Mary Anderson (1859-1940)

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Mary Anderson (1859-1940)

 

In Press and Literature

DEBUT OF OUR MARY (Steubenville Daily Herald [USA], 13th Feb, 1896)

NOTABLE WOMEN - MADAME DE NAVARRO (Daily Mail [London, UK], 28th July, 1896)

MARY ANDERSON: HERMIONE: PERDITA (A chapter from: SHADOWS OF THE STAGE)

MISS MARY ANDERS0N (Daily Mail [London, UK], 31st Dec, 1903)

(Steubenville Daily Herald [USA], 13th Feb, 1896)
DEBUT OF OUR MARY
Miss Anderson's First Appearance on the Stage.
MILNES LEVICK'S RECOLLECTIONS.

The Veteran Actor Tells the Reason why the Young Louisville Girl Was Given the Opportunity to Play Juliet - Her Awkwardness and Amateurishness.

Mary Anderson, in her reminiscences shortly to be published, mentions the boorishness of most of tho members of the company when she made her debut on the stage of MucAuluy's theater, Louisville, and then speaks in the highest terms of the kindness of Milnes Levick to her on that occasion, when upon her success depended her future. Who knows that but for the words of encouragement and bits of advice given to the young debutante by the veteran actor we might never have known the genius of Mary Anderson, the only American player of recent years who won unqualified success in hypercritical London?

Milnes Levick lives in a pretty little cottage in East One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street, but a short distance from Long Island sound, and I sought him there to get his recollection of the debut of Miss Anderson. The man who is generally conceded to have been the greatest Mercutionb this country has ever sceen and one of the very best MacBeths has none of the affectations assumed by many of the latter day one-part actorettes, and he made no effort to conceal his pleasure at the opportunity given him to say something about an episode which he declares can never be blotted from his memory. In Mr. Levick's own words the story of Mary Anderson's beginning on the stage was as follows:

"It was in l876 that some persons who were good enough to consider me a pretty fair actor thought that, as patriotism was in the air, owing to the fact that it was centennial year, it might pay to take advantage of the supposed popular feeling by Starring me in a play dramatized from Cooper's celebrated novel, 'The Spy.' It was argued that everybody would flock to the theater to see a play so essentially American. There was no chance of failure, and every one connected with the enterprise was congratulated upon his or her good fortune. Well, I started out, and, strange as it may appear, the people did not flock to see me in 'The Spy.' I got to MacAuley's theater, in Louisville, and 'The Spy' was done again. We opened to a miserable house on Monday night, which was much worse Tuesday, still worse Wednesday and as nearly as possible zero Thursday. I cannot begin to tell you how bad the business really was.

(Daily Mail [London, UK], 28th July, 1896)
NOTABLE WOMEN
Madame de Navarro

From the fact that she has elected to make our country her home, we look upon Mary Anderson as quite one of ourselves. It was in England that she became so great a stage favourite, and here too she has spent her happy married life. Not a little of the happiness which is Mary Anderson's to-day comes from the fact that she married the right man. For nearly ten years Signer Antonio Fernando Navarro de Viana, to give him his full name, was her suitor; for six years he has been her devoted helpmeet and inseparable companion. The two are never apart. Charming a woman as Mary Anderson is, her husband is none the less attractive in his strong and manly character. In music he shares his wife's fondness, and performs on several instruments, excelling upon the organ. He is well-read, widely travelled, and, in consequence, a delightful conversationalist.

Since their marriage this happy pair have made Tunbridge Wells their home, frequently coming to London, where several of Mme. de Navarro's relatives dwell. Now they have in contemplation the purchase of a beautiful house in Devonshire. There they will enjoy their chief delight, an open air existence. No outdoor exercise seems too much or too great for Mme. de Navarro. She delights in the open air, a vigorous walk, a hard climb, a drive in the teeth of the wind, or a brisk gallop in the saddle. She attires herself for her outings in a costume which has greater regard for the comfort of its wearer than for style or appearance. "I look disreputable, I know," she said one day when starting for a walk "but we don't care for style, my husband and I, we go in for comfort." And they get it too. The weather, however bad, never deters them from taking their walks or drives. They simply dress to discount the discomforts it offers. It is Mme. de Navarro's birthday to-day.

The prospect of my getting back to New York by the following Monday evening to take an engagement which had been offered me at Booth's Theater began to grow exceedingly dim, and I went to MacAuley to ask what was to be done. That good natured giant, who was a dear friend of mine, promptly informed me that he would see that I was provided with transportation to New York, and then he said, 'Let me think' and he did think for a long time. At last he looked up with an inspiration. 'I have it' he exclaimed. 'There is a girl about 16 years of age in this city, who is well connected socially and a general favorite. She is stagestruck and has insisted upon having several of the most prominent stars who have visited my theater hear her read, among them John McCullough. She is constantly studying and rehearsing by herself, and I know that she is up in 'Romeo and Juliet.' I am of the opinion that if we could put her on in that piece on Saturday night we could make some money.

"'Has she ever acted' I asked.

"'Never to my knowledge'" replied MacAuley, "but that makes no difference. I am depending upon the curiosity to see her rather than upon any ability she may possess.

"'All right', said I, 'things certainly cannot be any worse than they are. Send for her. By the way, what is her name?'

"'Mary Anderson.'

"And so a messenger was dispatched to notify Miss Anderson that the manager was anxious to see her at once. That young lady was found upon her return from the cathedral, and she and her mother immediately repaired to the office of Mr. MacAuley, whore Miss Anderson was asked if she could be ready to play Juliet by Saturday night and with only one rehearsal. She unhesitatingly replied that she could, as she already had the part 'letter perfect.' I well remember that it was a rainy, slushy day, but that was a mere trifle to a determined girl who had after careful consideration come to the conclusion that the stage was her destiny.

"MacAuley and I then had another consultation, and it was suggested that I play Romeo. I objected on the double ground that I was not up to the part and that I had made some little reputation as Mercutio. Besides, it was absolutely necessary that I should have some character which was killed off early in the play, so that I might be enabled to leave on the train for Cincinnati, connecting with the other, which would land me in New York on Monday. Then we set about to cast the piece, and to our dismay we found that it was impossible to do it with the company we had. It was decided to telegraph to Mr. MacAuley's Cincinnati theater for a few people who were supposed to be somewhat famliar with 'Romeo and Juliet.' This done, Miss Anderson was notified that a rehearsal would be held at 9 o'clock Saturday morning.

"Some of the people were inclined, as Miss Anderson states in her memoirs, to look down upon the ambitious girl who at least temporarily was to be the center of attraction at their expense and by their sufferance, as they regarded it. I shall never forget her appearance as she walked on the stage that morning - a tall, rather lanky girl of 16, who would have been a particularly handsome boy, but who gave very little evidence of the possession of that stately beauty which was afterward to make her famous in combination with her ability and that marvelous voice of hers which even then was a source of admiration to everybody who participated in that rehearsal. The young debutante came to me as the star of the week, I suppose, and modestly requested that I give her any suggestions which I thought might be of benefit to her, and I of course cheerfully consented, she seemed so terribly in earnest. The rehearsal proceeded. Some of the old actors were not as considerate as they might have been. They rather resented the changing of their well defined ideas of the business of the play to conform to that of a tyro, but Mr. MacAuley and I had determined that no obstacle should be put in her way, and wherever she desired a modification it was made, even to the putting of the balcony on the side opposite to which it is usually placed. Miss Anderson has evidently exaggerated our consideration in these little matters, as we should have done it for any one. I was impressed with the fact that, whatever other shortcomings our new star might possess, nervousness was not one of them, for I never in my life have seen a person more determined to take full advantage of the opportunity thus accidentally afforded her.

"Well, the eventful night came, and with it the first large audience of the week. We were naturally overjoyed Miss Anderson and her mother were at the theater hours before the time for the curtain to rise, and she did not appear to be in the least, embarrassed. She dressed simply for the part and made a very winsome picture. Everything went fairly well up to the first scene of the third act, where I, as Mercutio, was killed, and, at once drawing my trousers on over my tights, started in a cab for the station to catch the train for Cincinnati, on route to New York, where, I may say, I arrived in time to appear at Booth's theater Monday night.

"I was told afterward by Miss Anderson and others of several contretemps which occurred after my departure. The thing, however, which seemed to have annoyed her most was the unfamiliarity of some of the actors with their lines and their apparent indifference to their remissness. Their conduct cannot be too severely condemned, and subsequent events served to show that the young, awkward girl whom they sought to ridicule and humiliate was really the natural superior of any of them, so far as acting was concerned. I am glad that Miss Anderson has seen fit in her memoirs to state the facts as they occurred.

"My impression of Miss Anderson on the occasion of her debut? We all know what she did accomplish within a surprisingly short period, and post-success opinions are not apt to be regarded very highly. To be perfectly frank, I had not the slightest idea at that time that she would ever rise to the eminence that she subsequently reached, but I did believe that she possessed the dramatic instinct in a marked degree, and with her temperament and unquestioned conscientiousness and perseverance, I expected that she would in time become a prominent leading woman for some male star. I afterward learned that Miss Anderson had started out with the intention of playing first fiddle or none at all, and that she would never have consented to support the most prominent actor in the world, so that my mental prediction was impossible of fulfillment. Still there can be no question that sho did make a hit on her first appearance, despite her awkardness and glaring crudities of style, as well as a painfully manifest amateurishness which, strange to say, some beginners never betray, if indeed they are afflicted it at all.

"That is the story of Mary Anderson's stage debut as far as I know it. MacAuley's determination to give her a chance candor compels me to say, was not based upon any marvellous discernment oh her latent ability, but upon a derisre to bank upon the curiosity of the good people of Louisville to see the girl whom they all knew and liked in an important role on the stage supported by real professional actors. My consent to her appearance may be attributed to the same sordid motives. Neither of us deserved any credit as the discoverer of a new histrionic marvel. It was accident pure and simple that gave Mary Anderson her first opportunity. Her talent did the rest."

Mr. Levick was some years after the leading man in Mary Anderson's company, and the two often went over with much amusement the events of the night which gave to the American stage one of its brightest lights.

OCTAVUS COHEN. New York.


(A chapter from SHADOWS OF THE STAGE BY WILLIAM WINTER, New York MacMillan and Company and London 1893)
MARY ANDERSON: HERMIONE: PERDITA.

On November 25, 1875 an audience was assembled in one of the theatres of Louisville, Kentucky, to see "the first appearance upon any stage" of "a young lady of Louisville," who was announced to play Shakespeare's Juliet. That young lady was in fact a girl, in her sixteenth year, who had never received any practical stage training, whose education had been comprised in five years of ordinary schooling, whose observation of life had never extended beyond the narrow limits of a provincial city, who was undeveloped, unheralded, unknown, and poor, and whose only qualifications for the task she had set herself to accomplish were the impulse of genius and the force of commanding character. She dashed at the work with all the vigour of abounding and enthusiastic youth, and with all the audacity of complete inexperience. A rougher performance of Juliet probably was never seen, but through all the disproportion and turbulence of that effort the authentic charm of a beautiful nature was distinctly revealed. The sweetness, the sincerity, the force, the exceptional superiority and singular charm of that nature could not be mistaken. The uncommon stature and sumptuous physical beauty of the girl were obvious. Above all, her magnificent voice-copious, melodious, penetrating, loud and clear, yet soft and gentle-delighted every ear and touched every heart. The impersonation of Juliet was not highly esteemed by judicious hearers; but some persons who saw that performance felt and said that a new actress had risen and that a great career had begun. Those prophetic voices were right. That "young lady of Louisville" was Mary Anderson.

It is seldom in stage history that the biographer comes upon such a character as that of Mary Anderson, or is privileged to muse over the story of such a career as she has had. In many cases the narrative of the life of an actress is a narrative of talents perverted, of opportunity misused, of failure, misfortune, and suffering. For one story like that of Mrs. Siddons there are many like that of Mrs. Robinson. For one name like that of Charlotte Cushman or that of Helen Faucit there are many like that of Lucille Western or that of Matilda Heron-daughters of sorrow and victims of trouble. The mind lingers, accordingly, impressed and pleased with a sense of sweet personal worth as well as of genius and beauty upon the record of a representative American actress, as noble as she was brilliant, and as lovely in her domestic life as she was beautiful, fortunate, and renowned in her public pursuits. The exposition of her nature, as apprehended through her acting, constitutes the principal part of her biography.

Mary Anderson, a native of California, was born at Sacramento, July 28, 1859. Her father, Charles Joseph Anderson, who died in 1863, aged twenty-nine, and was buried in Magnolia cemetery, Mobile, Alabama, was an officer in the service of the Southern Confederacy at the time of his death, and he is said to have been a handsome and dashing young man. Her mother, Marie Antoinette Leugers, was a native of Philadelphia. Her earlier years were passed in Louisville, whither she was taken in 1860, and she was there taught in a Roman Catholic school and reared in the Roman Catholic faith under the guidance of a Franciscan priest, Anthony Miller, her mother's uncle. She left school before she was fourteen years old and she went upon the stage before she was sixteen. She had while a child seen various theatrical performances, notably those given by Edwin Booth, and her mind had been strongly drawn toward the stage under the influence of those sights. The dramatic characters that she first studied were male characters-those of Hamlet, Wolsey, Richelieu, and Richard III.-and to those she added Schiller's Joan of Arc. She studied those parts privately, and she knew them all and knew them well. Professor Noble Butler, of Louisville, gave her instruction in English literature and elocution, and in 1874, at Cincinnati, Charlotte Cushman said a few encouraging words to her, and told her to persevere in following the stage, and to "begin at the top." George Vandenhoff gave her a few lessons before she came out, and then followed her d?but as Juliet, leading to her first regular engagement, which began at Barney Macaulay's Theatre, Louisville, January 20, 1876. From that time onward for thirteen years she was an actress,-never in a stock company but always as a star,-and her name became famous in Great Britain as well as America. She had eight seasons of steadily increasing prosperity on the American stage before she went abroad to act, and she became a favourite all over the United States. She filled three seasons at the Lyceum Theatre, London (from September 1, 1883, to April 5, 1884; from November 1, 1884, to April 25, 1885; and from September 10, 1887, to March 24, 1888), and her success there surpassed, in profit, that of any American actor who had appeared in England. She revived Romeo and Juliet with much splendour at the London Lyceum on November 1, 1884, and she restored A Winter's Tale to the stage, bringing forward that comedy on September 10, 1887, and carrying it through the season. She made several prosperous tours of the English provincial theatres, and established herself as a favourite actress in fastidious Edinburgh, critical Manchester, and impulsive but exacting Dublin. The repertory with which she gained fame and fortune included Juliet, Hermione, Perdita, Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Julia, Bianca, Evadne, Parthenia, Pauline, The Countess, Galatea, Clarice, Ion, Meg Merrilies, Berthe, and the Duchess de Torrenueva. She incidentally acted a few other parts, Desdemona being one of them. Her distinctive achievements were in Shakespearean drama. She adopted into her repertory two plays by Tennyson, The Cup and The Falcon, but never produced them. This record signifies the resources of mind, the personal charm, the exalted spirit, and the patient, wisely directed and strenuous zeal that sustained her achievements and justified her success.

(Daily Mail [London, UK], 31st Dec, 1903)
MISS MARY ANDERS0N
THE SONG THAT REACHED 2,000 CHILDREN'S HEARTS

There stood last evening on the stage of the People's Palace in the East End a priest, who, with his biretta perched far back on his head, was blowing lustily through a policeman's whistle.

By his side was a tall, slender, and beautiful woman, who, with one white hand pressed against the bosom of her white dress, was laughing softly. This quaint little tableau represented Father Vaughan introducing Miss Mary Anderson (Mme. de Navarro) to an audience of 2000 of the poorest little Boman Catholics in London. And all these little Roman Catholics were shouting wildly.

"Two thousand children," when one writes the words, do not seem so very many, but when 2,000 children are packed in one big room their presence is a trifle overwhelming. It is a tremendous task to keep 2,000 pairs of lungs from yelling, 4,000 little hands from clapping, and 4,000 heavily-shod feet from stamping. But Father Vaughan and Miss Mary Anderson, who undertook the task, succeeded very well.

Father Vaughan quelled them with his whistle and a bugle, while Miss Mary Anderson achieved the same result by a smile and a little pleading gesture of the hands that hypnotised the vociferous multitude into silence.

BEWITCHING SONGS

She sang to them some sweet and simple ditties. There was one all about "Cicely, Cicely dear," that was so bewitching that it seemed as though the applause would never end. But then the mere sight of her was enough to capture every heart. No one could withstand the infinite kindness of her smile, as she stood resting one white arm on the top of the piano against which she leant, one small, satin-slippered foot tapping the time of the music.

The impression one got was not that of a great artiste, but of a pretty young mother singing from the fullness of a happy heart to a large family gathering. M. de Navarro sang, too, in duet, with his beautiful wife. The song was in Italian, and therefore not very understandable, but as Father Vaughan had announced that it was all about "Macaroni," and as that word occurred very frequently, it was hailed with much shrill laughter.

When the interval came, Miss Mary Anderson slipped her hands into the sticky mass of eatables stowed in deal boxes, and distributed buns and smiles. After that came a wholesale circulation of oranges, which was followed by a general fight with orange peel, till Father Vaughan whistled, for order.

With the assistance of that whistle Father Vaughan held his vast host of children in the hollow of his hand. With a devotional book tucked under one arm, and conducting the boys' brass band with a rolled up newspaper, he made the youth of Whitechapel, Bow and Wapping sing "Sail Away," as they had never sung it before.

After that there was a conjurer. It was late when the Father blessed Miss Mary Anderson and all the children, and thus ended what he called "a jolly evening with the blessing of God on it."

Aspirants in the field of art are continually coming to the surface. In poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and in acting-which involves and utilises those other arts-the line of beginners is endless. Constantly, as the seasons roll by, these essayists emerge, and as constantly, after a little time, they disappear. The process is sequent upon an obvious law of spiritual life,-that all minds which are conscious of the art impulse must at least make an effort toward expression, but that no mind can succeed in the effort unless, in addition to the art impulse, it possesses also the art faculty. For expression is the predominant necessity of human nature. Out of this proceed forms and influences of beauty. These react upon mankind, pleasing an instinct for the beautiful, and developing the faculty of taste. Other and finer forms and influences of beauty ensue, civilisation is advanced, and thus finally the way is opened toward that condition of immortal spiritual happiness which this process of experience prefigures and prophesies. But the art faculty is of rare occurrence. At long intervals there is a break in the usual experience of stage failure, and some person hitherto unknown not only takes the field but keeps it. When Garrick came out, as the Duke of Gloster, in the autumn of 1741, in London, he had never been heard of, but within a brief time he was famous. "He at once decided the public taste," said Macklin; and Pope summed up the victory in the well-known sentence, "That young man never had an equal, and will never have a rival." Tennyson's line furnishes the apt and comprehensive comment-"The many fail, the one succeeds." Mary Anderson in her day furnished the most conspicuous and striking example, aside from that of Adelaide Neilson, to which it is possible to refer of this exceptional experience. And yet, even after years of trial and test, it is doubtful whether the excellence of that remarkable actress was entirely comprehended in her own country. The provincial custom of waiting for foreign authorities to discover our royal minds is one from which many inhabitants of America have not yet escaped. As an actress, indeed, Mary Anderson was, probably, more popular than any player on the American stage excepting Edwin Booth or Joseph Jefferson; but there is a difference between popularity and just and comprehensive intellectual recognition. Many actors get the one; few get the other.

Much of the contemporary criticism that is lavished upon actors in this exigent period-so bountifully supplied with critical observations, so poorly furnished with creative art-touches only upon the surface. Acting is measured with a tape and the chief demand seems to be for form. This is right, and indeed is imperative, whenever it is certain that the actor at his best is one who never can rise above the high-water mark of correct mechanism. There are cases that need a deeper method of inquiry and a more searching glance. A wise critic, when this emergency comes, is something more than an expert who gives an opinion upon a professional exploit. The special piece of work may contain technical flaws, and yet there may be within it a soul worth all the "icily regular and splendidly null" achievements that ever were possible to proficient mediocrity. That soul is visible only to the observer who can look through the art into the interior spirit of the artist, and thus can estimate a piece of acting according to its inspirational drift and the enthralling and ennobling personality out of which it springs. The acting of Mary Anderson, from the first moment of her career, was of the kind that needs that deep insight and broad judgment,-aiming to recognise and rightly estimate its worth. Yet few performers of the day were so liberally favoured with the monitions of dullness and the ponderous patronage of self-complacent folly.

Conventional judgment as to Mary Anderson's acting expressed itself in one statement-"she is cold." There could not be a greater error. That quality in Mary Anderson's acting-a reflex from her spiritual nature-which produced upon the conventional mind the effect of coldness was in fact distinction, the attribute of being exceptional. The judgment that she was cold was a resentful judgment, and was given in a spirit of detraction. It proceeded from an order of mind that can never be content with the existence of anything above its own level. "He hath," said Iago, speaking of Cassio, "a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly." Those detractors did not understand themselves as well as the wily Italian understood himself, and they did not state their attitude with such precision; in fact, they did not state it at all, for it was unconscious with them and involuntary. They saw a being unlike themselves, they vaguely apprehended the presence of a superior nature, and that they resented. The favourite popular notion is that all men are born free and equal; which is false. Free and equal they all are, undoubtedly, in the eye of the law. But every man is born subject to heredity and circumstance, and whoever will investigate his life will perceive that he never has been able to stray beyond the compelling and constraining force of his character-which is his fate. All men, moreover, are unequal. To one human being is given genius; to another, beauty; to another, strength; to another, exceptional judgment; to another, exceptional memory; to another, grace and charm; to still another, physical ugliness and spiritual obliquity, moral taint, and every sort of disabling weakness. To the majority of persons Nature imparts mediocrity, and it is from mediocrity that the derogatory denial emanates as to the superior men and women of our race. A woman of the average kind is not difficult to comprehend. There is nothing distinctive about her. She is fond of admiration; rather readily censorious of other women; charitable toward male rakes; and partial to fine attire. The poet Wordsworth's formula, "Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles," comprises all that is essential for her existence, and that bard has himself precisely described her, in a grandfatherly and excruciating couplet, as

A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food.

Women of that sort are not called "cold." The standard is ordinary and it is understood. But when a woman appears in art whose life is not ruled by the love of admiration, whose nature is devoid of vanity, who looks with indifference upon adulation, whose head is not turned by renown, whose composure is not disturbed by flattery, whose simplicity is not marred by wealth, who does not go into theatrical hysterics and offer that condition of artificial delirium as the mood of genius in acting, who above all makes it apparent in her personality and her achievements that the soul can be sufficient to itself and can exist without taking on a burden of the fever or dulness of other lives, there is a flutter of vague discontent among the mystified and bothered rank and file, and we are apprised that she is "cold." That is what happened in the case of Mary Anderson.

What are the faculties and attributes essential to great success in acting? A sumptuous and supple figure that can realise the ideals of statuary; a mobile countenance that can strongly and unerringly express the feelings of the heart and the workings of the mind; eyes that can awe with the majesty or startle with the terror or thrill with the tenderness of their soul-subduing gaze; a voice, deep, clear, resonant, flexible, that can range over the wide compass of emotion and carry its meaning in varying music to every ear and every heart; intellect to shape the purposes and control the means of mimetic art; deep knowledge of human nature; delicate intuitions; the skill to listen as well as the art to speak; imagination to grasp the ideal of a character in all its conditions of experience; the instinct of the sculptor to give it form, of the painter to give it colour, and of the poet to give it movement; and, back of all, the temperament of genius-the genialised nervous system-to impart to the whole artistic structure the thrill of spiritual vitality. Mary Anderson's acting revealed those faculties and attributes, and those observers who realised the poetic spirit, the moral majesty, and the isolation of mind that she continually suggested felt that she was an extraordinary woman. Such moments in her acting as that of Galatea's mute supplication at the last of earthly life, that of Juliet's desolation after the final midnight parting with the last human creature whom she may ever behold, and that of Hermione's despair when she covers her face and falls as if stricken dead, were the eloquent denotements of power, and in those and such as those-with which her art abounded-was the fulfilment of every hope that her acting inspired and the vindication of every encomium that it received.

Early in her professional career, when considering her acting, the present essayist quoted as applicable to her those lovely lines by Wordsworth:-

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.

In the direction of development thus indicated she steadily advanced. Her affiliations were with grandeur, purity, and loveliness. An inherent and passionate tendency toward classic stateliness increased in her more and more. Characters of the statuesque order attracted her imagination-Ion, Galatea, Hermione-but she did not leave them soulless. In the interpretation of passion and the presentation of its results she revealed the striking truth that her perceptions could discern those consequences that are recorded in the soul and in comparison with which the dramatic entanglements of visible life are puny and evanescent. Though living in the rapid stream of the social world she dwelt aloof from it. She thought deeply, and in mental direction she took the pathway of intellectual power. It is not surprising that the true worth of such a nature was not accurately apprehended. Minds that are self-poised, stately, irresponsive to human weakness, unconventional and self-liberated from allegiance to the commonplace are not fully and instantly discernible, and may well perplex the smiling glance of frivolity; but they are permanent forces in the education of the human race. Mary Anderson retired from the stage, under the pressure of extreme fatigue, in the beginning of 1889 and entered upon a matrimonial life on June 17, 1890. It is believed that her retirement is permanent. The historical interest attaching to her dramatic career justifies the preservation of this commemorative essay.

There is so much beauty in the comedy of A Winter's Tale-so much thought, character, humour, philosophy, sweetly serene feeling and loveliness of poetic language-that the public ought to feel obliged to any one who successfully restores it to the stage, from which it usually is banished. The piece was written in the maturity of Shakespeare's marvellous powers, and indeed some of the Shakespearean scholars believe it to be the last work that fell from his hand. Human life, as depicted in A Winter's Tale, shows itself like what it always seems to be in the eyes of patient, tolerant, magnanimous experience-the eyes "that have kept watch o'er man's mortality"-for it is a scene of inexplicable contrasts and vicissitudes, seemingly the chaos of caprice and chance, yet always, in fact, beneficently overruled and guided to good ends. Human beings are shown in it as full of weakness; often as the puppets of laws that they do not understand and of universal propensities and impulses into which they never pause to inquire; almost always as objects of benignant pity. The woful tangle of human existence is here viewed with half-cheerful, half-sad tolerance, yet with the hope and belief that all will come right at last. The mood of the comedy is pensive but radically sweet. The poet is like the forest in Emerson's subtle vision of the inherent exultation of nature:-

Sober, on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

Mary Anderson doubled the characters of Hermione and Perdita. This had not been conspicuously done until it was done by her, and her innovation, in that respect, was met with grave disapproval. The moment the subject is examined, however, objection to that method of procedure is dispelled. Hermione, as a dramatic person, disappears in the middle of the third act of Shakespeare's comedy and comes no more until the end of the piece, when she emerges as a statue. Her character has been entirely expressed and her part in the action of the drama has been substantially fulfilled before she disappears. There is no intermediate passion to be wrought to a climax, nor is there any intermediate mood, dramatically speaking, to be sustained. The dramatic environment, the dramatic necessities, are vastly unlike, for example, those of Lady Macbeth-one of the hardest of all parts to play well, because exhibited intermittently, at long intervals, yet steadily constrained by the necessity of cumulative excitement. The representative of Lady Macbeth must be identified with that character, whether on the stage or off, from the beginning of it to the end. Hermione, on the contrary, is at rest from the moment when she faints upon receiving information of the death of her boy. A lapse of sixteen years is assumed, and then, standing forth as a statue, she personifies majestic virtue and victorious fortitude. When she descends from the pedestal she silently embraces Leontes, speaks a few pious, maternal and tranquil lines (there are precisely seven of them in the original, but Mary Anderson added two, from "All's Well"), and embraces Perdita, whom she has not seen since the girl's earliest infancy. This is their only meeting, and little is sacrificed by the use of a substitute for the daughter in that scene. Perdita's brief apostrophe to the statue has to be cut, but it is not missed in the representation. The resemblance between mother and daughter heightens the effect of illusion, in its impress equally upon fancy and vision; and a more thorough elucidation is given than could be provided in any other way of the spirit of the comedy. It was a judicious and felicitous choice that the actress made when she selected those two characters, and the fact that her impersonation of them carried a practically disused Shakespearean comedy through a season of one hundred and fifty nights at the Lyceum Theatre in London furnishes an indorsement alike of her wisdom and her ability. She played in a stage version of the piece, in five acts, containing thirteen scenes, arranged by herself.

While Mary Anderson was acting those two parts in London the sum of critical opinion seemed to be that her performance of Perdita was better than her performance of Hermione; but beneath that judgment there was, apparently, the impression that Hermione is a character fraught with superlatively great passions, powers, and qualities, such as are only to be apprehended by gigantic sagacity and conveyed by herculean talents and skill. Those vast attributes were not specified, but there was a mysterious intimation of their existence-as of something vague, formidable, and mostly elusive. But in truth Hermione, although a stronger part than Perdita, is neither complex, dubious, nor inaccessible; and Mary Anderson, although more fascinating in Perdita, could and did rise, in Hermione, to a noble height of tragic power-an excellence not possible for her, nor for anybody, in the more juvenile and slender character.

Hermione has usually been represented as an elderly woman and by such an actress as is technically called "heavy." She ought to be represented as about thirty years of age at the beginning of the piece, and forty-six at the end of it. Leontes is not more than thirty-four at the opening, and he would be fifty at the close. He speaks, in his first scene, of his boyhood as only twenty-three years gone, when his dagger was worn "muzzled, lest it should bite its master"-at which time he may have been ten years old; certainly not more, probably less. His words, toward the end of act third, "so sure as this beard's gray," refer to the beard of Antigonus, not to his own. He is a young man when the play begins, and Polixenes is about the same age, and Hermione is a young woman. Antigonus and Paulina are middle-aged persons in the earlier scenes and Paulina is an elderly woman in the statue scene-almost an old woman, though not too old to be given in marriage to old Camillo, the ever-faithful friend. In Mary Anderson's presentation of A Winter's Tale those details received thoughtful consideration and correct treatment.

In Hermione is seen a type of the celestial nature in woman-infinite love, infinite charity, infinite patience. Such a nature is rare; but it is possible, it exists, and Shakespeare, who depicted everything, did not omit to portray that. To comprehend Hermione the observer must separate her, absolutely and finally, from association with the passions. Mrs. Jameson acutely and justly describes her character as exhibiting "dignity without pride, love without passion, and tenderness without weakness." That is exactly true. Hermione was not easily won, and the best thing known about Leontes is that at last she came to love him and that her love for him survived his cruel and wicked treatment, chastened him, reinstated him, and ultimately blessed him. Hermione suffers the utmost affliction that a good woman can suffer. Her boy dies, heart-broken, at the news of his mother's alleged disgrace. Her infant daughter is torn from her breast and cast forth to perish. Her husband becomes her enemy and persecutor. Her chastity is assailed and vilified. She is subjected to the bitter indignity of a public trial. It is no wonder that at last her brain reels and she falls as if stricken dead. The apparent anomaly is her survival for sixteen years, in lonely seclusion, and her emergence, after that, as anything but a forlorn shadow of her former self. The poet Shelley has recorded the truth that all great emotions either kill themselves or kill those who feel them. It is here, however, that the exceptional temperament of Hermione supplies an explanatory and needed qualification. Her emotions are never of a passionate kind. Her mind predominates. Her life is in the affections and therefore it is one of thought. She sees clearly the facts of her experience and condition, and she knows exactly how those facts look in the eyes of others. She is one of those persons who possess a keen and just prescience of events, who can look far into the future and discern those resultant consequences of the present which, under the operation of inexorable moral law, must inevitably ensue. Self-poised in the right and free from the disturbing force of impulse and desire, she can await the justice of time, she can live, and she can live in the tranquil patience of resignation. True majesty of the person is dependent on repose of the soul, and there can be no repose of the soul without moral rectitude and a far-reaching, comprehensive, wise vision of events. Mary Anderson embodied Hermione in accordance with that ideal. By the expression of her face and the tones of her voice, in a single speech, the actress placed beyond question her grasp of the character:-

Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex commonly are-
the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities-
but I have that honourable grief lodged here,
which burns worse than tears drown.

The conspicuous, predominant, convincing artistic beauty in Mary Anderson's impersonation of Hermione was her realisation of the part, in figure, face, presence, demeanour, and temperament. She did not afflict her auditor with the painful sense of a person struggling upward toward an unattainable identity. She made you conscious of the presence of a queen. This, obviously, is the main thing-that the individuality shall be imperial, not merely wearing royal attire but being invested with the royal authenticity of divine endowment and consecration. Much emphasis has been placed by Shakespeare upon that attribute of innate grandeur. Leontes, at the opening of the trial scene, describes his accused wife as "the daughter of a king," and in the same scene her father is mentioned as the Emperor of Russia. The gentleman who, in act fifth, recounts to Autolycus the meeting between Leontes and his daughter Perdita especially notes "the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother." Hermione herself, in the course of her vindication-expressed in one of the most noble and pathetic strains of poetical eloquence in our language-names herself "a great king's daughter," therein recalling those august and piteous words of Shakespeare's Katharine:-

We are a Queen,
or long have thought so,
certain the daughter of a king.

Poor old Antigonus, in his final soliloquy, recounting the vision of Hermione that had come upon him in the night, declares her to be a woman royal and grand not by descent only but by nature:-

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So filled and so becoming.
In pure white robes,
Like very sanctity, she did approach.

That image Mary Anderson embodied, and therefore the ideal of Shakespeare was made a living thing-that glorious ideal, in shaping which the great poet "from all that are took something good, to make a perfect woman." Toward Polixenes, in the first scene, her manner was wholly gracious, delicately playful, innocently kind, and purely frail. Her quiet archness at the question, "Will you go yet?" struck exactly the right key of Hermione's mood. With the baby prince Mamillius her frolic and banter, affectionate, free, and gay, were in a happy vein of feeling and humour. Her simple dignity, restraining both resentment and grief, in face of the injurious reproaches of Leontes, was entirely noble and right, and the pathetic words, "I never wished to see you sorry, now I trust I shall," could not have been spoken with more depth and intensity of grieved affection than were felt in her composed yet tremulous voice. The entrance, at the trial scene, was made with the stateliness natural to a queenly woman, and yet with a touch of pathos-the cold patience of despair. The delivery of Hermione's defensive speeches was profoundly earnest and touching. The simple cry of the mother's breaking heart, and the action of veiling her face and falling like one dead, upon the announcement of the prince's death, were perfect denotements of the collapse of a grief-stricken woman. The skill with which the actress, in the monument scene-which is all repose and no movement-contrived nevertheless to invest Hermione with steady vitality of action, and to imbue the crisis with a feverish air of suspense, was in a high degree significant of the personality of genius. For such a performance of Hermione Shakespeare himself has provided the sufficient summary and encomium:-

Women will love her, that she is a woman
More worth than any man;
Men that she is the rarest of all women.

It is one thing to say that Mary Anderson was better in Perdita than in Hermione, and another thing to say that the performance of Perdita was preferred. Everybody preferred it-even those who knew that it was not the better of the two; for everybody loves the sunshine more than the shade. Hermione means grief and endurance. Perdita means beautiful youth and happy love. It does not take long for an observer to choose between them. Suffering is not companionable. By her impersonation of Hermione the actress revealed her knowledge of the stern truth of life, its trials, its calamities, and the possible heroism of character under its sorrowful discipline. Into that identity she passed by the force of her imagination. The embodiment was majestic, tender, pitiable, transcendent, but its colour was the sombre colour of pensive melancholy and sad experience. That performance was the higher and more significant of the two. But the higher form of art is not always the most alluring-never the most alluring when youthful beauty smiles and rosy pleasure beckons another way. All hearts respond to happiness. By her presentment of Perdita the actress became the glittering image and incarnation of glorious youthful womanhood and fascinating joy. No exercise of the imagination was needful to her in that. There was an instantaneous correspondence between the part and the player. The embodiment was as natural as a sunbeam. Shakespeare has left no doubt about his meaning in Perdita. The speeches of all around her continually depict her fresh and piquant loveliness, her innate superiority, her superlative charm; while her behaviour and language as constantly show forth her nobility of soul. One of the subtlest side lights thrown upon the character is in the description of the manner in which Perdita heard the story of her mother's death-when "attentiveness wounded" her "till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did bleed tears." And of the fibre of her nature there is perhaps no finer indication than may be felt in her comment on old Camillo's worldly view of prosperity as a vital essential to the permanence of love:-

I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

In the thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare there is no strain of the poetry of sentiment and grace essentially sweeter than that which he has put into the mouth of Perdita; and poetry could not be more sweetly spoken than it was by Mary Anderson in that delicious scene of the distribution of the flowers. The actress evinced comprehension of the character in every fibre of its being, and she embodied it with the affluent vitality of splendid health and buoyant temperament-presenting a creature radiant with goodness and happiness, exquisite in natural refinement, piquant with archness, soft, innocent, and tender in confiding artlessness, and, while gleeful and triumphant in beautiful youth, gently touched with an intuitive pitying sense of the thorny aspects of this troubled world. The giving of the flowers completely bewitched her auditors. The startled yet proud endurance of the king's anger was in an equal degree captivating. Seldom has the stage displayed that rarest of all combinations, the passionate heart of a woman with the lovely simplicity of a child. Nothing could be more beautiful than she was to the eyes that followed her lithe figure through the merry mazes of her rustic dance-an achievement sharply in contrast with her usually statuesque manner. It "makes old hearts fresh" to see a spectacle of grace and joy, and that spectacle they saw then and will not forget. The value of those impersonations of Hermione and Perdita, viewing them as embodied interpretations of poetry was great, but they possessed a greater value and a higher significance as denotements of the guiding light, the cheering strength, the elevating loveliness of a noble human soul. They embodied the conception of the poet, but at the same time they illumined an actual incarnation of the divine spirit. They were like windows to a sacred temple, and through them you could look into the soul of a true woman-always a realm where thoughts are gliding angels, and feelings are the faces of seraphs, and sounds are the music of the harps of heaven.


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