The author approaches this, his concluding chapter, with some degree of diffidence. Though he has in the foregoing pages essayed something like a portrait of a very distinguished artist, he is not by profession a dramatic critic. He does not belong to that noble band at whose nod the actor is usually supposed to tremble. He is not a “first-nighter,” who, by the light of the midnight oil, dips his mighty pen in the ink which is to seal on to-morrow’s broad-sheet, as he proudly imagines, the professional fate of the artists who are submitted for his censure or his praise. Not that he is by any means an implicit believer in the verdict of the professional critic. An actor who succeeds, should often fail according to the recognized canons of dramatic criticism, and the reverse. That the beautiful harmony of nature and the eternal fitness of things dramatic are not always preserved, is due to that profanum vulgus which sometimes reverses the decisions of those dramatic divinities who sit enthroned, like the twelve Cæsars, in the sacred temple of criticism, as the inspired representatives of the press.
Those who have been at the trouble to read the various and conflicting notices of the chief London journals upon Mary Anderson’s performances—for those of the great provincial towns she visited present a singular unanimity in her favor—must have found it difficult, if not impossible, to decide either on her merits as an artist, or on the true place to be assigned to her in the temple of the drama. The veriest misogynist among critics was compelled, in spite of himself, to confess to the charm of her strange beauty. Hers, as all agreed, was the loveliest face and the most graceful figure which had appeared on the London boards within the memory of a generation. According to some she was an accomplished actress, but she lacked that divine spark which stamps the true artist. Others attributed her success to nothing but her personal grace and beauty; while one critic, bolder than his fellows, even went so far as to declare that whether she wore the attire of a Grecian maid, of a fine French lady of a century ago, or of the fabled Galatea, only pretty Miss Anderson, of Louisville, Kentucky, peeped out through every disguise. Several causes, perhaps, combined to this uncertain sound which went forth from the trumpet of the dramatic critic. Mary Anderson was an American artist, who came here, it is true, with a great American reputation; but so had come others before her, some of whom had wholly failed to stand the fierce test of the London footlights. Then to “damn her with faint praise,” would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a becoming locus peniteniæ would be easy and gradual if the vane should, in spite of the critics, veer round to the point of popular favor. One of the most distinguished of English journalists lately observed in the House of Commons that certain writers in back parlors were in the habit of palming off their effusions as the voice of the great English public, till that voice made itself heard. When the voice of the English theater-going public upon Mary Anderson came to make itself heard in the crowded and enthusiastic audiences of the Lyceum, in the friendship of all that was most cultivated and best worth knowing in London society, it failed altogether to echo the trumpet, we will not say of the back parlor critics only, but of some critics distinguished in their profession, who can little have anticipated how quickly the popular verdict would modify, if not reverse their own.
It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much to the point, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable paper read recently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science Congress. It will hardly be denied that there are few artists competent to speak with more authority on matters theatrical, or better able to form a judgment on the true inwardness of that Press criticism to which herself and her fellow artists are so constantly subject:
“Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either over-praise or too cruelly condemn. The public, as a matter of course, turn to the newspapers for information, but how can any judgment be formed when either indiscriminate praise or unqualified abuse is given to almost every new piece and to the actors who interpret it? Criticism, if it is to be worth anything, should surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of a picturesque article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be the aim of the theatrical reviewer. Of course, the influence of the Press upon the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers find that their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy guides. The public must, after all, decide the fate of a new play. If it be bad, the Englishman of to-day will not declare it is good because the newspapers have told him so. He will be disappointed, he will be bored, he will tell his friends so, and the bad piece will fail to draw audiences. If, on the other hand, the play is a good one, which has been condemned by the Press, it will quicken the pulse and stir the heart of an audience in spite of adverse criticism. The report that it contains the true ring will go about, and success must follow. In a word, though the Press can do very much to further the interests of the stage, it is powerless to kill good work, and cannot galvanize that which is invertebrate into life.”
To determine Mary Anderson’s true stage place, and to make a fair and impartial criticism of her performances is rendered further difficult by the fact, that the English stage offers in the last generation scarcely one with whom she can be compared, if we except perhaps Helen Faucit. Between herself and that great artist, middle-aged play-goers seem to find a certain resemblance; but to the present generation of playgoers Mary Anderson is an absolutely new revelation on the London boards. Recalling the roll of artists who have essayed similar parts for the last five and twenty years, we can name not one who has given as she did what we may best describe as a new stage sensation. Never was the pride of a free maiden of ancient Greece more nobly expressed than in Parthenia: never were the gradual steps from fear and abhorrence to love more finely portrayed than in the stages of her rising passion for the savage chieftain, whose captive hostage she was. Her Pauline was the old patrician beauty of France living on the stage, a true woman in spite of the selfish veneer of pride and caste with which the traditions of the ancient noblesse had covered her; while Galatea found in her certainly the most poetic and beautiful representation of that fanciful character, ever seen on any stage. This was the verdict of the public who thronged the Lyceum to its utmost capacity, during the months of the past winter. This was the verdict, too, of the largest provincial towns of the kingdom. The critics, some of them, were willing to concede to Mary Anderson the possession of every grace which can adorn a woman, and of every qualification which can make an artist attractive, with a solitary but fatal reservation—she was devoid of genius. But what, indeed, is genius after all? It is the magic power to touch unerringly a sympathetic chord in the human breast. The novelist, whose characters seem to be living; the painter, the figures on whose canvas appear to breathe; the actor who, while he treads the stage, is forgotten in the character he assumes; all these possess it. This was the verdict of the public upon Mary Anderson, and we are fain to believe that—pace the critics—it was the true one. Her Clarice was perhaps the least successful of her impersonations; and given as an afterpiece, it taxed unfairly the endurance of an actress, who had already been some hours upon the stage. But as a striking illustration of the reality of her performance, we may mention, that, in the scene where she is supposed by her guests to be acting, her fellow actors, who should have applauded the tragic outburst which the public divine to be real, were so disconcerted by the vehemence and seeming reality of her grief and despair, that on the first representation of “Comedy and Tragedy” they actually forgot their parts, and had to be called to task by the author for failing properly to support the star. “No man,” it is said, “is a hero to his valet de chambre,” and few indeed are the artists who can make their fellow artists on the stage forget that the mimic passion which convulses them is but consummate art after all.
Mary Anderson’s present Lyceum season will exhibit her in characters which will give opportunity for displaying powers of a widely different order to those called forth in the last. A new Juliet and a new Lady Macbeth will show the capacity she possesses for the true exhibition of the tenderest as well as the stormiest passions which can agitate the human breast; and she may perhaps appear in Cushman’s famous role of Meg Merrilies. In all these she invites comparison with great impersonators of these parts who are familiar to the stage. We will not anticipate the verdict of the public, but of this much we are assured that rarely can Shakespeare’s favorite heroine have been represented by so much youth, and grace, and beauty, and genuine artistic ability combined. Juliet was her first part, and has always been, regarded by Mary Anderson with the affection due to a first love. But it may not be generally known that she imagines her forte to lie rather in the exhibition of the stormier passions, and that she succeeds better in parts like Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies. I remember her once saying to me, as she raised her beautiful figure to its full height, and stretched her hand to the ceiling, “I am always at my best when I am uttering maledictions.” Thus far, Mary Anderson has shown herself to us in characters which must give a very incomplete estimate of her powers. None indeed of the parts she assumed were adapted to bring out the highest qualities of an artist. That she has succeeded in inspiring the freshness and glow of life into plays, some of which, at least, were supposed to be consigned almost to the limbo of disused stage properties, stamps her as possessing genuine histrionic power. She has earned distinguished fame all over the Western continent. London as well as the great cities of the kingdom have hailed her as a Queen of the Stage. Such an experience as hers is rare indeed, almost solitary, in its annals. A self-trained girl, born quite out of the circle or influence of stage associations, she burst, when but sixteen, as a star on the theatrical horizon; and if her grace, her youth, her beauty, have helped her in the upward flight, they have helped alone, and could not have atoned for the want of that divine spark, which is the birthright of the artist who makes a mark upon his generation and his time. When the more recent history of the English-speaking stage shall once again be written, we do not doubt that Mary Anderson will take her fitting place, side by side with the many great artists who have so adorned it in the last half century; with Charlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, and Fanny Stirling, who represent its earlier glories; with Mrs. Kendal, Mrs. Bancroft, and Ellen Terry, whose names are interwoven with the triumphs of later years.