od."

Women of that sort are not called "cold." The standard is ordinary and
it is understood. But when a woman appears in art whose life is not
ruled by the love of admiration, whose nature is devoid of vanity, who
looks with indifference upon adulation, whose head is not turned by
renown, whose composure is not disturbed by flattery, whose simplicity
is not marred by wealth, who does not go into theatrical hysterics and
offer that condition of artificial delirium as the mood of genius in
acting, who above all makes it apparent in her personality and her
achievements that the soul can be sufficient to itself and can exist
without taking on a burden of the fever or dulness of other lives, there
is a flutter of vague discontent among the mystified and bothered rank
and file, and we are apprised that she is "cold." That is what happened
in the case of Mary Anderson.

What are the faculties and attributes essential to great success in
acting? A sumptuous and supple figure that can realise the ideals of
statuary; a mobile countenance that can strongly and unerringly express
the feelings of the heart and the workings of the mind; eyes that can
awe with the majesty or startle with the terror or thrill with the
tenderness of their soul-subduing gaze; a voice, deep, clear, resonant,
flexible, that can range over the wide compass of emotion and carry its
meaning in varying music to every ear and every heart; intellect to
shape the purposes and control the means of mimetic art; deep knowledge
of human nature; delicate intuitions; the skill to listen as well as
the art to speak; imagination to grasp the ideal of a character in all
its conditions of experience; the instinct of the sculptor to give it
form, of the painter to give it colour, and of the poet to give it
movement; and, back of all, the temperament of genius--the genialised
nervous system--to impart to the whole artistic structure the thrill of
spiritual vitality. Mary Anderson's acting revealed those faculties and
attributes, and those observers who realised the poetic spirit, the
moral majesty, and the isolation of mind that she continually suggested
felt that she was an extraordinary woman. Such moments in her acting as
that of Galatea's mute supplication at the last of earthly life, that of
Juliet's desolation after the final midnight parting with the last human
creature whom she may ever behold, and that of Hermione's despair when
she covers her face and falls as i