost as soon as read, and except for some biographical purpose like the present, lie buried in the files of a newspaper office. It is usual to intersperse them with the text; but for the purpose of more convenient reference they have been included in a separate chapter.

_Standard_, 3d September, 1883.

"The opening of the Lyceum on Sat.u.r.day evening, was signalized by the a.s.sembly of a crowded and fashionable audience to witness the first appearance in this country of Miss Mary Anderson as Parthenia in Maria Lovell's four-act play of 'Ingomar.' Though young in years, Miss Anderson is evidently a practiced actress. She knows the business of the stage perfectly, is learned in the art of making points, and, what is more, knows how to bide her opportunity. The wise discretion which imposes restraint upon the performer was somewhat too rigidly observed in the earlier scenes on Sat.u.r.day night, the consequence being that in one of the most impressive pa.s.sages of the not very inspired dialogue, the little distance between the sublime and the ridiculous was bridged by a voice from the gallery, which, adopting a tone, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 'A little louder, Mary.' A less experienced artist might well have been taken aback by this sudden infraction of dramatic proprieties. Miss Anderson, however, did not loose her nerve, but simply took the hint in good part and acted upon it.

There is very little reason to dwell at any length upon the piece. Miss Anderson will, doubtless, take a speedy opportunity of appearing in some other work in which her capacity as an actress can be better gauged than in Maria Lovell's bit of tawdry sentiment. A real power of delineating pa.s.sion was exhibited in the scene where Parthenia repulses the advances of her too venturesome admirer, and in this direction, to our minds, the best efforts of the lady tend. All we can do at present is to chronicle Miss Anderson's complete success, the recalls being so numerous as to defy particularization."

_The Times_, 3d September, 1883.

"Miss Mary Anderson, although but three or four and twenty, has for several years past occupied a leading position in the United States, and ranks as the highest of the American 'stars,' whose effulgence Mr. Abbey relies upon to attract the public at the Lyceum in Mr. Irving's absence.