"Your humble,
"Max Alvary."
The concert was fine. He sang as never before, returning again and again in response to the enthusiastic recalls of the large audience. Mrs. Sylvanus Reed, who was one of my patronesses on all my programmes, brought with her twenty or more of the young ladies of her school. I had not required evening dress, but from my lofty seat in the sky gallery I looked down upon hundreds of the flower-decked heads of my dear American fellow-women.
After Alvary's last number, he appeared in a side aisle, sweeping the galleries with his opera-glass. "Mamma," said my daughter Fanny, "that man is looking for you!" "He'll not find me," I assured her; "he never saw me." "But a man who has seen you is with him and is helping him!" Sure enough, the double barrels were soon focussed upon me in my eyrie, and Alvary, in an impressive manner, waved his hand, laid it upon his heart, and thrice bowed low.
But this was not the last time I saw my naughty, bonny boy Alvary. I was bidden once to spend my day as pleased me best, as it was my birthday, and I elected to see "Siegfried." I tied my card to some violets and threw them at the feet of the then greatest tenor in the world, and he recognized the tribute. Many were the lovely letters I received after this delightful concert, one most charming from my dear old friend, William C. Rives.
But the blessed frost soon came to do more for the stricken city than I could do. I reopened, cleansed, and refurnished St. Luke's Hospital, sent nearly a thousand dollars to Sister Mary Ann to rehabilitate the Catholic Hospital, and a similar sum to the Jacksonville Orphanage. Governor Perry sent a committee all the way from Florida to thank me, letters poured in from distant friends, the papers said lovely things about my effort. "Who is the best theatrical manager in New York?" was asked of A. M. Palmer. "Well," he replied, "if you wish a true answer, I should say Mrs. Pryor!"
In a time of national disaster no other city in the world responds as does New York. Witness the Galveston flood, when one bazaar I had the pleasure of managing yielded $51,000—witness the San Francisco earthquake! Every heart is warmed with sympathy—every hand open, when real trouble, real disaster, overtakes any part of our country. And nowhere do we find a quicker response than among actors, who are rarely, if ever, rich, and never lead, as others do, a life of ease.
The letters I received from the New York women who had so nobly stood by me and helped me were, for a long time, delightful reading. They are still cherished as a reward second only to the crowning reward—the relief of suffering—which has comforted me all along the subsequent years of my life. They are noble, generous letters, and I wish I could give them here, every one, as models of beautiful letters as well. One, from the gifted Mrs. Vincenzo Botta, is an example of the rest:—
"25 East 37th Street, December 13.
"Dear Mrs. Pryor:—
I congratulate you most warmly on the success of your movement in the relief of our Jacksonville citizens, for it is you alone who have been the moving and animating force of it all. It will be a pleasant thing for you to remember always, and for us, too, who have followed your lead, though so far behind. It will not be possible for me to take the place on the committee to which you appoint me. Do take it yourself, dear Mrs. Pryor! You ought to do so. Now the burden of this work is over, you should not give it into other hands. So I beg you earnestly to take my place.