“The papers were very kind to Miss Anderson during her first engagement. She made a success of youth and loveliness; but the public did not rush in to see her.
“After a while, Henry Watterson, who had known her in Louisville, came to town and took an interest in her. He brought with him ex-Governor Tilden, who was taken behind the scenes to be introduced to the new star. He whispered to me, ‘What a remarkably handsome girl! No actress, but how very handsome!’”
[156] Her repertoire at this time (1879) was: Bianca in Fazio; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet; Lady Macbeth (the sleep-walking scene); Parthenia in Ingomar; Berthe in The Daughter of Roland; Julia in The Hunchback; Pauline in The Lady of Lyons; Meg Merriles in Guy Mannering; Evadne in Evadne; Duchess of Torrenucra in Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady; Ion in Ion; soon afterwards she added the Countess in Knowles’ Love, Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea, and Desdemona in Othello (once only).
[157] Miss Anderson said that during this search she considered W. S. Gilbert’s Brantingham Hall, but, as the chief character was not adapted to her, she declined it. Gilbert amusingly asked her if this was because she found anything gross in it. “For,” he said, “I hear that you hate gross things so much that you can hardly be induced to take your share of the gross receipts.”
[158] On the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth performance of The Winter’s Tale at the Lyceum, Miss Anderson was presented with a large laurel wreath from which were suspended a number of streamers in blue and gold, and bearing the names—three hundred and ninety-two in number—of all the members of the company and staff of the theatre, even to the call boy. In the center of the wreath, and supported by chains, was a brass tablet with the inscriptions: “En Souvenir of the One-hundred and Fiftieth performance of The Winter’s Tale, presented to Miss Mary Anderson by the members and employees, Lyceum Theatre, London, March 2, 1888,” and on the other side:
“‘The hostess of the meeting, pray you, bid the unknown friends to us welcome....
Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself that which you are, mistress o’ the feast.’...”
The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Scene 4.
[159] A Few Memories—1896.
[160] It would be an impertinence to doubt the good faith of Mary Anderson’s own statement as to the immediate cause of her retirement in March, 1889. It is nevertheless interesting to observe that at the time, and later, the newspapers freely discussed circumstances which do not enter into her account. One theory was that adverse critical comment, which was found in many reviews of her acting, disturbed her seriously, and preyed more and more upon her mind until she lost faith in her own power, and underwent in consequence a somewhat severe nervous prostration. There was even a wide-spread report that she became mildly insane,—which was promptly discredited and which was of course merely a piece of sensationalism. Particular mention is made of one Louisville critic who, during Miss Anderson’s early years was one of her friends and advisers, but who, when she returned at the height of her career, sincerely believed her spoiled and a much less fine actress than she had given promise of becoming. He therefore wrote a frank and fearless analysis of her acting, in which he found much to dispraise. It is impossible to tell with accuracy how much truth there is in this story. Miss Anderson herself says that it was never her habit to read newspaper criticisms of her work, except that someone kept for her those that might prove helpful and that these were used as possible hints when she began work another season.
[161] William Winter.