Chapter 5

Edwin Booth has been tried by some of the most terrible afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human soul. Over his youth, plainly visible, impended the lowering cloud of insanity. While he was yet a boy, and when literally struggling for life in the semi-barbarous wilds of old California, he lost his beloved father, under circumstances of singular misery. In early manhood he laid in her grave the woman of his first love--the wife who had died in absence from him, herself scarcely past the threshold of youth, lovely as an angel and to all that knew her precious beyond expression. A little later his heart was well-nigh broken and his life was well-nigh blasted by the crime of a lunatic brother that for a moment seemed to darken the hope of the world. Recovering from that blow, he threw all his resources and powers into the establishment of the grandest theatre in the metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of more than a million dollars, together with the toil of some of the best years of his life, frittered away. Under all trials he has borne bravely up, and kept the even, steadfast tenor of his course; strong, patient, gentle, neither elated by public homage nor imbittered by private grief. Such a use of high powers in the dramatic art, and the development and maintenance of such a character behind them, entitle him to the affection of his countrymen, proud equally of his goodness and his renown.

V.

MARY ANDERSON: HERMIONE: PERDITA.

On November 25, 1875 an audience was assembled in one of the theatres of Louisville, Kentucky, to see "the first appearance upon any stage" of "a young lady of Louisville," who was announced to play Shakespeare's Juliet. That young lady was in fact a girl, in her sixteenth year, who had never received any practical stage training, whose education had been comprised in five years of ordinary schooling, whose observation of life had never extended beyond the narrow limits of a provincial city, who was undeveloped, unheralded, unknown, and poor, and whose only qualifications for the task she had set herself to accomplish were the impulse of genius and the force of commanding character. She dashed at the work with all the vigour of abounding and enthusiastic youth, and with all the audacity of complete inexperience. A rougher performance of Juliet probably was never seen, but through all the disproportion and turbulence of that effort the authentic charm of a beautiful nature was distinctly revealed. The sweetness, the sincerity, the force, the exceptional superiority and singular charm of that nature could not be mistaken. The uncommon stature and sumptuous physical beauty of the girl were obvious. Above all, her magnificent voice--copious, melodious, penetrating, loud and clear, yet soft and gentle--delighted every ear and touched every heart. The impersonation of Juliet was not highly esteemed by judicious hearers; but some persons who saw that performance felt and said that a new actress had risen and that a great career had begun. Those prophetic voices were right. That "young lady of Louisville" was Mary Anderson.

It is seldom in stage history that the biographer comes upon such a character as that of Mary Anderson, or is privileged to muse over the story of such a career as she has had. In many cases the narrative of the life of an actress is a narrative of talents perverted, of opportunity misused, of failure, misfortune, and suffering. For one story like that of Mrs. Siddons there are many like that of Mrs. Robinson. For one name like that of Charlotte Cushman or that of Helen Faucit there are many like that of Lucille Western or that of Matilda Heron--daughters of sorrow and victims of trouble. The mind lingers, accordingly, impressed and pleased with a sense of sweet personal worth as well as of genius and beauty upon the record of a representative American actress, as noble as she was brilliant, and as lovely in her domestic life as she was beautiful, fortunate, and renowned in her public pursuits. The exposition of her nature, as apprehended through her acting, constitutes the principal part of her biography.

Mary Anderson, a native of California, was born at Sacramento, July 28, 1859. Her father, Charles Joseph Anderson, who died in 1863, aged twenty-nine, and was buried in Magnolia cemetery, Mobile, Alabama, was an officer in the service of the Southern Confederacy at the time of his death, and he is said to have been a handsome and dashing young man. Her mother, Marie Antoinette Leugers, was a native of Philadelphia. Her earlier years were passed in Louisville, whither she was taken in 1860, and she was there taught in a Roman Catholic school and reared in the Roman Catholic faith under the guidance of a Franciscan priest, Anthony Miller, her mother's uncle. She left school before she was fourteen years old and she went upon the stage before she was sixteen. She had while a child seen various theatrical performances, notably those given by Edwin Booth, and her mind had been strongly drawn toward the stage under the influence of those sights. The dramatic characters that she first studied were male characters--those of Hamlet, Wolsey, Richelieu, and Richard III.--and to those she added Schiller's Joan of Arc. She studied those parts privately, and she knew them all and knew them well. Professor Noble Butler, of Louisville, gave her instruction in English literature and elocution, and in 1874, at Cincinnati, Charlotte Cushman said a few encouraging words to her, and told her to persevere in following the stage, and to "begin at the top." George Vandenhoff gave her a few lessons before she came out, and then followed her début as Juliet, leading to her first regular engagement, which began at Barney Macaulay's Theatre, Louisville, January 20, 1876. From that time onward for thirteen years she was an actress,--never in a stock company but always as a star,--and her name became famous in Great Britain as well as America. She had eight seasons of steadily increasing prosperity on the American stage before she went abroad to act, and she became a favourite all over the United States. She filled three seasons at the Lyceum Theatre, London (from September 1, 1883, to April 5, 1884; from November 1, 1884, to April 25, 1885; and from September 10, 1887, to March 24, 1888), and her success there surpassed, in profit, that of any American actor who had appeared in England. She revived _Romeo and Juliet_ with much splendour at the London Lyceum on November 1, 1884, and she restored _A Winter's Tale_ to the stage, bringing forward that comedy on September 10, 1887, and carrying it through the season. She made several prosperous tours of the English provincial theatres, and established herself as a favourite actress in fastidious Edinburgh, critical Manchester, and impulsive but exacting Dublin. The repertory with which she gained fame and fortune included Juliet, Hermione, Perdita, Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Julia, Bianca, Evadne, Parthenia, Pauline, The Countess, Galatea, Clarice, Ion, Meg Merrilies, Berthe, and the Duchess de Torrenueva. She incidentally acted a few other parts, Desdemona being one of them. Her distinctive achievements were in Shakespearean drama. She adopted into her repertory two plays by Tennyson, _The Cup_ and _The Falcon_, but never produced them. This record signifies the resources of mind, the personal charm, the exalted spirit, and the patient, wisely directed and strenuous zeal that sustained her achievements and justified her success.

Aspirants in the field of art are continually coming to the surface. In poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and in acting--which involves and utilises those other arts--the line of beginners is endless. Constantly, as the seasons roll by, these essayists emerge, and as constantly, after a little time, they disappear. The process is sequent upon an obvious law of spiritual life,--that all minds which are conscious of the art impulse must at least make an effort toward expression, but that no mind can succeed in the effort unless, in addition to the art impulse, it possesses also the art faculty. For expression is the predominant necessity of human nature. Out of this proceed forms and influences of beauty. These react upon mankind, pleasing an instinct for the beautiful, and developing the faculty of taste. Other and finer forms and influences of beauty ensue, civilisation is advanced, and thus finally the way is opened toward that condition of immortal spiritual happiness which this process of experience prefigures and prophesies. But the art faculty is of rare occurrence. At long intervals there is a break in the usual experience of stage failure, and some person hitherto unknown not only takes the field but keeps it. When Garrick came out, as the Duke of Gloster, in the autumn of 1741, in London, he had never been heard of, but within a brief time he was famous. "He at once decided the public taste," said Macklin; and Pope summed up the victory in the well-known sentence, "That young man never had an equal, and will never have a rival." Tennyson's line furnishes the apt and comprehensive comment--"The many fail, the one succeeds." Mary Anderson in her day furnished the most conspicuous and striking example, aside from that of Adelaide Neilson, to which it is possible to refer of this exceptional experience. And yet, even after years of trial and test, it is doubtful whether the excellence of that remarkable actress was entirely comprehended in her own country. The provincial custom of waiting for foreign authorities to discover our royal minds is one from which many inhabitants of America have not yet escaped. As an actress, indeed, Mary Anderson was, probably, more popular than any player on the American stage excepting Edwin Booth or Joseph Jefferson; but there is a difference between popularity and just and comprehensive intellectual recognition. Many actors get the one; few get the other.

Much of the contemporary criticism that is lavished upon actors in this exigent period--so bountifully supplied with critical observations, so poorly furnished with creative art--touches only upon the surface. Acting is measured with a tape and the chief demand seems to be for form. This is right, and indeed is imperative, whenever it is certain that the actor at his best is one who never can rise above the high-water mark of correct mechanism. There are cases that need a deeper method of inquiry and a more searching glance. A wise critic, when this emergency comes, is something more than an expert who gives an opinion upon a professional exploit. The special piece of work may contain technical flaws, and yet there may be within it a soul worth all the "icily regular and splendidly null" achievements that ever were possible to proficient mediocrity. That soul is visible only to the observer who can look through the art into the interior spirit of the artist, and thus can estimate a piece of acting according to its inspirational drift and the enthralling and ennobling personality out of which it springs. The acting of Mary Anderson, from the first moment of her career, was of the kind that needs that deep insight and broad judgment,--aiming to recognise and rightly estimate its worth. Yet few performers of the day were so liberally favoured with the monitions of dullness and the ponderous patronage of self-complacent folly.

Conventional judgment as to Mary Anderson's acting expressed itself in one statement--"she is cold." There could not be a greater error. That quality in Mary Anderson's acting--a reflex from her spiritual nature--which produced upon the conventional mind the effect of coldness was in fact distinction, the attribute of being exceptional. The judgment that she was cold was a resentful judgment, and was given in a spirit of detraction. It proceeded from an order of mind that can never be content with the existence of anything above its own level. "He hath," said Iago, speaking of Cassio, "a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly." Those detractors did not understand themselves as well as the wily Italian understood himself, and they did not state their attitude with such precision; in fact, they did not state it at all, for it was unconscious with them and involuntary. They saw a being unlike themselves, they vaguely apprehended the presence of a superior nature, and that they resented. The favourite popular notion is that all men are born free and equal; which is false. Free and equal they all are, undoubtedly, in the eye of the law. But every man is born subject to heredity and circumstance, and whoever will investigate his life will perceive that he never has been able to stray beyond the compelling and constraining force of his character--which is his fate. All men, moreover, are unequal. To one human being is given genius; to another, beauty; to another, strength; to another, exceptional judgment; to another, exceptional memory; to another, grace and charm; to still another, physical ugliness and spiritual obliquity, moral taint, and every sort of disabling weakness. To the majority of persons Nature imparts mediocrity, and it is from mediocrity that the derogatory denial emanates as to the superior men and women of our race. A woman of the average kind is not difficult to comprehend. There is nothing distinctive about her. She is fond of admiration; rather readily censorious of other women; charitable toward male rakes; and partial to fine attire. The poet Wordsworth's formula, "Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles," comprises all that is essential for her existence, and that bard has himself precisely described her, in a grandfatherly and excruciating couplet, as

"A creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food."

Women of that sort are not called "cold." The standard is ordinary and it is understood. But when a woman appears in art whose life is not ruled by the love of admiration, whose nature is devoid of vanity, who looks with indifference upon adulation, whose head is not turned by renown, whose composure is not disturbed by flattery, whose simplicity is not marred by wealth, who does not go into theatrical hysterics and offer that condition of artificial delirium as the mood of genius in acting, who above all makes it apparent in her personality and her achievements that the soul can be sufficient to itself and can exist without taking on a burden of the fever or dulness of other lives, there is a flutter of vague discontent among the mystified and bothered rank and file, and we are apprised that she is "cold." That is what happened in the case of Mary Anderson.

What are the faculties and attributes essential to great success in acting? A sumptuous and supple figure that can realise the ideals of statuary; a mobile countenance that can strongly and unerringly express the feelings of the heart and the workings of the mind; eyes that can awe with the majesty or startle with the terror or thrill with the tenderness of their soul-subduing gaze; a voice, deep, clear, resonant, flexible, that can range over the wide compass of emotion and carry its meaning in varying music to every ear and every heart; intellect to shape the purposes and control the means of mimetic art; deep knowledge of human nature; delicate intuitions; the skill to listen as well as the art to speak; imagination to grasp the ideal of a character in all its conditions of experience; the instinct of the sculptor to give it form, of the painter to give it colour, and of the poet to give it movement; and, back of all, the temperament of genius--the genialised nervous system--to impart to the whole artistic structure the thrill of spiritual vitality. Mary Anderson's acting revealed those faculties and attributes, and those observers who realised the poetic spirit, the moral majesty, and the isolation of mind that she continually suggested felt that she was an extraordinary woman. Such moments in her acting as that of Galatea's mute supplication at the last of earthly life, that of Juliet's desolation after the final midnight parting with the last human creature whom she may ever behold, and that of Hermione's despair when she covers her face and falls as if stricken dead, were the eloquent denotements of power, and in those and such as those--with which her art abounded--was the fulfilment of every hope that her acting inspired and the vindication of every encomium that it received.

Early in her professional career, when considering her acting, the present essayist quoted as applicable to her those lovely lines by Wordsworth:--

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her, and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face."

In the direction of development thus indicated she steadily advanced. Her affiliations were with grandeur, purity, and loveliness. An inherent and passionate tendency toward classic stateliness increased in her more and more. Characters of the statuesque order attracted her imagination--Ion, Galatea, Hermione--but she did not leave them soulless. In the interpretation of passion and the presentation of its results she revealed the striking truth that her perceptions could discern those consequences that are recorded in the soul and in comparison with which the dramatic entanglements of visible life are puny and evanescent. Though living in the rapid stream of the social world she dwelt aloof from it. She thought deeply, and in mental direction she took the pathway of intellectual power. It is not surprising that the true worth of such a nature was not accurately apprehended. Minds that are self-poised, stately, irresponsive to human weakness, unconventional and self-liberated from allegiance to the commonplace are not fully and instantly discernible, and may well perplex the smiling glance of frivolity; but they are permanent forces in the education of the human race. Mary Anderson retired from the stage, under the pressure of extreme fatigue, in the beginning of 1889 and entered upon a matrimonial life on June 17, 1890. It is believed that her retirement is permanent. The historical interest attaching to her dramatic career justifies the preservation of this commemorative essay.

There is so much beauty in the comedy of _A Winter's Tale_--so much thought, character, humour, philosophy, sweetly serene feeling and loveliness of poetic language--that the public ought to feel obliged to any one who successfully restores it to the stage, from which it usually is banished. The piece was written in the maturity of Shakespeare's marvellous powers, and indeed some of the Shakespearean scholars believe it to be the last work that fell from his hand. Human life, as depicted in _A Winter's Tale_, shows itself like what it always seems to be in the eyes of patient, tolerant, magnanimous experience--the eyes "that have kept watch o'er man's mortality"--for it is a scene of inexplicable contrasts and vicissitudes, seemingly the chaos of caprice and chance, yet always, in fact, beneficently overruled and guided to good ends. Human beings are shown in it as full of weakness; often as the puppets of laws that they do not understand and of universal propensities and impulses into which they never pause to inquire; almost always as objects of benignant pity. The woful tangle of human existence is here viewed with half-cheerful, half-sad tolerance, yet with the hope and belief that all will come right at last. The mood of the comedy is pensive but radically sweet. The poet is like the forest in Emerson's subtle vision of the inherent exultation of nature:--

"Sober, on a fund of joy, The woods at heart are glad."

Mary Anderson doubled the characters of Hermione and Perdita. This had not been conspicuously done until it was done by her, and her innovation, in that respect, was met with grave disapproval. The moment the subject is examined, however, objection to that method of procedure is dispelled. Hermione, as a dramatic person, disappears in the middle of the third act of Shakespeare's comedy and comes no more until the end of the piece, when she emerges as a statue. Her character has been entirely expressed and her part in the action of the drama has been substantially fulfilled before she disappears. There is no intermediate passion to be wrought to a climax, nor is there any intermediate mood, dramatically speaking, to be sustained. The dramatic environment, the dramatic necessities, are vastly unlike, for example, those of Lady Macbeth--one of the hardest of all parts to play well, because exhibited intermittently, at long intervals, yet steadily constrained by the necessity of cumulative excitement. The representative of Lady Macbeth must be identified with that character, whether on the stage or off, from the beginning of it to the end. Hermione, on the contrary, is at rest from the moment when she faints upon receiving information of the death of her boy. A lapse of sixteen years is assumed, and then, standing forth as a statue, she personifies majestic virtue and victorious fortitude. When she descends from the pedestal she silently embraces Leontes, speaks a few pious, maternal and tranquil lines (there are precisely seven of them in the original, but Mary Anderson added two, from "All's Well"), and embraces Perdita, whom she has not seen since the girl's earliest infancy. This is their only meeting, and little is sacrificed by the use of a substitute for the daughter in that scene. Perdita's brief apostrophe to the statue has to be cut, but it is not missed in the representation. The resemblance between mother and daughter heightens the effect of illusion, in its impress equally upon fancy and vision; and a more thorough elucidation is given than could be provided in any other way of the spirit of the comedy. It was a judicious and felicitous choice that the actress made when she selected those two characters, and the fact that her impersonation of them carried a practically disused Shakespearean comedy through a season of one hundred and fifty nights at the Lyceum Theatre in London furnishes an indorsement alike of her wisdom and her ability. She played in a stage version of the piece, in five acts, containing thirteen scenes, arranged by herself.

While Mary Anderson was acting those two parts in London the sum of critical opinion seemed to be that her performance of Perdita was better than her performance of Hermione; but beneath that judgment there was, apparently, the impression that Hermione is a character fraught with superlatively great passions, powers, and qualities, such as are only to be apprehended by gigantic sagacity and conveyed by herculean talents and skill. Those vast attributes were not specified, but there was a mysterious intimation of their existence--as of something vague, formidable, and mostly elusive. But in truth Hermione, although a stronger part than Perdita, is neither complex, dubious, nor inaccessible; and Mary Anderson, although more fascinating in Perdita, could and did rise, in Hermione, to a noble height of tragic power--an excellence not possible for her, nor for anybody, in the more juvenile and slender character.