fortunate, and renowned in her
public pursuits. The exposition of her nature, as apprehended through
her acting, constitutes the principal part of her biography.

Mary Anderson, a native of California, was born at Sacramento, July 28,
1859. Her father, Charles Joseph Anderson, who died in 1863, aged
twenty-nine, and was buried in Magnolia cemetery, Mobile, Alabama, was
an officer in the service of the Southern Confederacy at the time of his
death, and he is said to have been a handsome and dashing young man. Her
mother, Marie Antoinette Leugers, was a native of Philadelphia. Her
earlier years were passed in Louisville, whither she was taken in 1860,
and she was there taught in a Roman Catholic school and reared in the
Roman Catholic faith under the guidance of a Franciscan priest, Anthony
Miller, her mother's uncle. She left school before she was fourteen
years old and she went upon the stage before she was sixteen. She had
while a child seen various theatrical performances, notably those given
by Edwin Booth, and her mind had been strongly drawn toward the stage
under the influence of those sights. The dramatic characters that she
first studied were male characters--those of Hamlet, Wolsey, Richelieu,
and Richard III.--and to those she added Schiller's Joan of Arc. She
studied those parts privately, and she knew them all and knew them well.
Professor Noble Butler, of Louisville, gave her instruction in English
literature and elocution, and in 1874, at Cincinnati, Charlotte Cushman
said a few encouraging words to her, and told her to persevere in
following the stage, and to "begin at the top." George Vandenhoff gave
her a few lessons before she came out, and then followed her debut as
Juliet, leading to her first regular engagement, which began at Barney
Macaulay's Theatre, Louisville, January 20, 1876. From that time onward
for thirteen years she was an actress,--never in a stock company but
always as a star,--and her name became famous in Great Britain as well
as America. She had eight seasons of steadily increasing prosperity on
the American stage before she went abroad to act, and she became a
favourite all over the United States. She filled three seasons at the
Lyceum Theatre, London (from September 1, 1883, to April 5, 1884; from
November 1, 1884, to April 25, 1885; and from September 10, 1887, to
March 24, 1888), and her success there surpassed, in profit, that of any
American actor who had appeared in England. Sh