_tragedienne_; there was none to dispute her claims. Year after year she
continued to increase an already brilliant reputation, and to amass one of
the largest fortunes it has ever been the happy lot of any artist to
secure.




CHAPTER V.

FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.


In the summer of 1879, was paid Mary Anderson's first visit to Europe. It
had long been eagerly anticipated. In the lands of the Old World was the
cradle of the Art she loved so well, and it was with feelings almost of
awe that she entered their portals. She had few if any introductions, and
spent a month in London wandering curiously through the conventional
scenes usually visited by a stranger. Westminster Abbey was among her
favorite haunts; its ancient aisles, its storied windows, its thousand
memories of a past which antedated by so many centuries the civilization
of her native land, appealed deeply to the ardent imagination of the
impassioned girl. Here was a world of which she had read and dreamed, but
whose over-mastering, living influence was now for the first time felt. It
seemed like the first glimpse of verdant forest, of enameled meadow, of
crystal stream, of pure sky to one who had been blind. It was another
atmosphere, another life. Brief as was her visit, it gave an impulse to
those germs which lie deep in every poetic soul. She saw there was an
illimitable world of Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardly
trodden--and she went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancient