We speak thus plainly of Miss Anderson because her injudicious and enthusiastic friends are injuring, if they are not ruining her.  Her fine physique, her dash, her beautiful face, her clear ringing voice, have carried crowds off their heads—­well, they are off at both ends; for on last Thursday night the amount of applauding was based on shoe leather.  The lovely Anderson was called out at the end of each act.  As to that, the active Romeo had his call.  We never saw before precisely such a house.  The north-west was out in full force.  Kentucky came to the front like a little man.  General Sherman, sitting at our elbow, wore out his gloves, blistered his hands, and then borrowed a cotton umbrella from his neighbor.  Miss Anderson, with all her natural advantages, added to her love of the art, her indomitable will as shown in her square prominent jaw, has a career before her, but it is not down the path indicated by these enthusiastic friends.  ’The steeps where Fame’s proud temple shines afar’ are difficult of access, and genius waters them with more tears than sturdy, steady, persevering talent.

“Charlotte Cushman told us once that the heaviest article she had to carry up was her heart.  The divine actress who now leads the English-spoken stage began her professional career as a ballet dancer, and has grown her laurels from her tears.  We suspected Miss Anderson’s success.  It was too triumphant, too easy.  After years of weary labor, of heart-breaking disappointments, of dreary obscurity, genius sometimes blazes out for a brief period to dazzle humanity; and quite as often never blazes, but disappears without a triumph.

“To such life is not a battle, but a campaign with ten defeats, yea, twenty defeats to one victory.

“Miss Anderson will think us harsh and unkind in this.  She will live, we hope, to consider us her best friend.

“There is one fact upon which she can comfort herself:  she could not get two hours and a half of our time and a column in the Capitol were she without merit.  There is value in her; but to fetch it out she must go back, begin lower, and give years to training, education, and hard work.  She can labor ten years for the sake of living five.  As for her support, it was of the sort afforded by John T., the showman, and very funny.  Mrs. Germon, God bless her! was properly funny.  She is the best old woman on end in the world.

“Romeo (Mr. Morton) we have spoken of.  Lingham is supposed to have done Mercutio.  Well, he did do him.  That is, he went through the motions.  He seemed to be saying something anent the great case of Capulet vs. Montague, but so indistinct that there was a general sense of relief when he staggered off to die.  Deaths generally had this effect Thursday night, and the house not only applauded the exits, but made itself exceedingly merry.

“When Paris went down and a tombstone fell over him, his plaintive cry of ‘Oh, I am killed!’ was received with shouts of laughter.