Meanwhile Michael Gunn, the manager of the theatre, with characteristic managerial shrewdness, saw a great chance for advertising, so he rushed off by a cable to America a message which read:
“Mary Anderson refuses to see the Prince of Wales without the Princess.”
The difference in time—five hours, between the two countries gave him the advantage he wanted. The New York papers got it barely in time for their last editions. Next day they cabled London papers for particulars, but the day of a great American morning paper does not begin until noon or later, by which time, say 6 P. M. on the other side of the Atlantic, all London is at dinner or getting ready for it and must not be disturbed. Besides, the English papers do not exhibit American taste and enterprise in nosing out news. So they published the story as a fact, and without comment. It was too small a matter for either of the parties to formally deny in print, but it was large enough to make no end of talk and of interest in the American actress. From that bit of advertising shrewdness—some Englishmen gave it a ruder name, dated Miss Anderson’s success in London.
Mention of Miss Anderson recalls a reception in her honor which I attended, at the home of Mrs. Croly (“Jennie June”). Among the guests was a young actress who was just coming into notice—Miss Minnie Maddern, now Mrs. Fiske. Her beautiful, expressive eyes followed the guest of honor so wistfully that I said:
“I see you are observing Miss Anderson intently.”
“Yes,” she replied. “What a beautiful woman she is! And what an actress! What wouldn’t I give to be able to act as she can!”
Such modesty has its reward. Mrs. Fiske has not only reached the plane of Mary Anderson’s ability, but has gone far above it, and stands to-day upon a pinnacle of art that no other American actress has ever climbed. One night, at a performance of “Hedda Gabler,” I asked my friend Charles Kent, whose high rank as an actor is admitted by every one, if Mrs. Fiske was not our greatest actress. He replied:
“Mrs. Fiske is more than our greatest actress She is the greatest personality in the profession. She is the Henry Irving of America.”
One of the greatest losses the American stage ever sustained was through the death of Augustin Daly. I have heard some of his most determined rivals call him the greatest stage manager in America, and since his death they have expressed doubt that his equal would ever appear. I was his neighbor for quite a while; I saw him often and chatted much with him, but I never knew a man less given to “talking shop.” Apparently he had no thought for anything but his two sons, both of whom were then living, and on Sunday mornings it was a great pleasure to me to see him walking with his boys to the Catholic Church, of which he was a devout member. But he lost both sons in a single week, one dying, broken-hearted, after the death of the other. The double loss was one from which Mr. Daly never recovered, though he sought relief in hard work. I often met him after midnight on the old green car that passed through Thirty-fourth Street, yet next morning saw him leave the house as early as eight o’clock. Busy though he was, he never forgot his friends; he was so kind as to keep them under continual obligations. I recall a complimentary dinner which Major Handy wished to give Mr. Daly, but when he approached the prospective guest, Daly said:
“Oh, you invite your friends, and I’ll give the dinner.”