Mary Anderson by J. M. Farrar

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MARY ANDERSON

by

J.M. FARRAR, M.A.

1885

CHAPTER I.

AT HOME.

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

About a mile back from the shore stands a rambling country house embosomed
in a small park a few acres in extent, and immediately surrounding it
masses of the magnificent shrub known as Rose of Sharon, in full bloom, in
which the walls of snowy white, with their windows gleaming in the
sunlight, seem set as in a bed of color. The air is full of perfume. The
scent of flower and tree rises gratefully from the rain-laden earth. The
birds make the air musical with song; and here and there in the
neighboring wood, the pretty brown squirrels spring from branch to branch,
and dash down with their gambols the rain drops in a diamond spray. A
broad veranda covered with luxuriant honeysuckle and clematis stretches
along the eastern front of the house, and the wide bay window, thrown open
just now to the summer wind, seems framed in flowers. As we approach
nearer, the deep, rich notes of an organ strike upon the ear. Some one,
with seeming unconsciousness, is producing a sweet passionate music, which
changes momentarily with the player's passing mood. We pause an instant
and look into the room. Here is a picture which might be called "a dream
of fair women." Seated at the organ in the subdued light is a young woman
of a strange, almost startling beauty. Her graceful figure clad in a
simple black robe, unrelieved by a single ornament, is slight, and almost
girlish, though there is a rounded fullness in its line which betrays that
womanhood has been reached. A small classic head carried with easy grace;
finely chiseled features; full, deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealth
of auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like ear;
these complete a picture which seems to belong to another clime and
another age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of Titian. We are almost
sorry to enter the room and break the spell. Mary Anderson's manner as she
starts up from the organ with a light elastic spring to greet her visitors
is singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the
beautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness
and decision in the mouth, with an utter absence of that
self-consciousness and coquetry which often mar the charm of even the most
beautiful face. This is the artist's study to which she flies back gladly,
now and then, for a few weeks' rest and relaxation from the exacting life
of a strolling player, whose days are spent wandering in pursuit of her
profession over the vast continent which stretches from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. Here she may be found often busy with her part when the faint
rose begins to steal over the tree tops at early dawn; or sometimes when
the world is asleep, and the only sounds are the wind, as it sighs
mournfully through the neighboring wood, or the far-off murmur of the
Atlantic waves as they dash sullenly upon the beach. On a still summer's
night she will wander sometimes, a fair Rosalind, such as Shakespeare
would have loved, in the neighboring grove, and wake its silent echoes as
she recites the Great Master's lines; or she will stand upon the
flower-clad veranda, under the moonlight, her hair stirred softly by the
summer wind, and it becomes to her the balcony from which Juliet murmurs
the story of her love to a ghostly Romeo beneath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Night is falling fast, but with that impulsiveness which is so
characteristic of her, Mary Anderson insists upon our paying a visit to
the stables to see her favorite mare, Maggie Logan. Poor Maggie is now
blind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry her mistress, who is
a splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five miles across the prairie in
sixteen minutes. As we enter the box, Maggie turns her pretty head at
sound of the familiar voice, and in response to a gentle hint, her
mistress produces a piece of sugar from her pocket. As Mary Anderson
strokes the fine thoroughbred head, we think the pair are not very much
unlike. Meanwhile, Maggie's stable companion cranes his beautiful neck
over the side of the box, and begs for the caress which is not denied him.

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

CHAPTER II.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION.

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

There was nothing in her home surroundings to guide in the direction of a
dramatic career; indeed her parents seemed to have entertained the not
uncommon dread of the temptations and dangers of a stage life for their
daughter, and only yielded at last before the earnest passionate purpose
to which so much of Mary Anderson's after success is due. They bent wisely
at length before the mysterious power of genius which shone out in the
beautiful child long before she was able fully to understand whither the
resistless promptings to tread the "mimic stage of life" were leading her.
In the end the New World gained an actress of whom it may be well proud,
and the Old World has been fain to confess that it has no monopoly of the
highest types of histrionic genius.

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

Mary Anderson's early years were characteristic of her future. She was one
of those children whose wild artist nature chafes under the restraints of
home and school life. Generous to a fault, the life and soul of her
companions, yet to control her taxed to their utmost the parental
resources; and it must be admitted she was the torment of her teachers.
Her wild exuberant spirits overleaped the bounds of school life, and
sometimes made order and discipline difficult of enforcement. She was
never known to tell an untruth, but at the same time she would never
confess to a fault. Imprisoned often for punishment in a room, she would
steadfastly refuse to admit that she had done wrong, and, maternal
patience exhausted, the mutinous little culprit had commonly to be
released impenitent and unconfessed. Indeed her wildness acquired for her
the name of "Little Mustang;" as, later on, her fondness for poring over
books beyond her childish years that of "Little Newspaper." At school, the
confession must be made, she was refractory and idle. The prosaic routine
of school life was dull and distasteful to the child, who, at ten years of
age, found her highest delight in the plays of Shakespeare. Many of her
school hours were spent in a corner, face to the wall, and with a book on
her head, to restrain the mischievous habit of making faces at her
companions, which used to convulse the school with ill-suppressed
laughter. She would sally forth in the morning with her little satchel,
fresh and neat as a daisy, to return at night with frock in rents, and all
the buttons, if any way ornamental, given away in an impulsive generosity
to her schoolmates. It soon became evident that she would learn little or
nothing at school; and on a faithful promise to amend her ways if she
might only leave and pursue her studies at home, Mary Anderson was
permitted, when but thirteen years of age, to terminate her school career.
But instead of studying "Magnall's Questions," or becoming better
acquainted with "The Use of the Globes," she spent most of her time in
devouring the pages of Shakespeare, and committing favorite passages to
memory. To her childish fancy they seemed to open the gates of dreamland,
where she could hold converse with a world peopled by heroes, and live a
life apart from the prosaic everyday existence which surrounded her in a
modern American town. Shakespeare was the teacher who replaced the "school
marm," with her dull and formal lessons. Her quick perceptive mind grasped
his great and noble thoughts, which gave a vigor and robustness to her
mental growth. Since those days she has assimilated rather than acquired
knowledge, and there are now few women of her age whose information is
more varied, or whose conversation displays greater mental culture, and
higher intellectual development. Strangely enough, it was the male
characters of Shakespeare which touched Mary Anderson's youthful fancy;
and she studied with a passionate ardor such parts as Hamlet, Romeo, and
Richard III. With the wonderful intuition of an art-nature, she seems to
have felt that the cultivation of the voice was a first essential to
success. She ransacked her father's library for works on elocution, and
discovering on one occasion "Rush on the Voice," proceeded, for many weeks
before it became known to her parents, to commence under its guidance the
task of building up a somewhat weak and ineffective organ into a voice
capable of expressing with ease the whole gamut of feeling from the
fiercest passion to the tenderest sentiment, and which can fill with a
whisper the largest theater.

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

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

When in her fourteenth year, Mary Anderson saw for the first time a really
great actor. Edwin Booth came on a starring tour to Louisville, and she
witnessed his Richard III., one of the actor's most powerful
impersonations. That night was a new revelation to her in dramatic art,
and she returned home to lie awake for hours, sleepless from excitement,
and pondering whether it were possible that she could ever wield the same
magic power. She commenced at once the serious study of "Richard III." The
manner of Booth was carefully copied, and that great artist would
doubtless have been as much amused as flattered to note the servility with
which his rendering of the part was adhered to. A preliminary rehearsal
took place in the kitchen before a little colored girl, some years Mary
Anderson's senior, who had that devoted attachment to her young mistress
often found in the colored races to the whites. Dinah was so much
terrified by the fierce declamation that she almost went into hysterics,
and rushing up-stairs begged the mother to come down and see what was the
matter with "Miss Mami," as she was affectionately called at home. Consent
was at length obtained to a little drawing-room entertainment at home of
"Richard III.," with Miss Mary Anderson for the first and last time in the
title _role_. For some months the young _debutante_ had carefully saved
her pocket money for the purchase of an appropriate costume, and,
resisting, as best she might, the attractions of the sweetmeat shop,
managed to accumulate five dollars. With her mother's help a little
costume was got up--a purple satin tunic, green silk cape, and plumed
hat--and wearing the traditional hump, the youthful, representative of
Richard appeared for the first time before an audience in the Tent Scene,
preceded by the Cottage Scene from "The Lady of Lyons." The back
drawing-room was arranged as a stage; her mother acting as prompter,
though her help was little needed; and, judged by the enthusiastic
applause of friends and neighbors, the performance was a great success.
The young actress received it all with even more apparent coolness than if
she had trodden the boards for years, and made her exits with the calm
dignity which she had observed to be Edwin Booth's manner under similar
circumstances. Indeed, Booth became to her childish fancy the divinity who
could open to her the door of the stage she longed so ardently to reach.
She confided to the little colored girl a plan to save their money, and
fly to New York to Mr. Booth, and ask him to place her on the stage. Dinah
entered heartily into the affair, and at one time they had managed to
hoard as much as five dollars for the carrying out of this romantic
scheme. Some years afterward when the wish of her heart had been long
accomplished, Mary Anderson made Mr. Booth's acquaintance, and recounting
to him her childish fancy asked what he would have done if she had
succeeded in presenting herself to him in New York. "Why, my child, I
should have taken you down to the depot, bought a couple of tickets for
Louisville, and given you in charge of the conductor," was the rather
discouraging answer of the great tragedian.

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

Returning home thus encouraged, her dramatic studies were resumed with
fresh ardor. The question of the New York project was anxiously debated in
the family councils. It was at length decided that Mary Anderson should
receive some regular training for the stage; and accompanied by her mother
she was soon afterward on her way to the Empire City, full of happiness
and pride that the dream of her life seemed now within reach of
attainment. Vandenhoff was paid a hundred dollars for ten lessons, and
taught his pupil mainly the necessary stage business. This was, strictly
speaking. Mary Anderson's only professional training for a dramatic
career. The stories which have been current since her appearance in
London, as to her having been a pupil of Cushman, or of other
distinguished American artists, are entirely apocryphal, and have been
evolved by the critics who have given them to the world out of that
fertile soil, their own inner consciousness. There is certainly no
circumstance in her career which reflects more credit on Mary Anderson
than that her success, and the high position as an artist she has won thus
early in life, are due to her own almost unaided efforts. Well may it be
said of her--

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

CHAPTER III.

EARLY YEARS ON THE STAGE.

Between eight and nine years ago, Mary Anderson made her _debut_ at
Louisville, in the home of her childhood, and before an audience, many of
whom had known her from a child. This was how it came about. The season
had not been very successful at Macaulay's Theater, and one Milnes Levick,
an English stock-actor of the company, happened to be in some pecuniary
difficulties, and in need of funds to leave the town. The manager
bethought him of Mary Anderson, and conceived the bold idea of producing
"Romeo and Juliet," with the untried young novice in the _role_ of Juliet
for poor Levick's benefit. It was on a Thursday that the proposition was
made to her by the manager at the theater, and the performance was to take
place on the following Saturday. Mary, almost wild with delight, gave an
eager acceptance if she could but obtain her parents' consent. The
passers-by turned many of them that day to look at the beautiful girl, who
flew almost panting through the streets to reach her home. The bell handle
actually broke in her impetuous eager hands. The answer was "Yes," and at
length the dream of her life was realized. On the following Saturday, the
27th of November, 1875, after only a single rehearsal, and wearing the
borrowed costume of the manager's wife, who happened to be about the same
size as herself, and without the slightest "make up," Mary Anderson
appeared as one of Shakespeare's favorite heroines. She was announced in
the playbills thus:--

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

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

_Louisville Courier_, November 28th, 1875.

"We can scarcely bring ourselves to speak of the young actress, who came
before the footlights last night, with the coolness of a critic and a
spectator. An interest in native genius and young endeavor, in courage and
brave effort that arrives from so near us--our own city--precludes the
possibility of standing outside of sympathy, and peering in with analyzing
and judicial glance. But we do not think that any man of judgment who
witnessed Miss Anderson's acting of Juliet, can doubt that she is a great
actress. In the latter scenes she interpreted the very spirit and soul of
tragedy, and thrilled the whole house into silence by the depth of her
passion and her power. She is essentially a tragic genius, and began
really to act only after the scene in which her nurse tells Juliet of what
she supposes is her lover's death. The quick gasp, the terrified stricken
face, the tottering step, the passionate and heart-rending accents were
nature's own marks of affecting overwhelming grief. Miss Anderson has
great power over the lower tones of her rich voice. Her whisper
electrifies and penetrates; her hurried words in the passion of the scene,
where she drinks the sleeping potion, and afterward in the catastrophe at
the end, although very far below conversational pitch, came to the ear
with distinctness and with wonderful effect. In the final scene she
reached the climax of her acting, which, from the time of Tybalt's death
to the end, was full of tragic power that we have never seen excelled. It
will be observed that we have placed the merit of this actress (in our
opinion) for the most part in her deeper and more somber powers, and
despite the high praise that we more gladly offer as her due, we cannot be
blind to her faults in the presentation of last evening. She is,
undoubtedly, a great actress, and last night evidenced a magnificent
genius, more especially remarkable on account of her extreme youth; but
whether she is a great Juliet is, indeed, more doubtful. We can imagine
her as personating Lady Macbeth superbly, and hope soon to witness her in
the part. As Juliet, her conception is almost perfect, as evinced by her
rare and exceptional taste and intuitive understanding of the text. But
her enactment of the earlier scenes lacks the exuberance and earnest
joyfulness of the pure and glowing Flower of Italy, with all her fanciful
conceits and delightful and loving ardor.

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