194 Elizabeth McCracken.
195 One can doubt the entire truth of this statement without denying the larger truths lying in her general statement.
196 James Kiskadden died when Maude was ten years old.
197 In San Francisco.
198 Acton Davies—Maude Adams.
199 Part 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.
201 Perriton Maxwell. Her parts in Mr. Sothern’s company were: Louisa in The Highest Bidder, and Jessie Deane in Lord Chumley.
202 Produced at Palmer’s Theatre, New York, October 3, 1892. It was a French play, adapted by Clyde Fitch.
203 Her 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.
204 The 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; Phœbe 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.
205 The 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.
207 Prepared 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.
209 William 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.
211 And indicates also, in the same people, a lamentably restricted judgment of the artistic side of what they see on the stage.
212 Frederic 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.”
213 Ethel Barrymore was born at Philadelphia, August 15, 1879. Her mother was the actress, Georgie Drew-Barrymore.
214 Margaret Anglin was born at Ottawa, April 2, 1876. Her father was Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, and her brother was Chief Justice.
215 Alla Nazimova was born at Yalta, Crimea, Russia, June 4, 1879.
216 Edith Wynne Matthison was born at Birmingham, England.
217 Grace George was born at New York City, December 25, 1879.
218 Following the American production, Miss George played Divorçons in London.
219 Laura Hope Crews was born at San Francisco.
220 Besides 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.
221 Rutland to Nethersole.
222 1629.
223 Women 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.
224 In 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.
225 Thomas 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.
226 As 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.”
229 And 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.