Shakespeare, and arrange her room to
represent appropriately the stage scene. Her first visit to the theater
was when she was about twelve, one winter's evening, to see a fairy piece
called "Puck." The house was only a short distance from her home at
Louisville, and she and her little brother presented themselves at the
entrance door hours before the time announced for the performance. The
door-keeper happened to observe the children, and thinking they would
freeze standing outside in the wintry wind, good naturedly opened the door
and admitted Mary Anderson to Paradise--or what seemed like it to her--the
empty benches of the dress circle, the dim half-light, the mysterious
horizon of dull green curtain, beyond which lay Fairyland. Here for two or
three hours she sat entranced, till the peanut boy made his appearance to
herald the approach of the glories of the evening. From that date the die
of Mary Anderson's destiny was cast. The theater became her world. She
looked with admiring interest on a super, or even a bill-sticker, as they
passed the windows of her father's house; and an actor seen in the streets
in the flesh filled her with the same reverent awe and admiration as
though the gods had descended from their serene heights to mingle in the
dust with common mortals. We are not sure that she still retains this
among the other illusions of her youth!

The person who seems to have fixed Mary Anderson's theatrical destiny was
one Henry Woude. He had been an actor of some distinction on the American
stage, which he had, however, abandoned for the pulpit. Mr. Woude happened
to be one of her father's patients, and the conversation turning one day
upon Mary's passion for a theatrical career, the older actor expressed a
wish to hear her read. He was enthusiastic in praise of the power and
promise displayed by the self-trained girl, and declared to the astonished
father that in his youthful daughter he possessed a second Rachel. Mr.
Woude advised an immediate training for a dramatic career; but the
parental repugnance to the stage was not yet overcome, and Mary remained a
while longer to pursue, as best she might, her dramatic studies in her own
home, and with no other teachers than the artistic instinct which had
already guided her so far on the path to eventual triumph and success.

When in her fourteenth year, Mary Anderson saw for the first time a really
great actor. Edwin Booth came on a starring tour to Louisville, a