The whole evening was a series of triumphs. The Emperor and Empress sent an aid-de-camp behind the scene to offer her the Imperial congratulations. Marie Taglioni, accompanied by her noble husband, sought the girl also, and taking from her breast a magnificent diamond star, which had been given her in former days by the Emperor of Russia, "Here," said she, "take this the queen of dance, Marie Taglioni, is dead—long live the queen, Emma Livry!"
TAGLIONI CONGRATULATING EMMA LIVRY.
As I passed out amongst the dense crowd, the writer continues, I saw a woman of middle age, and respectably dressed, leaning against one of the marble columns in the vestibule. Her face was flushed and she was wiping tears from her eyes.
"You weep, Madonna?" said a gentleman who was passing.
"Yes, Monsieur," she replied, "but it is with joy. Who would not be proud of such a daughter, and of such a tribute to her genius?"
There are few favorites of the public to-day who have not fought their way to the front inch by inch, who have not sacrificed everything for their art, toiling through the day that the work of the night might show improvement—very few who have not served years of apprenticeship on the stage before the moment of success arrived. And this has been the rule always. Nell Gwynne, the fish-girl, whose beauty and bright repartee attracted the attention of Lacy, the actor, and who peddled oranges to the audience before she began to amuse them on the stage, managed without much trouble, and during a short stage experience, to win the heart of Charles II., who made her his mistress and retained her while he lived, his parting words to those around his death-bed being, "See that poor Nelly doesn't starve;" but Nelly did starve. She died in poverty and left a line of dukes to perpetuate her plebeian blood in royal veins. She died in November, 1687, in her thirty-seventh year.
Lola Montez, the pretty Irish girl who in her fourteenth year eloped with one Capt. James to avoid a disagreeable marriage, accompanied him to India, where they got mutually tired of each other and returning to England studied dancing and went on the stage, was another of those fortunate and unfortunate fascinating women whose lives fade away fast and who after a brief hey-day of luxuries lie down in rags and poverty to seek a needed rest that is never broken. She won the hearts of kings, led a revolution in Poland, and finally, after being driven from her Bavarian castle where, as Countess of Lansfield she had ruled, and strutting a brief hour in London in male attire, died in this country January 17, 1861. Her ashes rest in Greenwood Cemetery, but she was saved from a pauper's grave only through the charity of some friend. During her life she had thrown away millions. Fallin, the husband of Maude Granger, is the son of the man with whom Lola Montez had her last escapade, Fallin, Sr., deserting his family in New York to accompany Lola to San Francisco. Her real name was Marie Dolores Eliza Rospanna Gilbert.
Another child of genius whom waywardness and frailty brought to an early grave was Adelaide McCord, better known to the world as Adah Isaacs Menken. She was born near New Orleans, June 15, 1835, and when still young went on the stage as a ballet dancer in one of the theatres of the Crescent City. She had been expelled from school, and tiring of her native village, where she had created a sensation by embracing the Jewish faith, she made the journey to New Orleans, and as I have said went on the stage. Her career there was not a very brilliant one until she began playing Mazeppa, the part with which her name has since been identified. Prior to her time men had appeared in this role. Her first appearance was on Monday night, June 17, 1861, in the Green Street Theatre, New York, then under the management of Capt. John B. Smith. On the first attempt to go up the run the horse after making one turn fell, crashing through the scenery with the Menken on its back. Horse and rider were picked up, and after some delay the ascent was made amidst a great deal of enthusiasm. The appearance of so beautiful a woman as Menken in the scarcity of clothing that Mazeppa requires created a furore, and from that time her success was assured. She fought spiritedly in the combat scene, breaking her sword and otherwise won the good opinion of her first audience. Previous to this she had married Alexander Menken, a musician in Galveston, but by this time also she had obtained an Indiana divorce. While in New York she met John C. Heenan, fresh from his victory over Tom Sayers, and after a brief courtship married him. Another Indiana divorce soon dissolved this knot, as it did a third time in the case of Orpheus C. Kerr (Robt. H. Newell). All this time her fame was growing. She went to London, and after setting the English metropolis on fire with her beauty returned to New York, where she married James Barclay, a merchant, in whose mansion she and her friends held such wild orgies that Barclay was glad when she fled to Paris, where she was stricken down in the midst of her mad career, in 1868. The brief but expressive epitaph, "Thou knowest," is carved upon her tomb.
Mary Anderson, the tragedienne, is the most phenomenal success of late years. She was born July 28, 1859, in Sacramento, California. Her parents removed to Louisville when she was one year and a half old, and there she was educated in the Ursuline Convent. She had a longing to be an actress from her earliest years, and all her readings tended in the direction of the stage. She was taken away from school at the age of thirteen, to pursue her studies for the profession to which she seemed to be so strongly inclined. At the age of fifteen she went to Cincinnati to see Charlotte Cushman act. While there she called on Miss Cushman, who said she could give her only a five-minute audience. Miss Anderson recited passages from "Richard III.," Schiller's "Maid of Orleans," and "Hamlet." She remained with Miss Cushman three hours, and the great actress had such confidence in her talents that she told her to study a few hours each day for a year and then she might go on the stage. This Miss Anderson did. An accident of some kind or other left Macauley's Theatre in Louisville with a Saturday night for which there was no attraction. Macauley knew Miss Anderson's desire to go on the stage, and meeting her step-father, Dr. Hamilton Griffin, in the street, told him the girl, who was then only sixteen, might have the theatre that night. Miss Anderson was overjoyed. She chose Juliet for her debut, got a costume hurriedly together and after one rehearsal and three days' preparation, appeared before a large audience, and made a decided hit. This was on November 27, 1875. Macauley was so pleased with the debutante that he gave her his first open week at starring terms. She then went to St. Louis, in March, 1870, and added greatly to the reputation she had won in her home city. Mr. John W. Norton supported her. Ben De Bar sent her to his New Orleans Theatre, and while in the Crescent City she was presented, by the citizens, with a check for $500, and the Washington artillery presented her with a jewelled badge of the battalion. Returning to Louisville again she continued her studies through the summer, began starring the following season, and has been before the public ever since. She is a young lady of remarkable personal beauty, intelligent and accomplished, a hard student, and one of the noblest and fairest of her sex that ever adorned the stage.