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Mary Anderson by J. M. Farrar
page 35 of 79 (44%)
been thinking of Juliet all night. _Last night you were Juliet!_"

At the Boston Theater occurred an accident which shows the marvelous
courage and power of endurance possessed by the young actress. In the play
of "Meg Merrilies," she had to appear suddenly in one scene at the top of
a cliff, some fifteen feet above the stage. To avoid the danger of falling
over, it was necessary to use a staff. Mary Anderson had managed to find
one of Cushman's, but the point having become smooth through use, she told
one of the people of the theater to put a small nail at the bottom.
Instead of this, he affixed a good-sized spike, and one night Mary
Anderson, coming out as usual, drove this right through her foot, in her
sudden stop on the cliffs brink. Without flinching, or moving a muscle,
with Spartan fortitude she played the scene to the end, though almost
fainting with pain, till on the fall of the curtain the spiked staff was
drawn out, not without force. Longfellow was much concerned at this
accident, and on nights she did not play would sit by her side in her box,
and wrap the furred overcoat he used to wear carefully round her wounded
foot.

From Boston Mary Anderson proceeded to New York to fulfill a two weeks'
engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theater. She opened with a good company in
"The Lady of Lyons." General Sherman had advised her to read no papers,
but one morning to her great encouragement, some good friend thrust under
her door a very favorable notice in the New York _Herald_. The engagement
proved a great success, and was ultimately extended to six weeks, the
actress playing two new parts, Juliet and The Daughter of Roland. She had
passed the last ordeal successfully, and might rejoice as she stood on the
crest of the hill of Fame that the ambition of her young life was at
length realized. Her subsequent theatrical career in the States and Canada
need not be recorded here. She had become America's representative
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