by a lady—­a role by the way in which Cushman achieved one of her greatest triumphs.  In spite, however, of the young star, the little band played to sadly empty houses, and the treasury was so depleted that, in the generosity of her heart, Mary Anderson proposed to organize a benefit matinee, and play Juliet.  She went down to the theater at the appointed hour and dressed for her part.  After some delay a man strayed into the pit, then a couple of boys peeped over the rails of the gallery, and, at last, a lady entered the dress-circle.  The disheartened manager was compelled at length to appear before the curtain and announce that, in consequence of the want of public support, the performance could not take place.  That day Mary Anderson walked home to her hotel through the quiet streets of the little Kentucky town—­which shall be nameless—­with a sort of miserable feeling at her heart, that the world had no soul for the great creations of Shakespeare’s master-mind, which had so entranced her youthful fancy.  It all seemed like a descent into some chill valley of darkness, after the sweet incense of praise, the perfume of flowers, and the crowded theaters which had been her earlier experiences.  But the dark storm cloud was soon to pass over, and henceforth almost unbroken sunshine was to attend Mary Anderson’s career.  For her there was to be no heart-breaking period of mean obscurity, no years of dull unrequited toil.  She burst as a star upon the theatrical world, and a star she has remained to this day, because, through all her successes, she never for a moment lost sight of the fact that she could only maintain her ground by patient study, and steady persistent hard work.  Failures she had unquestionably.  Her rendering of a part was often rough, often unfinished.  Not uncommonly she was surpassed in knowledge of stage business by the most obscure member of the companies with whom she played; but the public recognized instinctively the true light of genius which shone clear and bright through all defects and all shortcomings.  It was a rare experience, whether on the stage, or in other paths of art, but not an unknown one.  Fanny Kemble, who made her debut at Covent Garden at the same age as Mary Anderson, took the town by storm at once, and seemed to burst upon the stage as a finished actress.  David Garrick was the greatest actor in England after he had been on the boards less than three months.  Shelley was little more than sixteen when he wrote “Queen Mab;” and Beckford’s “Vathek” was the production of a youth of barely twenty.

In the year 1876, Mary Anderson received an offer from a distinguished theatrical manager, John T. Ford, of Washington and Baltimore, to join his company as a star, but at an ordinary salary.  Three hundred dollars a week, even in those early days, was small pay for the rising young actress, who was already without a rival in her own line on the American stage; but the extended tour through the States which the