 CHAPTER 22 OF AUTOPIOGRAPHY OF AN ACTRESS by Anna Koromollett It's so chanced that we recross the channel in the Iron Duke, which three weeks before had conveyed us to Kingston. It was a glorious moonlit inkling, and the boat seemed to plow its way over the sea of molten silver. We spent the greater portion of the night on the deck, a long wooden bench which bore some relation to that plank which had a softer side served for a couch. An old gentleman who was pacing the deck, after passing us once or twice, deprived himself of his voluminous woollen cloak and spread it over me. I looked up to remonstrate, but the attempt was useless. Something in his action seemed to say that he had a daughter at home. When I awoke from a dreamy slumber, I found a couple of overcoats folded carefully over my feet, and Mrs. R was similarly projected. We could only divine whence they came by singling out certain shivering figures that walk rapidly to and fro in the moonlight. We could not even notice the comfortable outer garment. Towards morning the coal became so intense that we were obliged to take refuge in the close cabin and encounter the seasick consequences. We landed at Liverpool soon after daylight, and in about an hour, during which I roped to London, took the train for Carlisle. At four o'clock we reached Carlisle, remained half an hour, then proceeded to Newcastle, where we arrived at eight on Friday evening. That night we passed at a hotel, and early the next morning went in search of apartments. To our wonder and gratification they were found almost as readily as those in Dublin, and again seen mysteriously prepared for our reception through the agency of the invisible avant courier before mentioned. Our first care was to send to the theatre for letters. There was one from the invalidate home dated Thursday morning and Thursday night. It was written in the same placid and hopeful strain as all the others which had cheered me during my absence. I noticed but one difference, the writing was singularly uneven, and on some lines there were written but two words, as though they were traced by one who did not see, but only guessed at the space. This had, doubtless, been the case. Nothing in the tone of the letter betrayed a feebler state of body than usual. On Saturday there was no letter. It was the first day since I left London that had brought no tones from that voice at a distance. Anxious pulses began to beat. Their throbbing was painfully quickened when Sunday came and went and brought no news. Monday morning I sent to the post office. The mail had not yet arrived. It was very late that day, and we learned mail due on the day previous had missed altogether. This accounted for my having no letters. I should certainly have two that day. With renewed hope I went to my first rehearsal in that strange, cold, vast theatre, one of the largest in England. Mrs. Renshaw accompanied me. As we were passing the box office, on our way behind the scenes, the doorkeeper seeing our strange faces inquired, Is that Mrs. Mallet? Upon receiving my answer he replied, I have a great pile of letters for you, ma'am. There are several backmails this morning, and placed a large package of epistles in my eagerly extended hands. Very hurriedly I glanced over them to select the well-known writing. It was not there. Again I looked through the gathering mist that clouded my sight. There were many familiar hands, but one was missing. A note in Mr. Davenport's writing attracted my attention. That must give me information. I broke it open and turned to the last lines before I had courage to glance at the first. They reassured me the letter was dated Friday and had probably been posted too late for the day's mail. He was paying Mr. Mallet a visit and wrote in his stead. The latter seemed somewhat weaker than usual, too weak to manage a pen. And besides, he appeared inclined to sleep. As I looked up from the letter, I perceived that the manager, Mr. Davis, was waiting to address me. Several of the company had assembled without my noticing them, and were scanning the stranger with inquisitize. After exchanging a few words with Mr. Davis, whom I had seen but twice before, I inquired if delaying the rehearsal. It is past the hour, he replied, and everybody is here, but if you wish to read your letters I interrupted him with I have read the only important one, and I will not detain you. He was leading the way to the stage and I following. The package of letters seemed to burn my hands, and I glanced over them again. My eye caught sight of another note in Mr. Davenport's writing, and above the address the startling word, immediate. I paused, too much alarm to apologize to my conductor, and hastily tore open the letter. It was dated Saturday, and after a gentle preparation, intimated that he feared Mr. Mollett was worse. Mr. D., with other friends, asked the day at his bedside. He did not appear to suffer, but was very feeble. There was a P.S. dated four o'clock, stating that no change had taken place up to that hour. The writer's duty at the theatre, he said, would force him to leave at six. I was folding the letter as composedly as I could when I noticed a third letter in the same hand. Upon it, too, was the terrible word, immediate. I opened it, the date was Sunday morning. It was strange that I should have opened them accidentally in order of their dates. The first lines were all I read. They had told me the worst. The voice of consoling angels whispered, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto him. I hardly know what took place, but I remember the gentle ministerings of the considerate manager and of my weeping attendant. As soon as I was able, we returned to our lodgings. My packet of epistles contained numerous letters of condolence, and several most pressing invitations from intimate friends offering the hospitalities of their roofs. I accepted that of the friend who had been the most tried, the most devoted to him who was gone. A friend whose wife, daughter, son, and nephew, as well as himself, had each in turn watched over and cheered the departing spirit, through its long but gentle struggles to be disenthralled. Mr. Davis wrote to him and made all the arrangements for my return to London. We started at six o'clock the next morning. The attentive manager took charge of us to the station, provided for our comfort on the road, and performed every office that the kindest of hearts could dictate. We arrived in London late that evening, after a journey of sadness which I need not describe. For the next few weeks I took up my residence with friends, now doubly endeared. From the fateful nurse, Mrs. E., I received a minute account of the last days and last hours which I had not been permitted to witness. On Thursday night the then-sinking invalid wrote to me for the last time. On Friday he was unusually feeble, but composed as ever. Mr. Davenport passed the last day with him, and he gave various directions with his habitual clearness and precision. On Saturday morning he seemed slightly worse and inquired with considerable anxiety if the postman had not made his rounds. A little before ten o'clock the Daily Missive was placed in his hands. It was written at Liverpool during the hour that we stopped on our way to Newcastle. He opened the note and held it a long time before his eyes without turning the page. He appeared unable to see the words. After a while he looked up at Mrs. E., who was standing beside him and holding out the note, said, in a faint voice, Read Me Lily's Letter. They were the last words he ever spoke. She took the letter in red. When she had finished she looked at him, his face, she said, had a strangely changed. It was wide as marble and quite rigid. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. She bent her head and felt his breath upon her cheek. Then she thought he was sleeping. She sat beside him to watch, but the strange expression, the death look in his face as she turned it, terrified her. And she sent a messenger for Mr. Davenport and another one for Mr. M., the friend who I mentioned above. They came, the latter with his wife and daughter. Mr. M. tried to rouse the slumberer, and, fancying that he had partly succeeded, took the open letter that lay beside him and read it aloud to attract his attention, but the heavy eyes closed again and gave no sign of intelligence. Mr. Davenport brought the doctor. He examined his patients and told the assembled friends that the parting hour was at hand. They then gathered silently and solemnly around the bed and waited for the angels of death to free the ransom spirit. Another friend joined them, and sat with the hand of the dying clasp in hers. He never spoke and never moved until just before sunset. Then he suddenly opened his eyes. They rested for a moment upon the portrait which he had ordered to be hung at the foot of his bed and at the pot of lilies in full bloom, standing beneath it, a smile full of angelic radiance for an instant played upon his lips. His eyes closed again and almost immediately open, fixed, glazed, expressionless. The mortal casket was untreasured. He was no longer there. His spirit passed away sweetly and gently. Like the slumbering of an infant, the change was scarcely perceptible to those around. So wrote one of the friends who witnessed his release, adding, I have beheld his mortal remains placed in the coffin, and his countenance was so placid, looking as I have seen him often in his sleep in later days. In one of the loveliest corners of Kinsle Green Cemetery, where bending trees waved their green canopy over his grave, and a richly broodered mantle of flowers covers the earth, lie his mortal remains. No flattering falsehood is graven upon his tombstone, but a simple epitaph, ending with the inspired words which so distinctly apply to such as he. Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he cometh, finds watching. Other hands besides my own have hung wreaths upon that tombstone, and laid choice bouquets upon that flower-covered grave in token of remembrance. The last offering was a basket of moss, filled with immortals of varying hues, and on the handle was woven in white flowers the last name that was uttered by his lips. In a previous chapter I spoke of a trunk which he pointed out to me as containing letters. I found three, enclosed in each other, and addressed to me, the first related entirely to business subjects. It carefully explained matters which my absence of business knowledge would have rendered difficult of comprehension. The second contained various wishes, with which he urged my compliance. One was that I would resume my profession, and resist the entreaties of relatives or friends to abandon the stage until certain objects were accomplished. Every entreaty was that, should he die during the winter season, I would not leave England until the ensuing summer, as the change of climate would inevitably prove injurious to my health. Other wishes referred to the care and education of the little greys now wholly left under my charge. Other requests are not of a nature to be mentioned here. One was dictated with a view to promote my welfare. If any desire has remained uncomplied with, it is because the fulfillment was not possible. The third letter was a farewell, written with deep emotion, the outpouring of a loving and exalted spirit, a letter full of thankfulness, full of tenderness, gratefully reviewing the past, and assuring me of his preparation for the future. The rocks of doubt, upon which he had once been stranded, had been melted in the broad and living waters of truth, whose waves dance upon the shores of a glorious eternity. That farewell letter belongs, perhaps, to these memoirs, which are written at his request. I have read the valued document again and again before I could come to a decision on this point. Although I have allowed it to be perused by many friends, I feel its language too sacred to be recorded where cold and worldly eyes have the right to read. I may be wrong in this conclusion, but I yield to an instinct which I have not strength to overcome. I passed six weeks at the residences of various friends, and then prepared to resume my profession. Compliance, with Mr. Mowat's last wishes, compelled me to remain in England until summer commenced. London was now full of distressing associations. I therefore made engagements for a tour in the provinces, to occupy the months which must pass before I could return to my own country, my own family. I travel from city to city, accompanied only by Mrs. Renshaw, remaining a few weeks at each town, and acting every night. If that could be called acting, which was but a soulless imitation of my former stage embodiments, I could only coldly copy what I had done spontaneously in more inspired moments. I lost, for the time being, all power of original personation. We visited Newcastle, Leeds, Hall, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool. The gentlemanlike conduct of Mr. Davis caused me to return to Newcastle and fulfill the engagement which had been so painfully broken in upon. I would gladly have avoided that city, but I felt bound to secure him against loss. Newcastle was consequently the first town which I reappeared. In Manchester, I acted in the very theatre where I had made my first English debut, but under what different circumstances? As I sat alone at the manager's table through the long dreary rehearsals, the incidents of the past four years, many and many a time, passed in visionary review before me. My intercourse with the Reverend Mr. Smithson and his wife was renewed. Highly prized their friendship had been years before, but it was at this period an inestimable boon. During my engagement in Liverpool, I was supported by Mr. Barry Sullivan, one of the most gifted performers on the English stage. Armand was produced in every city and always was success. In Liverpool, Mr. Davenport enacted his original part on my benefit night. The managers of the Haymarket Theatre accorded him this privilege for one evening only. He arrived in Liverpool, where he was a great favourite, in time for the performance and left the next morning to act in London at night. It is somewhat strange that, in spite of the sad events related in this and several previous chapters, I left England with a reputation of a comic rather than a tragic actress. So little may the public and private history of an actor be in accordance. Just before my departure a memoir of me was written by Bale Bernard, author of The Broken Heart and Passing Cloud, etc., which concludes with the following paragraph. While Mrs. Mawet has a tender and pathos that render her image and viola scarcely equaled in our memory, there is such an entire adaptation of her whole person, look and spirit, to the blender sphere of comedy, that we cannot but feel it is her true one. It is marked by an enjoyment that shows at once it is most natural to her. However, her tears and gentleness may charm us to the contrary. But her comedy has its distinction. We think it peculiarly, Shakespearean, owing that the thrill of poetic feeling which winds through all its passages, that mixed exposition of the ideal and the true, which stamps all Shakespeare's writing as the profoundest insight into man, receives the happiest illustration in the genius of Mrs. Mawet, sensibility and mirth are ever neighbors to each other, and our fair artist well interprets what our best poet has so well and divine. In the comedy of modern life she has unquestionable merits, but if it impresses us the less forcibly, it is on account of its lower grade, which limits expression. It is in Beatrice and Rosalind that she must be witnessed to be esteemed, equaled by some in art, and surpassed in force by many. She alone has that poetic fervor, which imparts to them their truth, and makes our laughter ever ready to tremble into tears. During my engagement in Liverpool I was joined by Mr. S., a valued brother-in-law, who had just arrived from America. I passed a few weeks in London bidding adieu to cherished friends, and under my brother-in-law's protection set sail for America, accompanied by Mrs. Renshaw. We embarked on the 9th of July, 1851, in the steamship Pacific, led by Captain Nye. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of Autobiography of an Actress by Anna Cora-Mollett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kelly Taylor. Our voyage of thirteen days duration was not accomplished entirely without accident. About two o'clock one morning a terrible crash suddenly dispelled the dreams of every slumberer. The sound was three times repeated, and the ship quivered and groaned as though her timbers were being rent asunder. Immediately afterwards all motions ceased. She had been arrested in her course. Then came the noise of hurrying feet, and distinct odaculations of horror, and a general rushing of the ladies into the cabin, and of the gentlemen to the deck. Mrs. Renshaw opened our stateroom door to inquire what happened. A terrified stewardess answered. As she flew by, oh, dear, I don't know. But the ladies had better dress. I am afraid we are going down. Silently and rapidly we made our toilets, and joined the group in the cabin. It was a strange sight, that crowd of bewildered faces just startled from sleep, and stranger the odd toilets, the bonnets hurried on over night camps, the still disheveled hair, the not to be described mingling of night and day costumes. In spite of the white terror that spread itself over many accountants, every lady present maintained a quiet bearing. While some of the braver sex, so it was reported, rushed frantically to the deck, attempted to cut loose the lifeboats in hope of saving themselves, the captain was forced to station several of the crew where they could prevent this act of madness. It was a full half an hour before intelligence was brought below of the precise nature of the accident. During this period the steamer lay perfectly still. Then learned that in backing, suddenly from a dangerous approach to certain rocks upon which she would inevitably have been wrecked, one of the engines had been shivered to pieces. Its instantaneous dismemberment had occasioned the convulsive quivering of the vessel and the thunder-like reports. There was no longer any danger. The larger portion of the passengers returned quietly to their births. Some few could not recover from the excitement and remained watching. We were amongst the former. After a few long hours the Pacific proceeded on her course with but one engine. We had already, if I remember rightly, two-thirds of the voyage. On the thirteenth night at about eleven o'clock we reached New York. It would have been wise perhaps to have remained on board until daylight. But my brother-in-law and I could not make up our minds to the delay. We were too impatient to behold the beloved ones assembled to greet us beneath our father's roof. How to make the journey to Ravenswood, Long Island, was the next question. We had six miles to travel over the worst kind of roads. The night was dark, but for a few faint stars that now glimmered now disappeared. We could not hope to reach Ravenswood until long past midnight. My father's household would then have retired to rest. But we could not persuade ourselves to postpone the joyfully anticipated meeting until morning. A coach was loaded with our baggage, and we started. The roads were newly made, and every few moments the carriage sank down into a deep rut, or rose sideways over a high mound of earth. After several narrow approaches to an upset, we alighted from the carriage and walked, ankle deep in mud, over the worst portions of the road. When Mrs. R. and I resumed our seats, my brother-in-law mounted the box, and himself took the reins as the only means of guarding us from the perils of an overturn. It was past one o'clock in the morning when my ears were greeted by the glad sound issuing from the coach box. Look out, sister, I can just see your father's house behind those pine trees. The rumble of our heavily laden carriage broke loudly upon the stillness of the night as we drove up to the door. No other sound was audible, and not a light visible in the silent house. Those within had evidently given up watching for us, except in their dreams. I rang the bell loudly, and my brother-in-law shouted beneath the windows. In an instant an answering cry of joy echoed from within, and we heard the pattering of nude feet, and the sound of a loved voice that called out, Wake up, wake up, they have come. The key turned rapidly in the lock, the door flew open, clasping arms for about me, and a heart beat strongly against mine. In the dark I could not tell whose, but I knew it was that of a sister. We were both mute from joy, so that I could not recognize her from her voice. Other arms received me as hers were loosened, and I could only say, Who is it? Is it Emmy? Is it May? Is it you, Jew? My brother-in-law sought for his wife in the dark, and accidentally greeted one of the sisters in her place, which caused great merriment. By some accident there was not a light in the whole house, and in the confusion no matches could be found. Fortunately the traveling satchel, which I carried on my arm, contained a small box of wax tapers used for sealing letters. With these we struck a light, and made visible the group of white-robed figures that now conducted me to our father's chamber. He had been roused by the unexpected uproar, and began to divine its meaning. There was joy enough in that meeting to make amends for all past sorrows. From that hour shadows and eclipses and dark tides began to roll from my spirit. After the first greeting the first hurried questions and answers. Sisters, who had become mothers during my absence, lifted rosy slumberers from their cribs and trundle beds to exhibit them with fond pride. And my father made me look at the two little sisters born after I left. Specimens of infantile loveliness, which it would have been difficult not to admire. I have not before mentioned that two years after we lost our mother, which sad event took place when I was sixteen, our father was United to Mrs. Julia Fairley, of New York, daughter of Major James Fairley, a distinguished officer of the Revolutionary Army. Such a striking contradiction was given to the old maxim that condemns stepmothers in the person of our second mother, that her harmonious life ought almost to take away the reproach that attaches itself to that much maligned class. The lodestar of her gentleness had attracted to itself the affections of all her husband's children. All their hearts perforce swayed to her from their orbits as they moved and girdled her with love. She contributed four most sweet additions to our already extensive sisterhood. At the period of my return, the youngest, our last rose of summer as we nicknamed her, was a little more than a year old. The next in age was three years. There was very little sleep in my father's house that night, but there was a great deal of what was better and more refreshing, even to the worn out travelers. Though we used to say that the paternal mansion had the India rubber capacity of the paternal heart, expanding to give each newcomer a welcome place, my father's house could not quite accommodate all his numerous children and the chutes from their branches. One sister was obliged to sleep at a hotel near. She had not heard of our arrival. Early the next morning my sisters and I went to see her. Since we parted she had worn bridal flowers and clasp an infant to her heart. When we approached her lodgings she was just leaving the house with her bright-eyed baby in her arms. As I ran towards her in advance of the others she did not recognize me, but started when I spoke, exclaiming, Anna, it isn't possible. I was wondering what strange lady the girls had brought with them. I was no longer the pallid, fragile, sickly-looking being whom she had last embraced. The helpful change wrought about by the English climate was like a metamorphosis. We now liked but one sister, our eldest, to make our band complete. She came from New York with her two Cornelia treasures, riches bestowed since I last beheld her. Was it the color du rose hue of excitement and joy through which I gazed that made me imagine when the little flock were grouped together in the drawing room, I had never beheld such an assemblage of beautiful infant faces. It was five years since the sisters had all been gathered from their scattered homes in the general home. For all who had reached womanhood had also entered waifud, we sat down at my father's table, ten daughters and two sons, two were at a distance. Two of either sex were in the spirit's land. The christening of little Florence and Virginia, our youngest sisters, took place shortly after my arrival, and my father, when he walked into the village church at Ravenswood, where the ceremony was performed, was followed by twenty-two of his own descendants. I only left New York for a brief visit to Greenfield, Illinois, to see my young charges, the little grays. I found them fulfilling my hopes and exceeding my expectations. On the nineteenth of August, 1951, I commenced my professional engagements at Nieblos Theatre. The audience at Nieblos is, in measure, composed of that portion of the community who are lovers of the drama, yet do not frequent theatres, I should say theatres where certain abuses are countenanced. It is an audience distinguished for purity of taste, though not versed in conventional criticism. There is no craving after unnatural excitement, nothing blasé about them, but a freshness and enthusiasm, and a keen sense of enjoyment, to which it is a delight to minister. The theatre itself was built during my absence, and is a very magnificent one. The theatre-going public are too familiar with the circumstances which attended my debut after my long sojourn in a foreign land for me to dwell upon the hearty welcome bestowed by my countrymen, the thronged houses with which they honoured me through the whole of my engagement, and the overflowing benefit with which it concluded. At this period I fixed a time in my own mind when I would retire from the profession, but until that epoch arrived, I determined, by close application to the study of my art, to win the highest distinction to which my abilities, in their full cultivation, would entitle me. Claiming is not a matter of mere intuition. The power of conception comes a long, long before the faculty of executing with thorough success. A success which satisfies the true artist himself, and is not measured by the amount of applause he wins, applause which must be dealt out by judicious or injudicious hands, which may oftener be called down by a trick of the stage than by a delicately beautiful conception. The young actor who supposes that alone and unguided by the mature of judgment of one who can show him to himself by reflection as in a glass, as others see him, and as no man sees his own image, he can arrive at the highest degree of excellence, commits a great error. The art of interpreting the mighty masters correctly and embodying their conceptions forcibly, faithfully and brilliantly is the study of a life, ever-progressive and demanding, as devoted application as the study of sculpture, painting, music, or any of the most difficult arts. It is related of Mr. McCready that after enacting Hamlet hundreds of times, he refused to attend a dinner party composed of the friends whom he most delighted to meet because the role of the Dane required more study, new reflections, fresh analysis. The studies of Mrs. Seidon's never ceased. It is narrated of Mademoiselle Mars that when a friend commented upon her admirable personation of Juliette at sixty, she replied, Thoreau's studies not relinquished at sixty years of age, she had attained her dramatic perfection. Before I left England, a conversation with Mr. Plancher, the distinguished playwright, first impressed upon my mind the importance to the dramatic artist of incessant application. He took a friendly interest in my successes. His words were, You must not think that because you have made this London hit, you have reached your present position in so wonderfully short a time that you have nothing more to learn. You will not abandon your studies. You are not vain enough to suppose that you would not be benefited by reading daily with some old actor who has made the stage the study of years and has discovered how difficult it is to convey to an audience that which it is easy to conceive in the closets. I answered what I thought and the answer pleased him. He counseled me to read with a celebrated English elocutionist who had once been an actor to compare opinions with him, especially as regarded Shakespearean characters, and then to form my own personations, neither on his nor any model. I forget this gentleman's name. It was one with which I was not familiar. I attempted to follow Mr. Plancher's advice, but the elocutionist whom he recommended chance to be seriously ill. Mr. Plancher then suggested my reading with Miss Kelly, who had retired from the stage. I was on the eve of entering into an engagement with this eminent lady when my own in disposition prevented. I mentally stored up Mr. Plancher's remarks and determined to act upon his advice whenever occasion offered, for I deeply felt my own responsibilities as an artist. I left England, however, without carrying my intentions into execution. On my return to America, while pondering over councils I had received from so high a source, I remembered my former friend, Professor Howells of Columbia College. Of his critical acumen, his elocutionary powers, his talents for analyzing dramatic creations, there could be no question. He had made the embodiment of language, the uttering of words so as to make them express their meaning by the very tone used the study of a long life. His impressions of acting were received from the unapproachable sit-ins, the finished and classic Kimball, the matchless O'Neill, the elder King, the host of actors of the old school, their contemporaries, besides the whole galaxy of gifted successors. Such a man had surely been educated in a school of experiences that gave his opinions and judgment high claim to respect. I knew also that he possessed a peculiar faculty of transmitting his knowledge, and this is of itself and a special talent. Before I was half through my engagement at Neblos, I arranged to read and discuss my favorite dramatic personations with Professor Howells regularly every day. I derived equal benefit and delight from this occupation. I found my own perceptions quickened by his, the close analysis of poetic creations called unseen beauties to light and brought out harmonious elements that eluded my more hasty scrutiny. Sometimes we spent three or four hours in the morning dissecting a single play. At night I tested the correctness of his judgment by the effect produced upon the audience. Henceforward, whenever I visited New York, even sometimes I was passing through on my way to other cities and could spare but a couple of days, I resumed my studies and found that for the time thus devoted I was repaid tenfold. My second appearance in America was at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston, the same theater in which I bade farewell a few days before I sailed for Europe. The engagement was a long and brilliant one. I next acted in Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis. These engagement occupied every night up to the 10th of December. I had promised to return to Philadelphia by Christmas. My father and all the members of our home circle within reach were to assemble beneath the roof of our brother-in-law, Mr. M. Invitations had been issued for a ball to be given on the thirtieth, and on that occasion my sisters were to enact Gulzara or the Persian slave, the little drama of Melrose memory written in my girlhood. It had been represented during my absence at the residence of one of our sisters in Brookline near Boston. I consented to act as stage manager in Philadelphia in the getting up of the play and directing the costumes, et cetera, though I would perform no part. The grave realities of my professional life made me unwilling to act in private for amusement. In St. Louis I was strongly urged to accept a re-engagement but the impossibility of reaching Philadelphia in time if I extended my stay compelled me to decline. Before my engagement drew to a close I received a letter from his honor J. M. Kenneth, mayor of the city, requesting in the name of the citizens of St. Louis that I would remain to receive a complimentary benefit. The flattering terms in which the letter was couch rendered the temptation to accept the invitation, no inconsiderable one. Without the remembrance of the family assemblage who awaited my coming in Philadelphia, the Christmas festivities with which my absence would interfere prevented my altering my original resolution, the complimentary benefit offered by the mayor was consequently declined. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Autobiography of an Actress by Anna Coral-Mollett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kelly Taylor. The season was the most severely cold that had been known for many years. We had great fears of being snowed up somewhere on our way. The journey from St. Louis to Philadelphia is often accomplished in six or seven days. Any detention on the road would interfere with the object of my rapid traveling, the assumption of amateur managerial responsibilities for the New Year's Fet. The steamboat Robert Rogers was to leave St. Louis on the afternoon of the 10th of December. A message to the courteous captain delayed the departure of the boat until midnight when my duties at the theater would be over. I was obliged to appear in two plays that evening and though we hurried off without my even making a complete change of attire, it was midnight before we reached the landing. The boat started as soon as we came on board, greatly to the satisfaction of the impatient passengers. I had been wearied out with nightly personations and two days luxuriated in a delightful rest, imprisoned in the narrow little state room which I never left. The companionships of books and pleasant reveries was a refreshment that can only be appreciated by those who have themselves on an amount of physical and mental exertion which ended in complete exhaustion. On the third morning I was roused from a half-waking dream by Mrs. Rinshaw's sudden explanation of, good gracious, the river is one sheet of ice. I sprang up in alarm and looked out. The river resembled a huge mirror upon which some glazer had breathed a haze over the polished glass. The shores on either side were banks of snow drifted into fantastical shapes. The sunlight reflected on their dazzling whiteness almost deprived one of vision. Our boat was cutting bravely through the ice and still progressed with rapidity. We had just entered the Ohio River from the Mississippi. I foresoaked my state room for the wheelhouse and passed the rest of the day watching the ice as it grew more and more solid and tormenting the pilot with useless questions. They perceived my restless anxiety and gave me the company assurance that there would soon come a thaw and that we had a good boat and the ice must be pretty deep and that we could not make our way through and etc. The next morning when I woke the boat was moving very slowly with a pushing jerking striking out motion as those step by step the steam king were battling every inch of the way with a frost king and had grown weary in the fight. I went to the wheelhouse again. The old pilot shook his head at my first question and I stood beside him silently watching, watching in almost breathless anxiety as the ice grew thicker and thicker and more closely closed around us. The boat made her way slower and slower and suddenly stopped. We were frozen in. Oh, what shall we do? I asked of the discouraged old man as he let go of the helm. How long may we have to stay here? Well, I'm right sorry for you, I am but I'm thinking the boat may just have to lie here for perhaps three weeks, perhaps a month. They're no telling. The ice is many a good foot deep or we'd have made some headway through it. Won't it perhaps thaw soon? Well, it don't look inclined. What's that place on the shore where I see a house? Well, that's a little spot they call West Franklin. Are there no stages that stop from there? Stages? I don't believe they've got anything better than a cart in the whole place. This is Indiana State. Evansville is the nearest town from which stages start, but stages would be no good to the likes of you. You wouldn't travel over these backwards roads in stages and at this time of year why no woman could do it unless it was an Indian squaw. The stages are sure of being spilled every few miles dead certain. You don't know what's going to be gone through. Never think of trusting yourself in them stages if you know when you are well off. But will nobody leave the boat for weeks to come? Some of the men will in course if they have to walk for it they'll get on. Then I will get on too, I thought to myself and return to my state room to consult with my faithful attendant. She had never seen a frozen river and I found her gazing in bewildered admiration at the glittering chains of ice that encircled us. There was such a fascination in the site that she could hardly lament over our trying predicament. What was to be done? We were not equated with a single passenger on board. The captain was in a state approaching despair at the heavy losses he would sustain. He gave us the sympathy which he needed himself but had no advice to offer except that we should remain quietly on board until there came a thaw. Among the passengers there were two young lunatic sisters. One of them talked, shrieked or sang from the morning until night almost infected those around her with frenzy. They were under the care of a keeper who was taking them to an asylum. Remain on board with these sounds in our ears, this mournful sight daily before our eyes for weeks. The prospects seemed unendurable. Besides, what would the expected one in Philadelphia do without their stage director and costumer? The play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted. For the ball and private performance were principally in honor of my return to America. These would have to go on while we were gazing at our ice manacles in our frozen prison on the Ohio. Another boat had been frozen in near hours. From that boat came two gentlemen who sent their cards to me. The elder, major R of Philadelphia had been presented some six years before. I had seen him but once. He was the father of a family. The younger, Mr. N was of New York, was acquainted with one of my sisters. They seemed to me heaven sent for our rescue and protection. They offered to serve us in any way in their power. I informed them of my determination to reach Philadelphia by a certain day if it was possible, almost if it was impossible. Finding that they could not dissuade me from the seemingly mad attempt they proposed to become our escorts. Their offer was accepted with undisguised pleasure. If I can get your baggage taken by some cart to the next town, can you walk? Asked Mr. N. I promptly answered in the affirmative. Can you walk eight miles? Eight miles? Yes, to be sure. I would have walked 50 or have undertaken to do so to have been put in the way of completing my journey in the desired time. Fortunately I was in vigorous health and not easily daunted by the prospect of exposure and fatigue. Several gentlemen were just going on short, secure conveyance that could be found. It was very probable that there was not more than one in the place. As they landed from the ice, they all started to run. The first one that reached the house might possibly be the only one who could be accommodated. Mr. N. and the other gentlemen outstripped all the others and kept side by side. But the former outwitted his nimble-footed companion by shouting out as they approached the dwelling and perceived its owner. I engage whatever conveyance you have got. Mr. N. brought us word that the only conveyance was an ox cart. It could carry us and our baggage also, but the man was a true westerner and an independent sort of individual and could not be persuaded to start that day. He declared that he could not get ready before the morrow. A day's delay was a serious circumstance in such a journey as we were undertaking. Will you come with me and use your influence? Said Mr. N. I consented without hesitation. We walked through the cleared underbrush and through deep snow to the bandslog cabin. His sickly-looking wife sat by the fire, busied with the care of three pretty children. I knew the surest avenue, the swift railroad route to the heart of the head of the family and talked to the wife and the little ones and made them comprehend that a certain ox cart must be got ready that very day. The owner of the log house came in and before he went out, I had been successful in my mission and the cart was promised. It would be ready in an hour, he said, and it should have a fine pair of strong, lively horses instead of oxen. We start at once. The backwoodsman kept his word. At the appointed time, the ox cart stood ready on the steep, snow-covered bank of the river. The trunks were tossed, that is the only word to use, in. It was a piercingly cold day and we obtained the captain's permission to take the cotton wool comforters from our berths for additional protection. There were no seats. I crawled myself up on the floor of the cart. Some followed my example. Some set upon the trunks. Three of the party had just nestled in their places when the horses took fright and started off. For a minute or two, there was a great chance of our being dashed to pieces over the abrupt declivity that formed the river side of the road. Major R caught the horses' heads and they were stopped and quieted. The owner of the wagon then got in. The major followed and we drove off a merry party for we were released from icy captivity and our faces were turned towards home. The cold was so intense that my breath froze upon the handkerchief which I held to my lips and rendered it perfectly stiff. By and by we spied out a barn and stopped to supply our ox cart with hay for softer seats. Every once in a while where the road was very uneven, one of the piled up trunks would be precipitated forward and strike us on the shoulders. The major, in his military capacity, had a constant engagement with our baggage to protect us against the assault of these enemies. Mrs. Renshaw was so violently struck in the forehead and eye that she bore a black rememberer of these dangers she had passed for many weeks. We reached Evansville which proved to be 12 miles from West Franklin instead of eight in the evening. Stages were to start the next morning for Vincennes but every place was taken. Here was another difficulty and it seemed an insuperable one. Inasmuch as any person who would venture on so perilous a journey must have as strong reasons for making his way onward as we had. Mr. C. of Baltimore who had engaged three places I never knew a Baltimorean yet who was not a pattern of courtesy. Hearing of our disappointment instantly resigned them to us and hunted out and engaged a small open wagon in which he proposed to drive the major. Our gigantic baggage occasioned the next difficulty. No sum of money that we could offer and we did offer some very extravagant amount used the drivers to take it all upon the stagecoach. We had to select out the trunks that were indispensable and left the rest not to see them again for months. He started at daylight in the morning such a bitter cold morning for Vincennes. The roads were so rough that they seemed to be composed of huge logs placed at a couple of feet apart and our mode of progression was a sudden rising up of the stage pitching everyone backward then a sudden ducking down of the wheels throwing the passengers forwards after having sent them up until many a head made the acquaintance of the roof of the vehicle. Then the coach would sway from side to side until it appeared impossible that it should not be upset unless it had the faculty of maintaining its equilibrium belonging to an acrobat. Then it would drop down into a deep rut and be fastened there for some minutes. After much fierce struggling of the horses it jolted out again fussing about everything and everybody inside as though we had been a set of jack straws in a child's hand. We reached White River just as the sun was going down and the stars were stealing out in the sky. What an imposing and solemnly beautiful sight that ice-clad river presented. You might have fancied the colossal trees that lined the banks were groups of forest giants and branches outspread skeleton arms covered with snow drapery and the crystalline pendants. They seemed to be keeping a death watch over the white shrouded earth which wore a glassy corpse-like smile suiting the face of nature on her beard. It was an interlunar period. The stars looked down from their azure thrones through a tissue of silver mist that spread itself over the heavens. Not a sound broke the deep silence and we all stood gazing with hushed voices. I would have taken our perilous journey thus far merely to have beheld that awe-inspiring winter picture. A steamboat had sunk in the river a few days before. It was now thickly frozen over. The ferry boat immobile in the ice, the ferryman eel. There was no house on that side of the stream, no shelter of any kind, to cross the ice on foot while the gentleman carried over our baggage was the only alternative. In the center of the river ran a line of unfrozen water. That was dangerous. It could only be avoided by walking some distance on the edge of the frozen stream until we came to a narrow bridge of ice through that sitter current firm enough to bear us. Every now and then there was a suspicious crackling sound beneath our feet as though the ice were suddenly giving way and we stepped lightly and cautiously and at times tremblingly when that warning noise fell on our ears. But the strange beauty of the scene almost beguiled us of the terror. There were stages waiting for us on the other side and we reached Vincennes at 11 o'clock. What a delicious sleep I had that night. But it was a short duration for we had to be up and dressed by daylight. We were packed closely in the stagecoaches again so closely that almost all limbs were crammed immovably and started for a terror hoax. The roads were worse than ever and we made up our minds to the necessity of encountering an upset. Towards evening one of the gentlemen informed us that our driver while watering his horse's mouths had been sympathetically seized with a sudden thirst and inconsequence could not now be trusted in the box without a companion. Our situation became more perilous than ever. The road was but just visible in the starlight. About midnight the stage suddenly sank into a deep gully. The gentlemen were all obliged to descend and assist in restoring its position by means of rails taken from the nearest fence. With great difficulty the lumbering conveyance was once more elevated. Major R made a good joke on the occasion. He had been in the habit of writing articles on the theater, its abuses, its uses, et cetera. And turning to me he remarked, I have been trying for years past to elevate the stage and I have just succeeded with you upon it. A little farther on the road grew so dangerous that to remain inside of the coach would have been foolhardy. We all alighted and walked through the snow, sometimes ankle deep, sometimes knee deep for a long distance. I was wrapped in an odd variety of protecting garments, shawl, cloak, coat, blanket, but they were not proof against the icy fang and churlish shining of the winter's wind. For I felt as if suddenly deprived of nose and ears and the air seemed to turn to thin ice between my lips and yet we trudged merrily onward. We reached Terre Haute at four in the morning and started at six for Indianapolis, arriving late in the evening without accident. At daylight we were to start Brazinha. Two stages were preparing to leave at the same time. I was standing at the door when the drivers commenced shouldering the baggage. Yielding to an impulse which I did not comprehend and which appeared to me simply a whim, I said to one of the men, put my baggage upon that coach, I am going in that, pointing at the second coach. There was not the slightest obvious difference in the coaches, yet I strongly preferred one to the other. Why not go with the first coach? Ask one of our escorts, remonstratingly. We shall get on faster. I don't know why I fancied this one was my reasonless answer. I could give no reason better. The first stage kept on a few paces ahead of us for some hours. We were transversing a very narrow road and came to a place where on one side of a high bank was a frozen river and on the other side a precipice of 30 feet. An aged man was driving his wife in a cart from the opposite direction. The driver of the first coach in making a careless and violent attempt to pass him hastily, brought the two conveyances in collision. The cart with the venerable couple was thrown off the precipice. The stage upset over the bank into the frozen river. Our coach immediately stopped and the passengers ran to the assistance of the unfortunate. It was a fearful sight to behold that poor old man lifted up apparently in a dying state. His wife too was much injured if we might judge from her groans and lamentations as she was carried up the bank. The driver of the coach had his skull fractured and was born to a cottage nearby. Happily there were no women in the coach. Indeed we met none on our whole journey but there was a little girl of about three years old. She had not received even a bruise. The hardest natures present involuntarily softened as when her frightened father called her up she looked with sweet serenity in his face and said, father, I am not hurt. He was a widower and as he clasped her tightly in his arms he murmured, thank heaven for I couldn't have helped committing murder if you had been. It seems strange that without a conscious reason I had refused to enter the very coach that had met this accident. None of the passengers were seriously injured. They mounted upon our already heavily laden vehicle and traveling at a snail's pace we reached Dayton at night. Soon after sunrise we started for Xenia and from thence for Cleveland where we arrived at night. In the morning we exchanged our jolting stagecoachers for railway cars which took us to Alliance by two o'clock but at Salem we had to encounter the perils of staging again as the only means of progression. We reached Palestine late at night and with great difficulty found shelter. We were indebted for it at last to that prompt gallantry characteristic of Americans which induced gentlemen already provided with lodgings to surrender them for our accommodation. Every place of refuge was thronged with travelers who, like ourselves, had been snowbound on rivers or railroads. The next day we left Palestine by railroad and reached Pittsburgh at night. The next morning after was Christmas. We started through Pittsburgh at half past six again by railroad but at half past seven we had once more to resort to stagecoachers. There was many a bountiful Christmas dinner eaten that day in our land of abundance but our party after an early and hurried breakfast tasted no food again until 11 o'clock at night. A Christmas fast instead of a Christmas feast. Often on our journey we had a partaken of but one rapid meal during the day. Sometimes we contended ourselves with frozen cheese and biscuits that were not frozen only because they could not freeze. These were the nearest approaches to dainties that could be purchased on the road. They were palatable enough for nourishment like all things else has its fictitious value given by circumstances. The sharp air and the long journey imparted to our frozen cheese and stony biscuits a delicious relish. At four o'clock we again entered upon the railroad and made a descent of nine. I think there were nine inclined planes which perilous feet was not accomplished until 11 at night. The sun was setting gloriously as we started and rendered those Allegheny mountains in their glittering snow garments almost as grandly beautiful as in their lovely spring or gorgeous autumn vesture. I had seen them in all three attires. We traveled all Christmas night and all the next day and about nine o'clock on the evening of the 26th reached the outskirts of Philadelphia just entered the suburbs and then were stopped. The train could not approach the station. Embankments of snow had rendered the roads thoroughly impassable. During our journey of 17 days I had constantly telegraphed my brother-in-law of the progress we made over the icebound roads that the anxious hearts assembled beneath his roof might be relieved. The dispatches took nearly as long as we did on their route and our coming in time for the FET was almost disparate of. We waited as long in the immovable train as my impatient spirit could endure. The cars had stopped not more than a mile from my brother-in-law's house which was situated in the upper part of the city. No sort of conveyance could be procured. I proposed that we should leave the train and walk. We bated you to the elder of our escorts who had become quite ill from fatigue and under the protection of the younger we once more made our way through the snow on foot. The sheets of ice that covered the streets made the pedestrianism tolerably dangerous but had been since we had purchased thick woolen stockings such as were used by Carmen, et cetera and drawn them over our shoes and over shoes and they prevented our slipping. At last the hospitable mention which had shown in my mind like a far-off beacon through the long journey and had been seen in every dream that visited my rare slumbers was in sight. A very gentle ring startled none of the household within. I made a sign of silence to the astonished servant who answered the summons and opened the door of the drawing room myself. The sisters were sitting around a table at the farther end of the large, brilliantly illuminated apartment. My father's and brother-in-law had gone to the station in hope of our arrival. The group of heads bending over flying needles were not lifted at the quiet opening of the door but at the joyful ha-zah, ha-zah to which I gave utterance. What a sudden turning towards us there were of glad faces. What a springing from seats. What rushings to the door of where we stood. What floods of questions. What greetings of delight. It wanted but three days of the ball. Invitations had been issued sometime previous and enclosed within these was a program of Gulzara or the Persian slave written for private representation by Anakora Mallet to be enacted by her sisters. What preparations had yet to be made. Preparations to which the exhausted travelers just arrived were indispensable. End of chapter 24. Chapter 25 of Autobiography of an Actress by Anna Kora Mallet. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kelly Taylor. What sad mutations, what strange events had thrown their deep shadows over an existence which had reflected nothing but sunshine when I wrote that little drama in Paris for the gratification of my taste when my siang sisters and I formed it at Melrose for the amusement of our friends. Well it was that no prophetic vision presages the future that awaited me and yet to that future career the production and performance of this very play formed a first easy step of preparation unknown unconscious yet distinctly ordered preparation. The stage appointments of Gulzara as represented in Philadelphia at the mansion of my brother-in-law were even more unique than ours had been at Melrose. Our scenery for the Melrose representation had been painted in Paris and yet it could scarcely compare in tasteful execution with the counterfeit presentation of Groves and Gardens which came from the hands of the scenic artist of the Chestnut Street Theater whom my brother-in-law employed. The scenes were delineated with a finished delicacy which challenged the most minute inspection. On the drop curtain was admirably depicted a romantic view of the scenery on the Rhine. The stage accessories were richer than they could have been in any public theater. The costuming was strictly correct and as graceful as it could well be fashioned. Again our father sat in the center of the assembled guests to witness the performance of his children in him how little outward change was wrought by the years that had flitted lightly over his head since he first smiled approval upon the little drama at Melrose. With a few added snows upon his brow, no vigor had been taken away. His winter in its evergreen blossoming was too kindly for frost and youth had been left behind the radiant halo of a fresh and buoyant spirit. By his side sat as before our gentle second mother whose children were now most valuable additions to our domestic dramatic core. Again the curtain rose upon Zulika and Fatima reclining at her seat. The Zulika was the same as on the play's first representation but the sister May then just budding into a girlhood was now a wife and mother. In her acting there was more intensity and reality than formally but it had lost none of its unaffected simplicity. Fatima was most sweetly personated by a dear friend. Gulzara, which I had enacted in the early days was now more powerfully embodied by my sister Julia then our little Amara. The precocious child grown into womanhood presented one of the rare instances where the promise of a forward spring was fulfilled just as she passed the verge of childhood we had decked her as a bride and she was now a youthful wife and mother. The boy Amara, Wolf tonight was our young sister Emily, the eldest of the four sisters given us by our second mother. Her oriental countenance which heaven formed amongst those things that needed no praising was even more suited to the Turkish boy than the little Julius had been. Emily was Julia's pupil as Julia had been mine. The new Emeryth acted with a naturalness and spirit which at least approached the personation of her tutor. The simple part of Katinka was rendered by our little sister Grace, Emily's junior by two years in a manner which her own name could best express. Our hostess, my sister Emma was the dark-eyed Aisha and did her best to look excessively malignant and wicked impersonating the indispensable villain of the plot. An element not easily omitted in the drama where the distinctions of light and shade are as essential as in a picture. But our Aisha created a deeper impression through her penitence than by her revengeful triumphs. Her tears drew tears more readily than her evidently fictitious anger and excited sympathy. Could I assume the tone of author critic in reviewing the performances of my sisters and forget for a moment what should I be the most unwilling often to forget the tie between us I could give a more adequate description of the personations. Our very kinship throws a restraint over my commendation of what all commended and prevents my dwelling upon the gifts of mind and person which justice would force me to paint in glowing curlers had the performers of Galzara been strangers. But this I may say that as I watch their embodiments of my youthful and imperfect creations the discomforts and perils of the 17 days journey over frozen rivers and mountains of snow faded into insignificance. During the performance I heard Dr. M of Philadelphia a critic of indisputable taste whispered to a friend if Mrs. S, my sister Julia, were on the stage Mrs. Mawat would have to look out for her laurels. Proud as I felt of my sister's talents I could not repress a half-shutter and a middle exclamation of thankfulness that the happy circumstances by which she was surrounded rendered no event more unlikely than a summons for her to translate the stubbornness of fortune to such a use. Heaven shield her from the weariness and trials of the professional actress and never let stage dust fall upon her young head. Her fresh nature was my fervent ejaculation. And I say this though no one reveres the profession more than I do or entertains stronger convictions that the vocation of actor may be made to command respect, may be rendered honorable in the persons of humblest as of highest members of the profession. The representation of Galzara was succeeded by a ball and the occasion was one of which many lips have declared would not be easily forgotten. Soon after the New Year's Eve fit the sisters again dispersed and others returned to their homes and I resumed my professional duties. The first engagement this year was at Richmond, Virginia. The ill effects of our hazardous Western journey with its fatigues and manifold exposures to cold now rendered themselves apparent. I almost entirely lost the use of my voice but the engagement was an eminently prosperous one and I yielded to the entreaties of my managers who begged that I would not allow my increasing hoarseness to cause an interruption. Thus was sown the seed of future bronchitis. In Richmond we were again snowed up, the roads impassable, the rivers frozen. After a week's detention we braved a repetition of our Western experiences and made the journey to Baltimore partially in stagecoaches and partially in open slays. On this occasion, however, we were accompanied by a young nephew who, having just arrived at the age of transition between youth and manhood, when the spirit of chivalry is newly incandled in the breast, proved the most energetic and efficient of escorts. I had promised to revisit Boston and fulfill a long engagement commencing early in February. It was a city to which I was always gladly returned. On my way there I acted a week in Baltimore and another in Providence. In Boston I performed four successive weeks in spite of the most painful hoarseness. It was a sad annoyance to find all high notes suddenly cut off and to be forced to use supple-crawled tones, even in light comedy, imparting to Roslyn and Beatrice raven-like intonations and not particularly hilarious. Though, to be sure, Roslyn, in her pedestrian journey to the Forest of Arden, might have had her vocal cords injured by inclement weather and Beatrice eavesdropping in the bower might have had her lungs affected at the same moments as her heart, I unwisely disregarded the persuasions of my physician, Dr. C., who recommended perfect rest. I had engaged to appear in New York at the beginning of April and only intended to allow my voice a couple weeks of repose. One afternoon in the middle of March I proposed to my sister, May, that we should visit Brookline on horseback. We were both exceedingly fond of equestrian exercise and had not rode together since the bright days at Melrose when Silk and Queen Mab used to bear us over the level roads. She consented, but my artist brother, Mr. T., at whose house I was residing, chanced to be too unwell to accompany us. We were attended by the master of the stables from which our carriages were usually supplied. The horses we rode belonged to a riding school, a heavy snow, just melting, made the roads rather slippery. Nevertheless, we enjoyed an invigoratingly delightful gallop to Brookline, paid a short visit to a sister who lived there and were returning home in exuberant spirits. Passing up Tremont Road, just as we reached Bullisselton Street, the horses made a forcible attempt to turn the corner. The street led to their stable. My horse had shied several times on the road and invinced a tolerable unruly spirit. All three horses now began to prance and grow unmanageable. We could not force them on. Suddenly my horse plunged and reared. We were just opposite the Winthrop House and a crowd had by this time assembled. Nobody interfered as I appeared to be self-possessed and capable of managing the fractus pony. He reared again and again. The third time I could feel his feet sliding in the slippery mud. He lost his equilibrium and fell backwards directly upon me. I remember the crushing sensation, the lightning-like thought I am killed and nothing after that until I found myself lying in a parlor, a dense crowd of faces bending over me and around me a confusion of voices and a feat running to and fro. I was just wondering whether I was in this world or in a better when one pale, terrified face, pressed closer than the other, dispelled my doubts. It was my sisters. I was incapable of moving or of speaking except with great difficulty, but I had possessed sufficient presence of mind to say send for Dr. C. He was my physician and a valued friend. It was a somewhat singular that the two physicians, Dr. B and Dr. T, chanced to be driving by at the moment the accident occurred and witnessed the double fall. They immediately proffered their aid. My brother-in-law was quickly apprised of the mishap and with the supplementary information that I was probably killed. The news reporters deprived me of life in the most unceremonious manner. That very evening telegraphic dispatches flew all over the country, some announcing that I was dangerously injured, some that I had departed from this life. It was through these unexpected channel that news reached the ears of my father and sisters. It seemed marvelous, so say the many who beheld the accident, that I was not instantly deprived of earthly existence, but I was only severely crushed and received a more troublesome than dangerous injury in the left side, one which Touchstone objects to regarding as legitimate sport for ladies. I, speaking from experience, hardly agreed with him. I retained perfect consciousness when I was carried through the streets upon a sofa, beside which walked the two physicians and my brother-in-law. I could hear trampling feet of the crowd, which every moment swelled in number. I distinguished the constant query of newcomers demanding, is she killed, is she quite dead? And the answer is sometimes dubious, sometimes inclining to the affirmative. Once or twice I experienced a strong inclination to contradict my own departure from the body. Dr. C. soon arrived and I was attended by him and Dr. T. For six weeks I was confined to my room, but in eight I had almost entirely recovered. My Boston friends addressed me the following letter, headed by his honor the mayor of the city, to Mrs. Anacora Mallett, Boston, May 13th, 1852, Madam. The undersigned your friends and friends of the drama are desirous of offering to you a public expression of your services and your worth in the sphere of dramatic art. To be at once a writer of successful plays and a popular actress is to enjoy a distinction which few can reach. But this is not all that can be said of you. You have not brought these honors with the price of better things. You have moved with simple dignity along the slippery paths of praise and success. When we have seen you embodying your own conceptions of tenderness and truth, we have felt that the charm of your performance flowed from the fact that your words and your voice were but imperfect expressions of yourself. And now that you have lately stood on the edge of another life, we feel that we should welcome you back to ours with more cordial greetings and more earnest voices. The manager of the Howard Athenium has generously considered to place his house at the disposition of your friends for the purpose of giving you a complimentary benefit if agreeable to your wishes upon such evening of next week as may suit your convenience. Benjamin Siever, John H. Wilkins, Samson Reed, John P. Uber, George S. Hillard, Henry W. Longfellow, E. P. Whipple, Henry T. Parker, P. W. Chandler, Edward Bates, Thomas Lam, E. P. Clark, T. G. Appleton, William Cole, John Ware, Horatio Woodman, Edmund Gratton, A. W. Faxler Jr., John Hall, Epps Sargent, Robert Scholl. I could not read this letter without emotion but have too mixed a character to be framed into language. The paramount sensation was of thankfulness that I had accomplished sufficient in my profession to render my well-being a matter of interest, my escape from imminent peril a source of rejoicing to minds whose good report was so intrinsically valuable. I returned an answer expressive of my grateful acknowledgments that as I attempted express them, but very possibly failed, and accepted the complementary benefit. I requested permission to select the character of Parthenia in Mrs. Lovell's translation of Ingomar. This was one of my favorite embodiments. There is an intimate delicacy and unconscious goodness adept of feeling a high-toned sense of right pervading the poet's creation of Parthenia that I found irresistibly attractive. Perhaps, too, I liked the play on account of its thorough exemplification of woman's mysterious influence over the sterner sex. Somebody has laughingly called Ingomar a covert woman's rights drama. I fancy that few men would object to the very obvious right of a woman to Parthenia's without seriously trenching upon their sphere of action. The complementary benefit took place on the 21st day of May, 1852. It was one of those occasions which are written on the pages of life's record in golden letters. But when I stood upon the stage before that brilliant crowd and heard the welcome, warmer, longer, more heart emanating and heart stirring than it had ever been before, my self-possession for the second time since I first trod upon the stage wholly forcibly. I think there must have been something melting and overpowering in the atmosphere of that particular theater, for it was upon that stage five years before when I appeared for the last time previous to our sailing for Europe that I was overcome by a similar, ungovernable emotion. And those are the only two instances of irrepressible agitation in my eight years of professional experience. I was hardly vexed with myself, but I suppose there are moments in the lives of everyone when the barrier of self-control is broken through by genuine feeling. Mr. Wiseman Marshall impersonated Ingomar. During my previous engagements, he had rendered the character very popular with the Boston audience. I had enacted Parthenia a great number of nights, but I believed the play's repetition awoke no dissenting voice. In the second act, Parthenia weaves a garland while she prattles to the savage who is becoming humanized and Parthenia eyes as he watches her. The flowers on that evening were natural ones, abundantly supplied, and I wove a garland of some length which was sent to a beloved friend whose illness prevented her from being present. After the benefit, I was induced to fulfill another engagement at the Howard Athenaeum of a fortnight's duration. My next appearance was in Cincinnati. I then acted several weeks in Louisville. That city is always associated in my mind with Henry Clay. It was there that I bade him and you for the last time. And now when I visited Louisville again, the bells were tolling from every steeple, the streets draperied with black. For Henry Clay's funeral was passing. His mortal remains were on their way to their Ashland resting place. We were residing at the Louisville Hotel. Our drawing room windows fronted the street. Heavy folds of unreleaved sable were stretched story after story from every window but one, and that one was ours. There we hung festoons of white drapery, intermingled with violet bouquets and garlands of white and purple violets and ribbons of violet, of black, and of white. The whitely decked windows shown out strangely amidst the surrounding blackness and many who knew that it had been decorated by one who loved and honored Henry Clay and had been to him an object of openly acknowledged interest asked for an explanation. With our snow-white emblems flowered mingled, we made an offering to his memory as to one that of one who was still living, not sleeping an unconscious slumber for ages, not annihilated, not separated from us forever, but only translated to a higher sphere of use, only shot out from us by a translucent gate, which we too would soon enter. And so we hung our windows, not with the blackness which represents the darkness that belongs to the grave, but with symbols of living freshness, gladness, purity of the new life, not with the insignia of death, but with the tokens of the resurrection. The ensuing morning, the Louisville Journal gave an explanation of our tribute to the memory of Henry Clay. After this engagement which ended in July, I returned east to rest during the month of August. My professional labors were resumed in September. In Buffalo, I commenced my engagement on the opening night of the Metropolitan Theater, newly erected. The opening of a theater is always a period of great excitement. The gradual completion that looks like incompletion, the apparent impossibility, even at the last rehearsal of accomplishing all that remains to be done, the jostling activity of the stage carpenters, the rapid painting of the scenic harness, the perplexity of the actors who cannot hear through the sound of the hammers, their own voices rehearsing, the flurry of the stage manager, the flitting to and fro of the architect, the wondering of all how the new temple of art awaiting its consecration will look when lighted up. The freshness, the bustle, the confusion, form a combination of stirring elements that diffuse themselves through the whole theater in a day and at night are communicated to the audience. In the evening, the throng in front of the building became so dense that the door of the theater had to be thrown open to admit them while the scaffolding was still upon the stage. The audience were thus made witness of the most painful accident. One of the carpenters in attempting to execute his work as quickly as possible fell from the scaffolding and was seriously injured. The curtain rose upon the members of the company assembled upon the stage, then was sung the national anthem of Hail Columbia. At its conclusion, I entered and delivered the inaugural address written by Anson G. Chester Esquire. The audience responded heartily to such passages as the following. To do its, the dramas, good use, we henceforth set apart this fair creation of the hand of art. Within these walls shall virtue ever rule, this be her throne, her altar, her school. Here will we seek her precepts to defend and, while we please, will elevate and mend. So shall the dramas first intentions find a fit translation to the modern mind. Almost every one of the above lines was interrupted by an emphatic burst of applause, distinctly showing what class of performances the public were prepared to patronize. After the opening address rose a loud demand for Mr. T., the architect of the theater, to whose talents and skills several edifices in New York bear witness. He certainly had erected a theater in admirable taste and deserved public thanks. The worthy architect had been apprised that he must acknowledge the kindness of the audience by a few appropriate words, a necessity which caused him great alarm. His mind had been kept on the stretch for many days and nights in superintending the completion of the theater. He had obtained no rest and was now thoroughly worn out with excitement and fatigue. After a protracted and clamorous summons, the curtain drew back and Mr. T., tremblingly appeared, took a couple of steps upon the stage and made several nervous attempts to execute a bow, faltered out, gentlemen and ladies staggered back, two steps taking him out of sight and panic-stricken fainted away. I was completing my toilette for the play and hearing the sudden cessation of applause from the audience and a confusion behind the scenes, I feared some new accident had occurred. As soon as I was dressed, I hastened to inquire and receive the above relation from the stage manager, Mr. Smith. The accomplished but timid architect was joked unmercifully about his attack of stage fright. Some of his friends declared that he only fainted because he had accidentally said gentlemen and ladies instead of giving precedence to the latter and the terror and remembrance of women's rights, thus rudely infringed, had overpowered him. After this, I fulfilled an engagement in Syracuse. In passing through Boston, I acted one night and engaged to return with the new year. My next engagement was in Philadelphia, but a severe attack of bronchitis rendered this fulfillment impossible. The disease seemed singularly prevalent in all theaters during that season. I several times assisted at rehearsals where three or four of the actors were so seriously affected that they could not venture to use their voices in the morning. The little power left was reserved for night. At rehearsal, they went through the action of the play in dumb show, standing, kneeling, pacing the stage, crossing from right to left or left to right as the business of the scene demanded, but in perfect silence, while the prompter read aloud the words of their parts. It reminded me of the ludicrous game of dumb orator. My next engagement, commencing in November, was to take place at the Broadway Theater. My home in New York was at the residence of my brother-in-law, Dr. T. The bronchial affection from which I was suffering had been very much relieved by his medical skill and I was able to meet my engagement at the time appointed. I opened in Parthenia and that night used my voice with tolerable facility, but the next, while I was enacting Rosalind, the power of speech left me entirely. At its forceful return, through my strong volition, it seemed as though somebody else's voice had been mysteriously substituted for mine. The engagement thus became an exceedingly painful one. I was urged to complete it if possible. How I was unable to do so appears a matter of wonder. All that medical science could affect for me was constantly counteracted by my nightly exertions. On some evening, the utterance of every sentence was a separate misery. I heartily rejoiced when the engagement came to a close. In December, I have recovered sufficiently to appear in Baltimore. A singular presentation was made to me during this engagement on my benefit night, that of a young fawn garlanded with flowers. It was a testimonial from the Fireman's Library Association. The fawn was first taken to my dressing room and then brought upon the stage during the comedy of the honeymoon. Lopez delivered it to Juliana in the cottage scene. My new pet followed me about and played his part to perfection. When the duke and Lopez were conversing, I seated myself on a footstool beside the table and the gentle fawn ate out of my hand, varying the feast by munching my curls, greatly to the amusement of the audience. This bi-play did not interrupt the dialogue between the duke and the countryman who occupied the front of the stage. On the same evening was presented to me, I believe from the same source, the most exquisite floral offering that I ever received. It was a star about a foot and a half or two foot in height and in breadth, composed of double camellias of various hues, the white predominating. Both sides of the star bouquet were alike and the framework on which it was composed was rendered invisible by thickly clustering flowers. It was handed from the boxes to A.W. Finno Esquire, who supported me during the engagement and placed by him in my arms. The rare beauty and delicacy of the gift gave me much pleasure, but I was especially charmed that the flowers had been woven into the form of one of the chief emblems of that country whose door I was proud to be called. I returned to Boston according to promise in January and acted several weeks. My voice had slightly improved. At times I could use it without difficulty, but the least nervousness or anxiety was the signal for the departure of every smoother tone. My southern tour was now to commence. In Washington I appeared for the first time, re-engaging twice. I next performed in Richmond and then proceeded to Mobile. It was my first visit to that city since my return from Europe. I had abundant and most flattering cause to believe that I had not been forgotten. Rank that engagement amongst those which I shall ever look back upon with truest pleasure. In New Orleans we had violent storms of rain through the larger half of the engagement. The climate had an injurious effect upon my health and it was with difficulty that I struggled through the stipulated number of performances. Armand was produced here as in every other city in which I performed. Fashion was also enacted at the St. Charles Theater and repeated several nights, drawing larger houses than any other play. The comedy was exceedingly well acted. The Adam Truman of Mr. Lin won him high and deserved economists. The Snobson of Mr. Debar, more than once overcame my gravity of countenance. I was content to enact Gertrude as the character obviated all necessity for exertion, exertion which I was nightly becoming more unable to make. End of chapter 25.