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 manuscript 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 shores, 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 shores in a volume of “Impressions.” Archæologists 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-anchored 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 illustrious 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 passionate admirer of the great English novelist, Dickens. 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 Dickens’ 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 passing 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.