real, were so disconcerted by the vehemence and seeming reality of her
grief and despair, that on the first representation of "Comedy and
Tragedy" they actually forgot their parts, and had to be called to task by
the author for failing properly to support the star. "No man," it is said,
"is a hero to his _valet de chambre_," and few indeed are the artists who
can make their fellow artists on the stage forget that the mimic passion
which convulses them is but consummate art after all.

Mary Anderson's present Lyceum season will exhibit her in characters which
will give opportunity for displaying powers of a widely different order to
those called forth in the last. A new Juliet and a new Lady Macbeth will
show the capacity she possesses for the true exhibition of the tenderest
as well as the stormiest passions which can agitate the human breast; and
she may perhaps appear in Cushman's famous _role_ of Meg Merrilies. In all
these she invites comparison with great impersonators of these parts who
are familiar to the stage. We will not anticipate the verdict of the
public, but of this much we are assured that rarely can Shakespeare's
favorite heroine have been represented by so much youth, and grace, and
beauty, and genuine artistic ability combined. Juliet was her first part,
and has always been, regarded by Mary Anderson with the affection due to a
first love. But it may not be generally known that she imagines her
_forte_ to lie rather in the exhibition of the stormier passions, and that
she succeeds better in parts like Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies. I
remember her once saying to me, as she raised her beautiful figure to its
full height, and stretched her hand to the ceiling, "I am always at my
best when I am uttering maledictions." Thus far, Mary Anderson has shown
herself to us in characters which must give a very incomplete estimate of
her powers. None indeed of the parts she assumed were adapted to bring out
the highest qualities of an artist. That she has succeeded in inspiring
the freshness and glow of life into plays, some of which, at least, were