136 On the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway.

137 Arthur Lynch, in Human Documents.

138 Still, 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.

140 Mary 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.”

141 The 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.”

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

145 On 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.”

146 In 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.”

147 October 30, 1891.

148 She 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.

149 Mary 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.

151 While 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.”

152 One 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.

153 Henry 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.”

154 It 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.

155 It 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!’”

156 Her 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).

157 Miss 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.”

158 On 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:

159 A Few Memories—1896.

160 It 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.

161 William Winter.

162 Duse furnished the only previous instance.

163 At Little Rock, Arkansas.

164 At 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.

166 The 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.

168 It 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.”

169 This 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.

170 The 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.

171 H. T. Parker in the Boston Transcript.

172 W. P. Eaton.

173 H. T. Parker.

174 In 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.

176 Mrs. 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.

179 On Ninth Street, between Vine and Race.

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

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

182 Miss 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.

183 Juliet 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.”

185 On 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.

186 Besides 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.

187 Beginning 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.

188 For 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.

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

190 She 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.)

191 In the season of 1895–96 during the “Mr. and Mrs. Taber” period, they had played with some success at Wallack’s, practically her first down-town engagement since the début in 1887. It was during this engagement that William Dean Howells wrote enthusiastic praise of her Juliet.

192 This 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.

193 Mr. 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.”