ue, she personifies majestic virtue and
victorious fortitude. When she descends from the pedestal she silently
embraces Leontes, speaks a few pious, maternal and tranquil lines (there
are precisely seven of them in the original, but Mary Anderson added
two, from "All's Well"), and embraces Perdita, whom she has not seen
since the girl's earliest infancy. This is their only meeting, and
little is sacrificed by the use of a substitute for the daughter in that
scene. Perdita's brief apostrophe to the statue has to be cut, but it is
not missed in the representation. The resemblance between mother and
daughter heightens the effect of illusion, in its impress equally upon
fancy and vision; and a more thorough elucidation is given than could be
provided in any other way of the spirit of the comedy. It was a
judicious and felicitous choice that the actress made when she selected
those two characters, and the fact that her impersonation of them
carried a practically disused Shakespearean comedy through a season of
one hundred and fifty nights at the Lyceum Theatre in London furnishes
an indorsement alike of her wisdom and her ability. She played in a
stage version of the piece, in five acts, containing thirteen scenes,
arranged by herself.

While Mary Anderson was acting those two parts in London the sum of
critical opinion seemed to be that her performance of Perdita was better
than her performance of Hermione; but beneath that judgment there was,
apparently, the impression that Hermione is a character fraught with
superlatively great passions, powers, and qualities, such as are only to
be apprehended by gigantic sagacity and conveyed by herculean talents
and skill. Those vast attributes were not specified, but there was a
mysterious intimation of their existence--as of something vague,
formidable, and mostly elusive. But in truth Hermione, although a
stronger part than Perdita, is neither complex, dubious, nor
inaccessible; and Mary Anderson, although more fascinating in Perdita,
could and did rise, in Hermione, to a noble height of tragic power--an
excellence not possible for her, nor for anybody, in the more juvenile
and slender character.

Hermione has usually been represented as an elderly woman and by such an
actress as is technically called "heavy." She ought to be represented as
about thirty years of age at the beginning of the piece, and forty-six
at the end of it. Leontes is not more than thirty-four at the opening,