66Memories and Impressions.

67The others being Clara Morris, Georgia Cayvan, and Julia Marlowe.

68This prohibition did not apply to Austrian or Prussian Poland, of course, and she afterwards acted more than once in Cracow, Lemberg, and Posen.

69“During her long professional career, though Modjeska was ‘presented’ by various managers, her personal representative was her husband, Bozenta,—one of the kindest, most intellectual, and most drolly eccentric men it has been my fortune to know. Neither he nor his wife was judicious in worldly matters, while—as is not unusual in such cases—both thought themselves exceptionally shrewd and capable. Their professional labors were abundantly remunerative, but, being improvident and generous, they did not accumulate wealth. The close of Modjeska’s life, contrasted with the brilliancy of her career, was pathetic and forlorn. I called on her, a few months before her death, in the refuge, a little cottage, she had found, at East Newport. The great actress greeted me with gentle kindness and presently, as though my coming had reminded her of other days and scenes, she looked about the small narrow room in which we were. ‘Ah, it ees small,’ she said, ‘very small, this place of ours. But, what of that? It ees large enough for two old people to sit in—and wait.’ As I came away her lovely eyes were suffused with tears. She looked at me long and fixedly. ‘Good-by, my good friend,’ was all she said. She seemed to foresee that it was our last parting.”—(William Winter, The Wallet of Time.) It is not to be thought from this that Modjeska died poor. Of the vast sum (said to be $800,000) that she earned on the American stage, she left at her death something over $100,000, in California real estate, stocks and bonds, and jewelry. It is true, however, that she was lavishly generous, and that her bounty was bestowed in many places, private and public. She was the founder of an industrial school for girls in Cracow, for which she gave $100,000.

70A reference to Sembrich and Paderewski.

71April 8, 1909, on Bay Island, East Newport, California, whither she had moved from “Arden” but a few months before. Her final appearance on the stage was in the spring of 1907.

72These brothers and sisters were all actors or actresses except Charles, who was a stage manager, and the father of the actresses Minnie and Beatrice Terry. Mr. Scott does not mention another brother—George—who was identified with the business side of the theatre. Fred Terry married the actress Julia Neilson, and their daughter, Phyllis Neilson-Terry, is today among the most promising young women on England’s stage. There were two other brothers, Ben and Thomas, and three children died—twelve in all.

73No. 5 Market Street makes out the best case.

74Her own memory is perhaps not an infallible guide, but in a characteristic letter (September 26, 1887) to Clement Scott she was emphatic enough: “Mr. Dutton Cook’s statement was inaccurate, that’s all! I didn’t contradict it, although asked to do so by my father at the time, for I thought it of little, if of any interest. The very first time I ever appeared on any stage was on the first night of The Winter’s Tale, at the Princess’s Theatre, with dear Charles Kean. As for the young princes,—them unfortunate little men, I never played—not neither of them—there. What a cry about a little wool! It’s flattering to be fussed about, but ‘Fax is Fax!’”

75Another childish blunder marks Miss Terry’s only meeting with the great actor Macready. She accidentally jostled him while running to her dressing-room. He smiled at her apology, and said: “Never mind, you are a very polite little girl, and you act very earnestly and speak very nicely.”

76Miss Terry relates the rise and fall of her childish vanity at this time: “The parts we play influence our characters to some extent, and Puck made me a bit of a romp. I grew vain and rather ‘cocky,’ and it was just as well that during the rehearsals for the Christmas pantomime in 1857, I was tried for the part of the fairy Dragonetta and rejected. [The children’s parts at the Princess’s were assigned after competitive trials. For Mamillius “Nelly” had been chosen out of half a dozen aspirants.] I believe that my failure was principally due to the fact that I hadn’t flashing eyes and raven hair—without which, as every one knows, no bad fairy can hold up her head and respect herself.... Only the extreme beauty of my dress as the maudlin ‘good fairy’ Golden-star, consoled me. I used to think I looked beautiful in it. I wore a trembling star in my forehead, too, which was enough to upset any girl.” A little later: “I think my part in Pizarro saw the last of my vanity. I was a worshiper of the sun and, in a pink feather, pink swathings of muslin, and black arms, I was again struck by my own beauty. I grew quite attached to the looking glass which reflected that feather! Then suddenly there came a change. I began to see the whole thing. My attentive watching of other people began to bear fruit, and the labor and perseverance, care and intelligence, which had gone to make these enormous productions dawned on my young mind. Up to this time I had loved acting because it was great fun, but I had not loved the grind. After I began to rehearse Prince Arthur in King John, I understood that if I did not work I could not act! And I wanted to work. I used to get up in the middle of the night and watch my gestures in the glass. I used to try my voice and bring it up and down in the right places. And all my vanity fell away from me.”

77“It was a chicken! Now, as all the chickens had names—Sultan, Sultan, Duke, Lord Tom Noddy, Lady Teazle, and so forth—and as I was very proud of them as living birds, it was a great wrench to kill one at all, to start with. It was the murder of Sultan, not the killing of a chicken. However, at last it was done, and Sultan deprived of his feathers, floured, and trussed. I had no idea how this was all done, but I tried to make him ‘sit up’ nicely like the chickens in the shops.

“He came up to the table looking magnificent—almost turkey-like in his proportions.

“‘Hasn’t this chicken rather an odd smell?’ said our visitor.

“‘How can you!’ I answered. ‘It must be quite fresh—it’s Sultan!’

“However, when we began to carve, the smell grew more and more potent.

“I had cooked Sultan without taking out his in’ards!

“There was no dinner that day except bread-sauce, beautifully made, well-cooked vegetables, and pastry like the foam of the sea. I had a wonderful hand for pastry.”

78Of her first night as Portia the London Daily News said: “This is indeed the Portia that Shakespeare drew. The bold innocence, the lively wit and quick intelligence, the grace and elegance of manner, and all the youth and freshness of this exquisite creation can rarely have been depicted in such harmonious combination. Nor is this delightful actress less successful in indicating the tenderness and depth of passion which lie under that frolicsome exterior. Miss Terry’s figure, at once graceful and commanding, and her singularly sweet and expressive countenance, doubtless aid her much; but this performance is essentially artistic, ... in the style of art which cannot be taught.”

79Clement Scott.

80Ellen Terry dismisses Ibsen’s women as “silly ladies,” “drawn in straight lines,” and easy to play; a characteristic, if radically unjustified view.

81“She has always been an indefatigable and charming letter-writer, one of the greatest letter writers that ever lived,” says Mr. Shaw, the happy recipient of many of her letters.

82On one of her last American tours Miss Terry attended in New York the first night of a young playwright’s new work, and at the end of the third act he was presented to her. She congratulated him warmly: “It is very good,” she said, “your play is very good indeed, and I shall send all my American friends to see it.”

“In that case,” said the playwright, with a very low and courtly bow, “my little piece will sell ninety million tickets.”

83The dates of her most important impersonations since joining Henry Irving: Ophelia in Hamlet, 1878; Pauline in The Lady of Lyons; Ruth Meadows in The Fate of Eugene Aram, Queen Henrietta Maria in Charles I, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, 1879; Iolanthe in King RenÉ’s Daughter, Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, 1880; Camma in The Cup, Letitia Hardy in The Belle’s Stratagem, Desdemona in Othello, 1881; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Beatrice at the Lyceum (her previous appearance had been at Leeds), 1882; Viola in Twelfth Night, 1884; Olivia in Olivia (revival), Margaret in Faust, 1885; Ellaline in The Amber Heart, 1887; Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth, 1888; Catherine Duval in The Dead Heart, 1889; Lucy Ashton in Ravenswood, 1890; Queen Katherine in Henry VIII, Cordelia in King Lear, 1892; Rosamund in Becket, Nance Oldfield in Nance Oldfield, 1893; Queen Guinevere in King Arthur, 1895; Imogen in Cymbeline, 1896; Madame Sans-GÊne in the play of that name, 1897; Clarisse in Robespierre, 1899; Volumnia in Coriolanus, 1901; she acted under Irving’s management for the last time in 1902, playing Portia at his final performance at the Lyceum; Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1903; Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire, 1905; Lady Cecily Waynflete in Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, 1906. On April 28, 1906, the fiftieth anniversary of her first appearance, she played Francisca in Measure for Measure (once only) at the Adelphi.

84Mr. Shaw’s article on Ellen Terry appeared, in German, in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna. And there are several striking passages concerning her in the Dramatic Opinions and Essays.

85Yet, characteristically, she was better satisfied than some of her admirers: “I have sometimes wondered,” she wrote, “what I should have accomplished without Henry Irving. I might have had ‘bigger’ parts but it doesn’t follow that they would have been better ones, and if they had been written by contemporary dramatists my success would have been less durable. ‘No actor or actress who doesn’t play in the classics—in Shakespeare or old comedy—will be heard of long,’ was one of Henry Irving’s statements, and he was right.”

86Ellen Terry never played The Man of Destiny. Irving accepted it and shelved it.

87The first to appear was an elderly woman who long before noon on Monday placed herself and her campstool outside the entrance to the theatre. The performance was not scheduled to begin until the next day at half past one. During Monday afternoon and evening the gathering outside the doors steadily increased in size, until, at midnight there were many hundreds. Miss Terry, late Monday night, appeared to greet the waiting enthusiasts, and Mr. Arthur Collins, the manager of Drury Lane, furnished them a supper of hot coffee, rolls and cake. When the doors were at last opened many of those who had thus patiently waited failed to find room within the theatre. The proceeds of this entertainment, together with those of a popular subscription in England and America, went to Miss Terry and amounted to about forty thousand dollars.

88It was during this tour that Miss Terry made her third marriage, to James Carew, an actor of her company. Charles Wardell (Charles Kelly) died in 1885.

89During this tour the honor and affection she had won in the minds of Americans were attested by various testimonials. She was given at a special ceremony the Founder’s Medal of the now extinct New Theatre in New York, a “farewell banquet” was tendered her there, and in both New York and Boston she received an elaborate “book of welcome,” signed by many notable people and accompanied by poetic addresses, composed in one case by Percy MacKaye and in the other by Josephine Preston Peabody.

90In January, 1914, she appeared at King’s Hall, London, as the Abbess in two performances of Paphnutius, a play written in the tenth century by Hroswitha, a Benedictine nun. It was on this old play that Anatole France founded his romance ThaÏs. Thus did Ellen Terry, at nearly three score and ten, continue to furnish proof of her still youthful spirit and readiness for work. Later in the year she went to Australia to give there her Shakspearean lecture-readings. The great European war broke out, and conditions in Australia became so unfavorable that Miss Terry sailed for the United States, where she again lectured in a few of the larger cities.

For some years she had had increasing trouble with her eyes. Frequently she would spend the periods between the scenes in a darkened room. On February 23, 1914, in New York, Miss Terry underwent an operation, which proved successful, for the removal of a cataract from her right eye. In June, 1915, she reappeared in London on the occasion of a matinee given at the Haymarket in aid of one of the war charities. The play—a ballet pantomime called The Princess and the Pea—was the first musical piece in which Miss Terry ever took part. On this occasion also her two grandchildren made their stage dÉbut.

91In “The Yellow Book,” Vol. II (1894).

92Further precedent for Gabrielle’s career was furnished by her aunt, Mme. Naptal-Arnault, at one time a pensionnaire of the ComÉdie FranÇaise.

93For much of the information in the early part of this chapter the author is indebted to Loges et Coulisses, by Jules Huret.

94Who, twenty-eight years later, with Pierre Berton, was to write for her Zaza, one of her most successful plays.

95Mme. RÉjane recalls that her costume on this occasion was the object of much solicitude on the part of Regnier. On the day of the contest he came to her house at nine in the morning to pass judgment on her dress, which was made of white tarlatan at nine sous per metre, and cost in all about ten francs. Mme. Regnier loaned gloves for the occasion.

96AimÉe Olympe DesclÉe (1836–1874), of the Gymnase, who excelled in modern French emotional plays. She acted with success in London, and also appeared in Belgium and Russia.

97The students played also in the suburbs, at Versailles, Mantes, and Chartres. It was at Chartres, where she had a part in Les Paysans Lorrains, that the playbills first named her RÉjane. Till now she had gone by her own name of RÉju. She played also, while still a student, at matinÉes-confÉrences at the Porte-Saint-Martin, in Le Depit Amoureux and Les MÉnechmes.

98Her first appearance at the Vaudeville was on March 25, 1875. Her first three parts were small rÔles in La Revue des Deux-Mondes, Fanny Lear, and Vaudeville’s Hotel. There followed: Madame Lili, Midi À Quatorze Heures, Renaudin de Caen, La Corde, 1875; Le Verglas, Le Premier Tapis, Les Dominos Roses, Perfide comme L’Onde, Le Passe, 1876; Pierre, Les VivacitÉs du Capitaine Tic, Le Club, 1877; Le Mari d’Ida, 1878; Les Memoires du Diable, Les Faux Bonshommes, Les Tapageurs, Les Lionnes Pauvres, 1879; La Vie de BohÈme, Le PÈre Prodigue, 1880; La Petite Soeur, Odette, 1881; L’AurÉole, Un Mariage de Paris, 1882; all at the Vaudeville. At various theatres: Les Demoiselles Clochart, La Princess, Les VariÉtÉs de Paris, La Nuit de Noces de P.L.M., La Glu, 1882; Ma Camarade, 1883; Les Femmes Terribles, 1884; Clara Soleil, 1885; Allo! Allo!, Monsieur de Morat, 1886–87; DÉcorÉ, Germinie Lacerteux, Shylock, 1888; Marquise, 1889; La Famille BenoÎton, Le Mariage de Figaro, La Vie À Deux, 1889–90; Ma Cousine, 1890; Amoreuse, Fantasio, La Cigale, Brevet SupÉrieur, 1891; Lysistrata, Sapho, 1892; Madame Sans-GÊne, 1893; VillÉgiature, Les Lionnes Pauvres, Maison de PoupÉe, 1894; Viveurs, 1895; Lolotte, La Bonne HÉlÈne, Le Partage, DivorÇons, 1896; La Douloureuse, 1897; PamÉla, Le Roi Candaule, Zaza, Le Calice, Georgette Lemeunier, 1898; Le Lys Rouge, Mme. de Lavalette, 1899; Le Faubourg, Le BÉguin, La Robe Rouge, Sylvie ou la Curieuse d’Amour, 1900; La Pente Douce, La Course du Flambeau, 1901; La Passerelle, Le Masque, Le Joug, 1902; Heureuse, Antoinette Sabrier, 1903; La Montansier, La Parisienne, 1904; L’Age D’Aimer, 1905; La Piste, 1906. At the ThÉÂtre RÉjane: La Savelli, 1906; Paris-New York, Suzeraine, Les Deux Madame Delauze, 1907; Qui Perd Gagne, IsraËl, 1908; Trains de luxe, L’ImpÉratrice, Le Refuge, 1909; Madame Margot, La Flamme, M’Amour, 1910; L’Enfant de l’Amour (at the Porte St. Martin), La Revue Sans-GÊne, 1911; L’Aigrette, Un Coup de TÉlÉphone, AglaÏs (at ComÉdie Royale), 1912; Alsace, L’IrrÉguliÈre, 1913; Le Concert, 1914.

99“Her queer little face catches hold of you, by both the good and bad elements in your nature. All the intelligence, the devotion, the pity of a woman are to be read in her wonderful eyes, but below there is the nose and mouth of a sensual little creature, a vicious, almost vulgar, smile, lips pouted for a kiss, but with a lingering, or a dawning, suggestion of irony. Moreover, she is exactly the reigning type, the type that one meets constantly on the Paris pavements when the shop girls are going to lunch. If you happen to be born marquise or duchesse you copy the type, and the result is all the more piquant.”—Augustin Filon, “The Modern French Drama.”

100The Boston Courier, May 19, 1895.

101Her second American season began in New York, Nov. 7, 1904. During this tour she appeared for the first time in America in Amoureuse, La Passerelle, Zaza, La Petite Marquise, and La Hirondelle.

102Originally Madame Sans-GÊne was to have been produced at the Grand-ThÉÂtre, of which M. Porel, RÉjane’s husband, was manager. He gave up the house, however, before the play could be given. Other managers begged for it, but of each in turn M. Sardou demanded: “Have you RÉjane in your company?” and as the answer was always in the negative, he added: “Then there is no use of our talking about it.” Soon M. CarrÉ admitted M. Porel to a co-directorship of the Vaudeville, and there the play was produced, with immediately great success. M. Sardou was not the sole author. He had considerable help from M. Moreau.

103Correspondence of Frederick Roy Martin in the Boston Transcript, November 9, 1904.

104Dec. 29, 1906.

105In 1906, she attempted, with M. Gaston Mayer, to found a French repertoire theatre in London, but the experiment was not successful and lasted only one season.

106It is probably for this comedian that the street Calle Duse in Chioggio, near Venice, is named.

107“A curious circumstance attended her baptism at Vigevano. In accordance with the custom of the country the child was carried to the church in a shrine gilded and ornamented with jewels. A detachment of Austrian soldiery marched past the baptismal procession, and mistaking the shrine for the relics of some saint, halted and saluted. When he returned to his wife the father said to her: ‘Forgive me, dear, that I am unable to bring me a present for giving me a daughter, but I can give you a happy omen. Our daughter will be something great some day; already they have shown her military honors.’”

108In after years, when she had won fame and name, she used to carry about a little antique coffer in which as a babe she used to lie while her mother was upon the stage.

109According to Jean Dornis (Le ThÉÂtre Italien Contemporaine) her father said that she contracted a disease known as Salmara—or “The Spleen of Venice.” The victim of this ailment is “enveloped, as in a fantastic mist, with the sadness of the past, the bitterness of the present, and the uncertainty of the future.”

110Years after the time of which we are speaking, the two met at the home of Dumas, at Marly. When she found herself in the room with the man she had long venerated, she was speechless with emotion, and, the accounts say, burst into tears. When she finally acted in Paris, in 1897, Dumas was dead. She acted there on the occasion of the great testimonial to his memory. See page 188.

111In the last edition of his plays Dumas appends a footnote to La Princesse de Bagdad: “There is in the last scene a stage direction that is not found in other editions. After having said to her husband: ‘I am innocent, I swear it to you, I swear it to you,’ Leonetta, seeing him incredulous, places her hand on the head of her son and says a third time, ‘I swear it to you!’ This gesture, so noble and convincing, was not used in Paris. Neither Mlle. Croizette nor I thought of it; none the less, it was irrefutable and irresistible. Inflection alone, however powerful, was not enough.” As a matter of fact, until Duse introduced this bit of “business” no one had ever been able to make the scene convincing, and as the success of the whole play hangs on this scene, La Princesse de Bagdad had always been a comparative failure. Dumas goes on to pay tribute to Duse for introducing his work into Italy, and in conclusion says: “It is to be regretted for our art that this extraordinary actress is not French.”

1121885.

113Though her first night audience was described as “large and brilliant,” Duse’s audiences during her first American tour were generally not large in numbers. They were, however, drawn from a discriminating part of the public, the part that regards the drama as an art and goes to the theatre only when its own high standards are likely to be met. During the 1896 tour she attracted the same discerning public, but also, this time, that other public which runs to fads. “La Duse” became something of a fad, but happily at no sacrifice of the quality of her acting.

114The Critic, for January 28, 1893. The story has often been told of Mme. Bartet, the distinguished actress of the ComÈdie FranÇaise, and Duse’s swoon in La Dame aux CamÉlias. So powerful and so natural was Duse at the point where MarguÉrite swoons, that Bartet, perhaps sensible of Duse’s own bodily weakness, cried out: “Great Heavens! She has really fainted.”

115There is much in Mrs. Fiske’s acting to remind one of Duse, different as the two are in many ways. There is in each, in the first place, the same service to an art of an exceptional intellect, the same high minded devotion to ideals. Each has been a mistress of the subtleties, both of conceptions of characters and of means to set those conceptions forth. Each depends on the significant repression of emotion, rather than on expansive exposition of emotion. Each is, in spite of a fundamental seriousness, expert in comedy. Coming to details, each depends largely on rapidity of utterance, with occasional arbitrary pauses. Of the former—in a possible excess—Mrs. Fiske has been sufficiently charged; the latter Duse has been sometimes accused of carrying to undue lengths. Finally each has her wholesome distaste for eccentricities and meritricious publicity. Mrs. Fiske is Duse translated into American.

116The Critic, February 11, 1893.

117During her tour in America in 1893, Duse’s parts were: MarguÉrite Gauthier in La Dame aux CamÉlias; FÉdora; Clotilde in Fernande; Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana; Mirandolina in La Locandiera; Cyprienne in DivorÇons; Francine in Francillon, and CÉsarine in La Femme de Claude. During her second American tour in 1896, Duse played Magda for the first time in this country, and also some plays from her former repertoire, La Dame aux CamÉlias, Cavalleria Rusticana and La Locandiera. On her next visit, in 1902, which was during the d’Annunzio period, she played La Gioconda, La Citta Morta, and Francesca da Rimini, all by d’Annunzio.

118She played for London A Doll’s House and Antony and Cleopatra, as well as Camille, FÉdora, Cavalleria Rusticana and La Locandiera.

119When Duse was in the United States for the second time, in 1896, she withstood, as before, all attempts to interview her. This fact did not prevent some enterprising persons from publishing to the world that she had confessed a dislike of America. The report was widely spread, but the fact was that Duse did not make the statement.

Her Magda gave a new revelation of her skill. “In suggesting the social standing of the returned prodigal, Mme. Duse takes a middle course between the frank Bohemianism of Bernhardt and the loftier aristocratic air adopted by Modjeska. It is interesting to note how she emphasizes the theatrical nature of Magda’s past life, by just those little exaggerations of pose and gesture common to nearly all stage performers, but from which she herself, in ordinary conditions is almost ideally free. These manifestations of self-consciousness are confined to the second act, and vanish when the inner self of the woman is brought to the surface by the influence of powerful emotions.”—The Critic, March 7, 1896. An instance, this, of Duse’s remarkable subtlety in acting. At the point where Magda drives her former lover from her presence, she “easily reached and maintained herself at a height of emotion which can only be described as tragic, and she wrought the effect without exposing herself, even for an instant, to the charge of exaggeration or rant.” Of this scene William Archer, a little later, said that until he saw it he did not fully realize the dynamic potentialities of human utterance.

120Unlike many of her sister actresses, Duse made a practice of reading the criticisms of her acting.

121From Victor Mapes’ Duse and The French, to which the author is indebted for his account of Duse’s Paris dÉbut.

122In 1898 Mme. Vivanti Chartres, one of Duse’s few intimate friends, said (in the New York Dramatic Mirror): “Duse’s hatred of publicity and newspaper interviews has assumed the proportions of a mania.... When we were alone together, talking of the play I was writing for her, or discussing modern art, her youthful struggles with poverty, or the world weariness that came to her finally with her splendid success, Duse was herself—impulsive, eager, passionate, tender, sad. But the mere announcement of a visitor would freeze her into silent hauteur.

“I stayed with her in Turin for some time. We used to go out driving in the Valentino every morning, for Duse said she needed to begin the day by looking at ‘green things.’ She was crowding the Teatro Carignano, the receipts averaging 10,000 francs for each performance—a stupendous sum for Italy. Yes, Duse certainly makes a great deal of money, but she spends all that she makes. She is exceedingly generous. One day she gave a magnificent diamond ring to a dressmaker whom Worth had sent to her from Paris with her Dame aux CamÉlias dresses. And she pays her entire company all the year round, although during the last eighteen months she has given only twenty-two performances.

“At Monte Carlo we stayed at the Victoria, the dullest if most aristocratic hotel in the place. But Duse has a taste for the dismal and the melancholy. She is very sad—the saddest woman I have ever known. She cannot even bear people’s voices. After the strain of her performance she drives home quite alone, and sits down to her supper in solitude and silence. During the days that I was with her we used to sit at opposite ends of the large table, sometimes without exchanging half a dozen words, and she used to laugh her approval across to me when I absolutely refused to answer her if she made any attempts at polite conversation.

“Duse chez elle dresses almost always in white satin. Her gowns are loose and limp, and folded carelessly around her.... She is a charming woman, highly cultured, sincere, brave and good. Her conversation, when she chooses to speak, is startlingly brilliant.”

123It was her rule not to play more than four performances a week. When she was in her thirties, the world was told that she was a sufferer from “pulmonary phthisis,” and that her impending doom was one of the causes of her seclusion and sadness. All through her career there were periodic reports of her illness, of canceled engagements and interrupted tours.

124“She spends enormous sums on books and photographs, on bonbons and scissors—a curious hobby of hers, as she buys pair after pair, which she afterwards loses.... Another of her fads, which in Italy is a decided novelty, is hygiene; for to the average Italian mind, the simplest rules of health and sanitation, even the combination of warmth and good ventilation, are mysteries, to inquire into which would be useless and ridiculous. That Duse should like to have a fire and to sit with the window open at the same time, quite passes their powers of comprehension.” Helen Zimmern in Fortnightly Review, 1900.

125Her d’Annunzio parts, extending from 1897 to 1902, were: Isabella in Sogno di Mattino di Primavera, Anna in La Citta Morta, Silvia in La Gioconda, Helena in La Gloria, and Francesca in Francesca da Rimini.

126“In La Gioconda, the scene in the studio, when the wife, burdened with a sense of intolerable worry, finds herself face to face with the woman who has supplanted her—would to a second rate actress prove an irresistible temptation to frenzied rant; but Duse plays it with a sustained intensity of controlled detestation and scorn which was infinitely more impressive, more artistic and more true. In the horrible climax she leaves details of her destroyed hand to the imagination.” The Critic.

127“Her method does not admit even the possibility of pose. In the quietest and most delicate of her scenes Bernhardt always bears traces of her school and its traditions of autoritÉ. Duse on the other hand, goes to the most daring lengths in self-effacement. Her stillness is absolute.

“Even what is exaggerated in Italian gesture has in her a sort of anomalous grace, and preserves the richness and geniality of nature.” The AthenÆum, 1885.

128William Archer.

129The name was really Crehan. Why was it changed? Perhaps because in its original form it was too baldly Irish. Yet Ada’s two elder sisters had taken to the stage and both appeared with the name O’Neill. Her mother was Harriet O’Neill, her father William Crehan. There were six children, three boys and three girls. The story used to be current that “Crehan” became “Rehan” through an error of printing; that when Ada first appeared in Philadelphia, with Mrs. Drew, she was named on a playbill “Ada C. Rehan”; and that, in view of the favorable newspaper notices given the new actress, Mrs. Drew advised her to retain the name inadvertently given her,—all interesting surely, and perhaps true. Playbills of the Arch Street Theatre (Philadelphia) of 1874, however, give “Ada Crehan.”

130The date of her birth has always been given as April 22, 1860. There are reasons for thinking it must have been earlier. It would not be the only instance in which an actress’ age has been reduced by a retroactive manipulation of dates. Her first appearances on the stage were in 1873 and 1874, and by the time she went to Daly, in 1879, she had had an extended experience that would be simply marvelous for a girl of nineteen. Her hair began to turn gray about 1894. Mr. Winter says the streaks of gray came prematurely. Of course, they did, in any event, but thirty-four is an extraordinarily early age for such a phenomenon in an actress. An anecdote, not worth repeating, in the Boston Record for November 24, 1888, is introduced in this way: “Ada Rehan is forty years old and over. She makes up fairly for girlish rÔles ... but at close sight in the cold light of day she shows her age.” If worthy of any consideration, this paragraph would place the birthdate before 1850, obviously going to the other extreme. The correct date is undoubtedly 1855, or thereabout. Thus she was about eighteen when, in 1873, she made her first appearance.

131The eldest, Kate, “had been a choir singer in Limerick, and while singing at a concert one day in New York was heard by Harvey Dodworth and invited to join the chorus for Lester Wallack’s production of the opera of Don CÆsar de Bazan. She accepted, and was also joined by her younger sister Hattie, that being the dÉbut of the Crehan family upon the stage.”

132Arthur Byron, the actor, is their son. Harriet, the second sister, had a long and comparatively inconspicuous career on the stage as Hattie Russell. Two brothers, William Crehan and Arthur Rehan, were more or less definitely identified, after Ada’s success, with the business side of the theatre.

133While in his employ she appeared also in Baltimore.

135In these pre-Daly days Miss Rehan played, besides the Shakespearean parts named, a host of others that it would be tedious and useless to name. Most of them would suggest nothing to a present-day theatregoer. A few that may have some significance are: Esther Eccles in Caste, Hebe in Pinafore, Lady Florence in Rosedale, Lady Sarah in Queen Elizabeth, Little Em’ly in David Copperfield, Louise in Frou-Frou, Marie de Comines in Louis XI, Mary Netley in Ours, Pauline in The Lady of Lyons, Queen of France in Henry V, Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing, and Virginia in Virginius. There were about ninety in all.

136On the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway.

137Arthur Lynch, in Human Documents.

138Still, in 1888, when the Daly company was playing in Paris, several of its members were interviewed, (seemingly about particularly trivial matters) and Miss Rehan was one of the talkers. She was said to have been pessimistic about the wisdom of marriages among actresses, particularly to actors. This is an ever fresh subject for debate. A writer in the New York Dramatic Mirror, September 15, 1888, wrote a column to refute Miss Rehan’s remarks.

139“I would go to the theatre any night if only to see him run his fingers over the invisible keys of the sofa cushion.”—“Brunswick” in the Boston Transcript.

140Mary Young, herself a member of Daly’s Company, in a talk to the Drama League of Boston in 1914, said: “Mr. Daly was a most polite gentleman, with extraordinary eyes of green, as clear and sharp as they were kind and laughing; wonderful, all-seeing eyes!... The strictest discipline reigned everywhere. Every member, with the exception of Miss Rehan, seemed to be in a state of complete terror. Mr. Daly was supreme and held his company of distinguished players with a grip of iron. Rules and regulations were posted everywhere. One or two that I recall were: ‘The way to succeed—mind your own business,’ and ‘How to be happy—keep your mouth shut.’ I was amazed to see some of the extra girls hide behind pieces of scenery rather than face those remarkable eyes that might be cast their way as Mr. Daly was casually passing from one part of the stage to another.... However, to my mind he was a just man, although his temper often caused him to seem to do unjust things.... His heart was kind and he could not treasure up a wrong against any one who had once gained his confidence and respect.”

C.M.S. McLellan, who nowadays writes “books” for operettas, (and who wrote Leah Kleschna for Mrs. Fiske) in 1888 was writing for the New York Press what passed for amusing comment on theatrical matters. His chatter about Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan does a little toward characterizing both: “At the stage door you find a bulldog. Mr. Daly secluded himself in a padded room at the end of a secret passage. He comes down to the dog kennel to freeze all reporters. Editors are invited up to the green room. Henry Irving is supposed to be the only man who ever penetrated to the padded chamber, and he tells the story that while he was there Mr. Daly opened a bottle of claret and smiled. The claret part of the story is generally credited, but unless Mr. Irving is degenerating in his choice of words we think there was some mistake about the smile.

“But if any of us ever had doubts concerning the healthfully hilarious influence exerted by Mr. Daly’s benignity upon a great comedy company we have only to glance at Miss Rehan and be converted. We have had that baby pout of hers in opera and in Shakespeare, that imperious, uplifted nose of hers in Jenny O’Jones and Helena, and as the snows of various cycles descend on the heads of her worshipers the musical purr of the Rehan still sings the third sweet song of seven. And when she smiles, the light of pearls and rubies creeps out and illumines the nooks that the calcium cannot penetrate.

“So why should not Mr. Daly live in a padded room and manage the electric buttons that blush all this youth and divine color across a befogged community? He is entitled to padded rooms, bulldogs and cold hands. If he does nothing for the next forty years but keep the crack of doom out of Rehan’s purr he will have earned the right to be made Sheriff of New York County.”

141The list of parts played by Miss Rehan before she began the acquirement of her more famous repertoire cannot, and need not, be made complete here. Some of them were: Isabelle in Wives; Cherry Monogram in The Way We Live; Donna Antonina in The Royal Middy; Psyche in Cinderella at School; Muttra in Xanina; Selina in Needles and Pins; Phronie in Dollars and Sense; Thisbe in Quits; Tekla in The Passing Regiment; Tony and Jenny O’Jones in Red Letter Nights; Barbee in Our English Friend; Aphra in The Wooden Spoon; Floss in Seven-Twenty-Eight; Nancy Brusher in Nancy and Company, and Etna in The Great Unknown.

The more important parts played by Miss Rehan during her twenty years with Mr. Daly were: Baroness Vera in The Last Word; Tilburina in The Critic; Oriana in The Inconstant; Julia in The Hunchback; Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal; Miss Hayden in The Relapse; Pierrot; The Princess in Love’s Labours Lost; Valentine Osprey in The Railroad of Love; Mrs. Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Peggy Thrift in The Country Girl; Odette in Odette; Rose in The Prayer; Annis Austin in Love on Crutches; Doris in An International Match; Thisbe in A Night Off; Dina in A Priceless Paragon; Mrs. Jassamine in A Test Case; Hippolyta in She Would and She Would Not; Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew; Rosalind in As You Like It; Viola in Twelfth Night; Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing; Letitia Hardy in The Belle’s Stratagem; Sylvia (and Captain Pinch) in The Recruiting Officer; Xantippe in La Femme de Socrate; Kate Verity in The Squire.

142“Ada Rehan is of a superior race of women. She can be enormously interesting simply standing looking out of a window, her back to the audience, immobile, but with a ‘calmness’ that sends off vibrations that stir the pulses very curiously, and make her always the magnet, the center. She pauses, but it is the pause of a fine balance of strong feelings. She is all alive; she whirls round and comes into the action with a bold ringing stroke that has been adjudged to perfection. She can stride—not like a man, for she is always a fine woman—but like the daughter of Fingal, the sister of Ossian. She can bang a door like a chord of martial music. She can precipitate herself headlong into a room, and seizing her opponent or her lover, for she is equal to all occasions, at the critical wavering movement, sweep in with a wrestler’s power and lift him metaphorically helpless off his feet. Yet in all these displays Rehan is never violent in a narrow way, or streaky, or hard, or wiry.... The beauty of repose is delightful in her, the calm musing meditation, and the deep harmonious passion of devotion; so also is the quick salient swerve of emotion wherein the soul is suddenly shaken to its depths by love, by fear, by admiration ... we find life and flesh and blood throughout, and everywhere the fire of the soul that animates it.” Arthur Lynch, in Human Documents, London, 1896.

143“Playing Katherine brought me much satisfaction, but a very bad reputation for temper,” she once said. “I have often been amused at seeing the effect that a first performance of the ‘Shrew’ in a strange place produced on the employers of the stage. They shunned me as something actually to be feared. During a long run I have heard it said that I hated my Petruchio. I looked upon this as a compliment.”

144For an enlightening exposition of Miss Rehan’s acting in her various rÔles see his The Wallet of Time, Vol. II.

145On a later visit of the Daly company to London, Mr. Archer chewed and swallowed these words, thus: “‘Crude and bouncing.’ Ye gods! this of the swan-like Valentine Osprey of The Railroad of Love and the divine Katherine of The Taming of the Shrew! True, it is six years since these lines were written, and Miss Rehan’s art may—nay, must—have ripened in the interval. I try to persuade myself that I may not have been so far wrong after all, but it won’t do.... There must have been beauties in the performance of six years ago to which I was inexcusably blind.”

146In spite of Clement Scott’s praise: “Acting of this kind, so beneath the surface, so distinctly opposed to the commonplace, and so eloquent with finest touches of woman’s nature, we do not believe has been seen since the death of AimÉe DesclÉe.”

147October 30, 1891.

148She began her first “starring” tour at the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, (on September 24, 1894) where many interesting events have taken place. Here Julia Marlowe, six years before, had won her first really genuine recognition. The Hollis Street Theatre was first opened in 1885, and is still often referred to as the best-equipped theatre (on the stage) in the country. It was built in the site of the old Hollis Street Church, where John Pierpont, grandfather of John Pierpont Morgan, and Thomas Starr King preached. The walls of the church building of 1808 were incorporated in the theatre. The opening attraction was The Mikado. In the course of its run of twenty weeks Richard Mansfield appeared as Ko-Ko.

149Mary Anderson was the child of a devout Catholic mother, her brief period of schooling was in Catholic schools, her beloved Pater Anton was of course a strong influence for her adherence to that faith, and, throughout her public life and since, her devotion to her church has been constant and earnest. One of her friends (Henry Watterson) expressed the conviction that to her religion she owed much of the fortitude that carried her through the ordeals and failures of her career.

150“The convent was a large, Italian-looking building, surrounded by gardens and shut in by high, prison-like walls. That first night in the long dormitory, with its rows of white beds and their little occupants, some as sad as myself, my grief seemed more than I could bear. The moon made a track of light across the floor. A strain of soft music came in at the open window; it was only an accordion, played by someone sitting outside the convent wall; but how sweet and soothing it was! The simple little melody seemed to say: ‘See what a friend I can be! I am music sent from heaven to cheer and console. Love me, and I will soothe and calm your heart when it is sad, and double all your joys.’ It kept saying such sweet things to me that soon I fell asleep, and dreamed I was at home again. From that moment I felt music a panacea for all my childhood’s sorrows.”—Mary Anderson, A Few Memories.

151While a mere girl, Mary learned to ride a horse. Twice a year a visit was made to an Indiana farm. She learned to ride spirited horses without saddle or bridle. Riding was always her favorite amusement. Long afterwards, in London, a riding-master once said to her: “Why, Miss Handerson, you ’ave missed your vocation. What a hexcellent circus hactor you would ’ave made! I’d like to see the ’orse as could throw you now.”

152One who was present told William Winter “that notwithstanding the conditions inseparable from youth and inexperience, it was a performance of extraordinary fire, feeling and promise. Its paramount beauty, he said, was its vocalism. Miss Anderson’s voice, indeed, was always her predominant charm. Certain tones of it—so thrilling, so full of wild passion and inexpressible melancholy—went straight to the heart, and brought tears into the eyes.”—Other Days.

Throughout her career all observers noted the richness and expressiveness of Mary Anderson’s voice, especially its thrilling lower tones. After she retired from the stage, indeed, she paid considerable attention to singing, and once sang in public, in a small way, for charity.

153Henry Watterson, the journalist of Louisville and one of Miss Anderson’s earliest friends and advisers, tells this story to indicate the self-reliance that was the cue to her success: “On one occasion, after a long discussion, the counselor whom she had sought, quite worn out with his failure to convince her, exclaimed with some irritation: ‘Don’t you know that I am double your age, and have gone over all this ground, and can’t be mistaken?’ ‘No,’ she coolly replied, ‘I don’t know anything I have not gone over myself.’ She considered everything that was relevant, consulted everybody who could give information, and decided for herself.”

154It was during this engagement, that the young actress played for the first time the character of Meg Merriles, thus, perhaps unwisely, challenging comparison with Charlotte Cushman, who had made the part peculiarly her own.

155It does Mary Anderson nothing but credit to point out that at the time she was first claiming the attention of the East she had not yet grown to be quite the Mary Anderson the world remembers. She was already beautiful, but she was as yet a comparatively friendless, inexperienced young girl, ignorant of much of the art of the theatre and with undeveloped taste in dress; yet self-confident and perhaps just a bit spoiled. The manager of the theatre at which she played her first engagement in New York (in November, 1877) long afterward remembered its details. On the opening night “there was about three hundred dollars in money and a good paper house. Never was a Pauline attired in such execrable taste. The ladies of the audience could not conceal their smiles; but in the cottage scene Miss Anderson’s fine voice and her beauty captured everybody. Other plays followed. As Parthenia she looked a picture in her simple costume, and her manner of saying ‘I go to cleanse the cup’ enchanted the audience. As Bianca in Fazio she wore modern costumes, and but for her youthful beauty would have been absurd.

“On the first night, after the performance, I started home for supper, when it occurred to me that perhaps Miss Anderson would like something to eat after her hard work. So I called at Dr. Griffin’s rooms in West Twenty-eighth Street and found the future Queen of Tragedy eating a cold pork chop as she sat on a trunk. The whole party accepted my invitation and we went to the nearest restaurant. On our way we passed a candy store and Mary looked so longingly at the window that I asked whether she would like some candy. ‘Oh, yes!’ she cried, and jumped up and down on the pavement with pleasure. She selected a pound of molasses cream drops and commenced to eat them at once. The supper began with oysters on the half shell. To see Mary Anderson eat oysters and candy alternately was terrible; but a handsome girl may do anything unrebuked.

“The papers were very kind to Miss Anderson during her first engagement. She made a success of youth and loveliness; but the public did not rush in to see her.

“After a while, Henry Watterson, who had known her in Louisville, came to town and took an interest in her. He brought with him ex-Governor Tilden, who was taken behind the scenes to be introduced to the new star. He whispered to me, ‘What a remarkably handsome girl! No actress, but how very handsome!’”

156Her repertoire at this time (1879) was: Bianca in Fazio; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet; Lady Macbeth (the sleep-walking scene); Parthenia in Ingomar; Berthe in The Daughter of Roland; Julia in The Hunchback; Pauline in The Lady of Lyons; Meg Merriles in Guy Mannering; Evadne in Evadne; Duchess of Torrenucra in Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady; Ion in Ion; soon afterwards she added the Countess in Knowles’ Love, Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea, and Desdemona in Othello (once only).

157Miss Anderson said that during this search she considered W.S. Gilbert’s Brantingham Hall, but, as the chief character was not adapted to her, she declined it. Gilbert amusingly asked her if this was because she found anything gross in it. “For,” he said, “I hear that you hate gross things so much that you can hardly be induced to take your share of the gross receipts.”

158On the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth performance of The Winter’s Tale at the Lyceum, Miss Anderson was presented with a large laurel wreath from which were suspended a number of streamers in blue and gold, and bearing the names—three hundred and ninety-two in number—of all the members of the company and staff of the theatre, even to the call boy. In the center of the wreath, and supported by chains, was a brass tablet with the inscriptions: “En Souvenir of the One-hundred and Fiftieth performance of The Winter’s Tale, presented to Miss Mary Anderson by the members and employees, Lyceum Theatre, London, March 2, 1888,” and on the other side:

159A Few Memories—1896.

160It would be an impertinence to doubt the good faith of Mary Anderson’s own statement as to the immediate cause of her retirement in March, 1889. It is nevertheless interesting to observe that at the time, and later, the newspapers freely discussed circumstances which do not enter into her account. One theory was that adverse critical comment, which was found in many reviews of her acting, disturbed her seriously, and preyed more and more upon her mind until she lost faith in her own power, and underwent in consequence a somewhat severe nervous prostration. There was even a wide-spread report that she became mildly insane,—which was promptly discredited and which was of course merely a piece of sensationalism. Particular mention is made of one Louisville critic who, during Miss Anderson’s early years was one of her friends and advisers, but who, when she returned at the height of her career, sincerely believed her spoiled and a much less fine actress than she had given promise of becoming. He therefore wrote a frank and fearless analysis of her acting, in which he found much to dispraise. It is impossible to tell with accuracy how much truth there is in this story. Miss Anderson herself says that it was never her habit to read newspaper criticisms of her work, except that someone kept for her those that might prove helpful and that these were used as possible hints when she began work another season.

161William Winter.

162Duse furnished the only previous instance.

163At Little Rock, Arkansas.

164At different times, and as the exigencies of engagements permitted, in Montreal, New Orleans, Louisville, the Ursuline Convent in St. Louis, a French school in Cincinnati, and other private schools.

165“A person less given to reminiscence than Mrs. Fiske I cannot imagine. Upon revisiting in her professional tours the scenes of her childhood days one would naturally expect a great actress to remark, ‘Here is where I made my first appearance,’ or ‘Here I played the Widow Melnotte when I was only twelve’; but I do not recall that I ever heard Mrs. Fiske make the slightest allusion to persons or places, with one or two exceptions. She was appearing at Robinson’s Opera House, Cincinnati. As she entered the dressing room on the opening night she glanced about, and then at me, as if to determine whether or not it was safe to intrust me with the information. She then remarked that when a child she was brought into that room to see Mary Anderson in reference to playing some child character in one of Miss Anderson’s plays,—Ingomar, as she thought.”—Griffith, Mrs. Fiske.

166The parts she played in this childhood period included: Duke of York in Richard III; Willie Lee in Hunted Down; Prince Arthur in King John, and others of Shakespeare’s children; Damon’s son in Damon and Pythias; Little Fritz in Fritz; Paul in The Octoroon; Franko in Guy Mannering; Sybil in The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing; Mary Morgan in Ten Nights in a Barroom; the child in Across the Continent; the boy in Bosom Friends; Alfred in Divorce; Lucy Fairweather in The Streets of New York; the gamin and Peachblossom in Under the Gaslight; Marjorie in The Rough Diamond; the child in The Little Rebel; Adrienne in Monsieur Alphonse; Georgie in Frou-Frou; Heinrich and Minna in Rip van Winkle; Eva in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the child in The Chicago Fire; Hilda in Karl and Hilda; Ralph Rackstraw in Pinafore; Clip in A Messenger from Javis Section; the sun god in The Ice Witch; children and fairies in Aladdin, The White Fawn and other spectacular pieces; FranÇois in Richelieu; and Louise in The Two Orphans.

167“The extraordinary thing about Mrs. Fiske’s early career is that she should have been even permitted to play the range of characters that she did.... Frequently a young woman who is physically well developed easily passes for a much older person, and the eye is satisfied even if the ear be not, but little Minnie was little, and held her audiences then by her genius, as she subsequently has continued to do.”—Griffith.

168It is of this period that Mildred Aldrich wrote, in her article on Mrs. Fiske in Famous American Actors of To-day: “It was twilight on a very cold day when I knocked at her room at Hotel Vendome. A clear voice bade me enter and in a moment I had forgotten my cold drive. It was a voice which I can never forget, and which even as I write of it comes to my ear with a strange delicious insistence. As the door closed behind me there rose from the depths of a large chair, and stood between me and the dim light from the window a slender, childish figure, in a close-fitting, dark gown. The fading light, the dark dress, threw into greater relief the pale face with its small features and deep eyes, above and around which, like a halo, was a wealth of curling red hair. I had been told that she was young; but I was not prepared for any such unique personality as hers, and I still remember the sensation of the surprise she was to me as a most delightful experience. This was not the conventional young actress to whom I have been accustomed; this slight, undeveloped figure, in its straight, girlish gown reaching only to the slender ankles. There was a pretty assumption of dignity; there was a constant cropping out in bearing, in speech, in humor and in gestures of delicious, inimitable, unconcealable youth which was most fetching and which had something so infinitely touching in it.

“I have never encountered a face more variable. At one moment I would think her beautiful. The next instant a quick turn of the head would give me a different view of the face and I would say to myself, ‘She is plain’; then she would speak, and that beautiful musical mezzo, so uncommon to American ears, and from which a Boston man once emotionally declared ‘feeling could be positively wrung, so over-saturated was it,’ would touch my heart and all else would be forgotten. Such was Minnie Maddern when I first met her on her eighteenth birthday.”

169This was not her first marriage. She had been married when she was about sixteen to LeGrand White, a musician and theatrical manager. They were divorced about two years before she married Mr. Fiske.

“For two years before her marriage [to Mr. Fiske] she had been continually worried with the theatre and her rest was a welcome one. She had many interests beside the stage, and loved to get away to a little cottage, at Larchmont, where she took an active part in all the doings, and where she was a familiar figure driving a little yellow cart madly over the roads, more often bare headed than not, and always with that wonderful red hair flying in the wind.”—Mildred Aldrich.

170The list of productions beginning with Mrs. Fiske’s return to the stage in 1893, and not including revivals, is as follows: A Doll’s House, and Hester Crewe (by Mr. Fiske), 1893; Frou-Frou, 1894; The Queen of Liars (La Menteuse) and A White Pink, 1895; A Light from St. Agnes (by Mrs. Fiske) and La Femme de Claude, 1896; DivorÇons and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, 1897; A Bit of Old Chelsea and Love Finds a Way (The Right to Happiness) 1898; Little Italy, Magda, and Becky Sharp, 1899; The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch and Miranda of the Balcony, 1901; Mary of Magdala, 1902; Hedda Gabler, 1903; Leah Kleschna, 1904; The Rose, and The Eyes of the Heart (one-act plays by Mrs. Fiske), 1905; Dolce, and The New York Idea, 1906; Rosmersholm, 1907; Salvation Nell, 1908; Hannele, The Pillars of Society, and Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh, 1910; The New Marriage, 1911; Lady Patricia and The High Road, 1912; Lady Betty Martingale, or The Adventures of a Hussy, 1914.

171H.T. Parker in the Boston Transcript.

172W.P. Eaton.

173H.T. Parker.

174In 1907 Mrs. Fiske took The New York Idea on an unprecedented tour throughout the West. She played not only as far South as the Mexican border, and along the Pacific coast, but even went into the Canadian Northwest as far as Edmonton, appearing in many towns that had never before seen a theatrical company of the highest grade. And The New York Idea, a sophisticated comedy addressed to Eastern audiences, was successful everywhere. At Globe, Arizona, the audience contained hundreds who had come from long distances by train, stage or horse-back. Calgary demanded a return engagement. At Edmonton the play was given in a rink on an improvised stage, and lasted from eleven o’clock—the time of the arrival of the belated train—till two of the early northern dawn.

175“There never was a case of lame or scurvy dog that fell under Mrs. Fiske’s notice that did not get instant relief. A mangy and ownerless mongrel cur on the street never failed to find a friend in her. If she were in a carriage, no conveyance was too good for Towser or Tige. Towser or Tige might never have had a bath during all of his unhappy dog days, but into the carriage went the friend of man, and the coachman was directed to steer for the nearest veterinarian, who was forthwith subsidized to make a good dog out of a very much frazzled one, and send the bill to Mrs. Fiske. All over this glorious country dogs were being repaired, boarded, and rebuilt as good as new, when masters were adopted for them, and ‘the dog that Mrs. Fiske saved’ lived his allotted span and expired loved, honored, and respected. With horses, too, it was just the same. I believe if she were on the way to a matinÉe with the house all sold out, and an abused or otherwise pitiful case of horse attracted her attention,—and it would—she would sacrifice that matinÉe before she would the horse.”—Griffith.

176Mrs. Fiske at one time was fond of visiting the motion-picture theatres, heavily veiled and sitting in the back of the house. The better grade of foreign films interested her. And she has recently shown more broad-mindedness toward a growing art than some actresses much lower than she in the artistic scale; for she has herself recently acted Tess and Becky Sharp for the motion-picture camera.

“When attending another theatre, as she sometimes does on a Wednesday afternoon, she would like, if she could, to occupy an obscure balcony seat, or at the back downstairs; but if that is not feasible, and a box must be taken, she generally ensconces herself behind the drapery, in as inconspicuous a place as possible. There is absolutely nothing of the spectacular or ‘theatrical’ about Mrs. Fiske.”—Griffith.

177“During a rehearsal her poodle entered the theatre and calmly and unconsciously crossed the stage, keeping at a respectful distance from her, however, only condescending to notice her mistress with a side glance. This was so contrary to her customary dashing and bounding approach, that Mrs. Fiske stopped the rehearsal and called to Fifi to come to her. But not Fifi; she merely glanced and continued her dignified and stately promenade across the stage. Persistently and with authority Mrs. Fiske ordered the queenly Fifi to approach. Not for Hecuba—no approach, only a pause. Mohammed must go to the mountain, and Mrs. Fiske did the approaching. Did Fifi grin, or what did the slight gleam of white teeth portend? It was merely the flash of lightning, for the thunder came soon after in a low growl of defiance. Never had such a thing happened before. This impromptu play was good, with Mrs. Fiske at her best, and the audience of actors stood by immensely interested. With tragic emphasis Mrs. Fiske stamped her foot and, pointing in the direction of her dressing room, ordered the black woolly beast to begone and quit her sight, to let the dressing room hide her, and a few things like that, and added something about Fifi’s bones being marrowless and her blood cold, and about the absence of speculation in her eyes which she did glare with. Just then Mr. Gilmore remarked: ‘That’s not Fifi—that’s my dog Genie.’ Laughter—quick curtain.”—Griffith.

178“When a series of one-night stands was being played—and she has a perfectly frantic fondness for them—it was our custom to charter a Pullman, as she lived in the car instead of in hotels.... This she most urgently requested to have placed ‘not at the end of the train.’ The rear-end collision had mortal terrors for her.... The same nervous fear applied to non-fireproof hotels, in any of which Mrs. Fiske will not go above the second story.... Mrs. Fiske appears never to weary of travel, and while she objects to starts ranging from five to ten o’clock A.M., an earlier or later leaving hour does not disturb her; in fact, she says she rarely falls asleep until near morning. We had a prohibition against ringing the berth bells before ten A.M., and also against any kind of alarm clock.... Very rarely Mrs. Fiske went to the dining car in the train, her dislike for making herself conspicuous being very marked. This modesty was exemplified in her fondness for veils, as she always wore at least one, and more generally two.... Her unceasing employment of time when on tour is in study. It is a never-ending labor, and one that evidently delights her. The preparation for things to come—perhaps a year or more ahead—is always in her mind.... During all my time [thirteen years] with Mrs. Fiske she never lost a single night from illness.”—Griffith.

179On Ninth Street, between Vine and Race.

180According to an interview with Mrs. Hess, printed in 1897 in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.

181She was also Myrene in Pygmalion and Galatea and Stephen in The Hunchback.

182Miss Dow was for many years known as the aunt of Miss Marlowe. There was no actual relationship; but by legal agreement or otherwise Miss Marlowe was an “adopted niece” of the older woman. Miss Dow’s interest in her young charge was, naturally, not wholly altruistic. That is, there was a signed agreement by virtue of which Miss Dow was to share heavily in any earnings of Miss Marlowe for a term of years after the dÉbut, and was to have a voice in the management of her affairs. After the actress’ emergence in 1887 as Julia Marlowe, however, Miss Dow’s management continued for only a few years. There was even newspaper talk of Miss Marlowe’s having “thrown over” her guide and friend, after she began to meet success. Miss Dow became Mrs. Currier. Her training of Fanny Brough started her on a long career as a dramatic teacher, in which capacity she was active as recently as the autumn of 1915.

183Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Julia in The Hunchback, Parthenia in Ingomar, Pauline in The Lady of Lyons and Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea.

184“Whole plays were rehearsed. The instructor served both as audience and prompter. She read all the parts save the heroine’s. Scenery and the position of the other players were indicated by tables and chairs. When Romeo and Juliet was rehearsed, the back of a venerable haircloth sofa was the balcony rail. With her chin resting upon it and her gaze fixed tenderly upon a worn place in the carpet, she first recited Juliet’s impassioned good-night to her lover.”

185On the twentieth. How old was Julia Marlowe on this important day of her life? The date of her birth has been variously given, and authority might be found for any year between 1864 and 1870. As a matter of fact, the Register of Baptisms of the Parish of Caldbeck shows that she was baptized September 23, 1866. Thus she was at least twenty-one at the time of her dÉbut, though she was popularly supposed to be about eighteen.

186Besides other things, Colonel Ingersoll said: “To retain the freshness that is her greatest charm she will have to ... pay no attention to the critics. Her talent needs no guide save that afforded by her experience and her own mentality.” One Alfred Ayres, writing to the editor of the New York Dramatic Mirror, voiced the protest that was felt in many quarters against Colonel Ingersoll’s kindly meant over-enthusiasm: “What nonsense clever men do sometimes talk, when they talk about things they know little or nothing about!... There is not a novice in America more in need of guidance than is Miss Julia Marlowe. To let her go her own way would be to let her go to ruin. She is already on the high-road to becoming merely coy, coddling, and goody-goody.” Colonel Ingersoll became Miss Marlowe’s personal friend. At least one summer she spent with his family.

187Beginning with her New York dÉbut in 1887, Julia Marlowe’s first appearances in her various parts were as follows: Parthenia in Ingomar, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Viola in Twelfth Night, 1887; Julia in The Hunchback, Pauline in The Lady of Lyons, 1888; Rosalind in As You Like It, Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea, 1889; Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, 1890; Imogen in Cymbeline, Charles Hart in Rogues and Vagabonds, 1891; Constance in The Love Chase, 1893; Letitia Hardy in The Belle’s Stratagem, Chatterton in Chatterton, Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal, 1894; Colombe in Colombe’s Birthday, Prince Hal in Henry IV, Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, 1895; Lydia Languish in The Rivals (supplementary spring season, with “all-star cast”), Romola in Romola, 1896; Mary in For Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Countess in The Countess Valeska, 1897; Colinette in Colinette, Barbara in Barbara Frietchie, 1899; Mary Tudor in When Knighthood Was in Flower, 1901; Fiametta in The Queen Fiametta, Charlotte Oliver in The Cavalier, 1902; Lady Barchester in Fools of Nature, 1903; Ophelia in Hamlet, 1904; Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, 1905; Salome in John the Baptist, Jeanne in Jeanne d’Arc, Rautendelein in The Sunken Bell, 1906; Madonna Gloria in Gloria, Yvette in The Goddess of Reason, 1908; Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, 1909; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, 1910.

188For Henry IV Mr. and Mrs. Taber had to learn to wear armor. They used genuine armor, and to accustom themselves to it they wore it for hours each day in their apartments.

189Frank Howe, of the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia.

190She obtained a divorce in January, 1900. Four years later Taber died, of tuberculosis, “at a refuge in the Adirondack Mountains, provided for him,—for he had been rendered practically destitute by illness—through the goodness of his former wife.” (Winter.)

192This memorable alliance first went into effect in Chicago, September 19, 1904, at the Illinois Theatre. It continued for three seasons, after which, during the seasons of 1907–8 and 1908–9, each again headed separate companies. In 1909 they rejoined forces, and continued to act together until the spring of 1914, when Miss Marlowe was taken sick, and Mr. Sothern continued alone. At this time it was announced that Miss Marlowe had retired from the stage for good. There was subsequently some talk of a farewell tour, but Miss Marlowe’s retirement was definitely confirmed in the summer of 1915. As everyone knows, the two stars became man and wife. The marriage occurred in London, in 1911.

193Mr. Walkley wrote in The Times an eloquent tribute to her Viola, which he found “bewitching.” “In the purely sensuous element in Shakespeare, in the poet’s picture of frankly joyous and full-blooded womanhood, the actress is in her element, mistress of her part, revelling in it and swaying the audience by an irresistible charm. She aims at no startling ‘effects’; she seems to be simply herself—herself, that is, glorified by the romance of the part—enjoying the moment for the moment’s sake, and so making the moment a sheer enjoyment for the spectator. That is now clearly shown which in her earlier parts could only be divined—that here is a genuine individuality, a temperament of real force and peculiar charm. High-arched brows over wide-open, eloquent eyes; a most expressive mouth, now roguish with mischief, now trembling with passion; a voice with a strange croon in it, with sudden breaks and sobs—these, of course, are purely physical qualifications which an actress might have and yet not greatly move us. But behind these things in Miss Marlowe there is evidently an alert intelligence, a rare sense of humor and a nervous energy which make, with her more external qualities, a combination really fine. She beguiled not only Olivia, but the whole house to admiration. Here, then, is one of Shakespeare’s true women.”

194Elizabeth McCracken.

195One can doubt the entire truth of this statement without denying the larger truths lying in her general statement.

196James Kiskadden died when Maude was ten years old.

197In San Francisco.

198Acton Davies—Maude Adams.

199Part of the time, at least, Mrs. Adams substituted herself for Maude when the time for this plunge arrived.

200“Yes, I confess it,” she has declared, “I was in the ballet for six brief months. There is much to be learned there, and some the ballet’s teachings may be advantageously applied to the art of acting. Studied forms of dancing are not, perhaps, an essential part of a player’s outfit, but they have a certain related value not to be lightly esteemed.”—Perriton Maxwell.

201Perriton Maxwell. Her parts in Mr. Sothern’s company were: Louisa in The Highest Bidder, and Jessie Deane in Lord Chumley.

202Produced at Palmer’s Theatre, New York, October 3, 1892. It was a French play, adapted by Clyde Fitch.

203Her parts were: Suzanne in The Masked Ball, 1892; Miriam in The Butterflies, 1894; Jessie Keber in The Bauble Shop, 1894; Marion in That Imprudent Young Couple, 1895; Dora in Christopher, Jr., 1895; Adeline Dennant in The Squire of Dames, 1896; Dorothy Cruikshank in Rosemary, August, 1896. On December 9, 1896, she played Mary Verner in Too Happy by Half.

204The plays and parts of Maude Adams’ “stardom” are as follows: Lady Babbie in The Little Minister, 1897; Mrs. Hilary in Mrs. Hilary Regrets (special performance, with John Drew), 1897; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (supplementary spring season), 1899; Duke of Reichstadt in L’Aiglon, 1900; Phoebe Throssell in Quality Street, 1901; Pepita in The Pretty Sister of JosÉ, 1903; Amanda Affleck in ’Op O’ Me Thumb (in one act), 1905; Peter Pan, 1905; Viola in Twelfth Night (at Harvard), 1908; Chicot in The Jesters, 1908; Maggie Wylie in What Every Woman Knows, 1908; Joan of Arc in The Maid of Orleans (at Harvard), 1909; Rosalind in As You Like it (University of California), 1910; Chanticler, 1911; Leonora in The Legend of Leonora, 1913. This list does not include revivals.

205The Wallet of Time, vol. II.

206“Children, corsets and cigars were named after her;—as a matter of fact I know one ten-year-old child who has thirteen dolls, and every one of them bears the same identical name, Maude Adams.”—Acton Davies.

207Prepared by Louis N. Parker and Edward Rose.

208“She was at her best in the scene of supplication and childlike blandishment with the old Austrian Emperor. The vein of Miss Adams is domestic and romantic—not tragic. She carried the second act of the play with sustained vivacity and gratifying skill. Possessed of a gentle personality and capable of a piquant behavior, Miss Adams was a sprightly and bonnie lass in The Little Minister, and that performance furnished the measure of her ability. As Reichstadt she gave an intelligent performance, on a commonplace level.”—William Winter, The Wallet of Time.

209William Winter. His appreciation of some qualities of the impersonation did not prevent his saying: “Pepita, as impersonated by Miss Adams, was a tenuous damsel, of peevish aspect, who closed her teeth and spoke through them, producing, at times, a strange, nasal sound, as of a sheep bleating.”

210“At the moment when Maggie destroys Shand’s written promise of marriage and again at the moment when she gazes on the beauty who has bewitched her husband, Miss Adams attained to the loftiest height she has reached, in the expression of feeling.”—The Wallet of Time.

211And indicates also, in the same people, a lamentably restricted judgment of the artistic side of what they see on the stage.

212Frederic Dean has given one or two cases of her bounty: “There used to be an old doorkeeper at the stage entrance of the Empire Theatre. One day he was taken sick and his place was filled by another. Miss Adams learned that the old chap had lost his position and made a hurried search for him, tracing him, at last, to an East Side tenement. It was long after midnight when she found him. He was very ill and was being taken care of by his faithful wife as best she could. Doctors and nurses were immediately summoned and every possible comfort provided; and the next morning, and the next, and the next came Lady Bountiful—and every day, until the sufferer died a month later.

“For sixteen years Robert Eberle was in Charles Frohman’s employ as business manager. One year, late in the season, he was taken ill and left in a hospital in South Bend, Indiana. Miss Adams was playing in the West at the time, and hearing of Mr. Eberle’s illness—though several hundred miles from the hospital—left her company on Saturday night, went to South Bend, spent Sunday at the sick man’s bedside, and, leaving orders for the best of medical treatment, returned to her work just in time to dress for her part on Monday night.”

213Ethel Barrymore was born at Philadelphia, August 15, 1879. Her mother was the actress, Georgie Drew-Barrymore.

214Margaret Anglin was born at Ottawa, April 2, 1876. Her father was Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, and her brother was Chief Justice.

215Alla Nazimova was born at Yalta, Crimea, Russia, June 4, 1879.

216Edith Wynne Matthison was born at Birmingham, England.

217Grace George was born at New York City, December 25, 1879.

218Following the American production, Miss George played DivorÇons in London.

219Laura Hope Crews was born at San Francisco.

220Besides Miss Russell, Miss O’Neil, Miss Stahl and Miss Crosman, these are some of the American actresses of the closing years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, who merit more notice than can be given them here, but whose achievements are recorded in the books named in the bibliography: Viola Allen, Julia Arthur, Blanche Bates, Amelia Bingham, Clara Bloodgood, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Rose Coghlan, Ida Conquest, Maxine Elliott, Virginia Harned, Isabel Irving, May Irwin, Mary Mannering, Clara Morris, Eleanor Robson, Effie Shannon, Mary Shaw and Blanche Walsh. Some in this list, like Miss Irwin, Miss Coghlan and Miss Shannon, are, happily, still active. And Miss Arthur announces her return to the stage.

221Rutland to Nethersole.

2221629.

223Women acted in Italy as early as 1560, and actresses appeared in France probably not much later. The earliest French actress of whom there is definite record is Marie Vernier, who acted in Paris, in her husband’s company, in 1599. In Spain the practice of substituting boys and men in women’s parts seems never to have obtained. Going back to antiquity, it is to be noted that while the Greeks never tolerated actresses on their stage, in Rome occasional women players were by no means unknown.

224In the interim D’Avenant had ingeniously circumvented the restrictions placed by Cromwell’s government on the theatres, by devising a species of opera. They were really plays, in the grand style, modeled after Italian pieces, and with a musical accompaniment to take the curse off. In one of these, The Siege of Rhodes, performed in 1656, two women, Mrs. Edward Coleman and another, played Ianthe and Roxalana.

225Thomas Jordan’s prologue shows that the “boys” were now sometimes dangerously near middle age:

“Old Chetwood tells a story which amply illustrates the absurdity of the ‘men-actresses.’ King Charles II, he says, coming to the theatre to see Hamlet and being kept waiting for some time, sent the Earl of Rochester behind to see what was causing the delay. He returned with the information that ‘the Queen was not quite shaved.’ ‘Odsfish!’ said the King. ‘I beg her Majesty’s pardon. We’ll wait till her barber has done with her.’”—Lowe’s Betterton.

226As seems clear, for instance, from Hamlet’s unusual consideration of them. The often-quoted law enacted in the reigns of Elizabeth and James seems, however, to have been directed not against the established city companies, but against the wandering country players. It reads, quaintly enough: “All bear-wards, common players of interludes, counterfeit Egyptians, etc., shall be taken, adjudged, and deemed Rogues and Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars, and shall sustain all pain and punishment as by this act is in that behalf appointed.” For a rÉsumÉ of the phases of the actor’s lack of social position see John Fyvie’s “Comedy Queens of the Eighteenth Century.”

227“Of course, in the theatrical profession, as in every other, there have always been exceptional individuals whose characters and abilities (especially if they managed to acquire a little wealth) have raised them into the highest society of their time. But in the case of actors it was always quite apparent that they were only there in sufferance, and were tolerated because they were amusing. It was thought a stinging satire, for example, when ‘Junius,’ incidentally addressing Garrick, wrote: ‘Now mark me, vagabond; keep to your pantomimes or be assured you shall hear of it.’”

228“Goldsmith having said, that Garrick’s compliment to the Queen, which he introduced into the play of The Chances, which he had altered and revised this year, was mean and gross flattery; Johnson: ‘... as to meanness (rising into warmth), how is it mean in a player—a showman—a fellow who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his queen?’ (1773).

“He (Foote) mentioned, that an Irish gentleman said to Johnson, ‘Sir, you have not seen the best French players.’ Johnson: ‘Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.’—‘But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?’ Johnson: ‘Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others.’ (1775).

“I wondered (said Johnson) to find Richardson displeased that I ‘did not treat Cibber with more respect. Now, Sir, to talk of respect for a player’ (smiling disdainfully). Boswell: ‘There, Sir, you are always heretical; you never will allow merit to a player.’ Johnson: ‘Merit, Sir, what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a ballad-singer?’ Boswell: ‘No, Sir; but we respect a great player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully.’ Johnson: ‘What, Sir, a fellow who claps a hump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, “I am Richard the Third”?’” (1777).—Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.”

229And even of Bracegirdle, the incomparably virtuous, certain doubts exist. Mountford is thought by some to have been a favored lover; and later Congreve, the poet, was accounted the actor’s successor.