AT HOME.
Long Branch, one of America's most famous watering-places, in midsummer,
its softly-wooded hills dotted here and there with picturesque "frame"
villas of dazzling white, and below the purple Atlantic sweeping in
restlessly on to the New Jersey shore. The sultry day has been one of
summer storm, and the waves are tipped still with crests of snowy foam,
though now the sun is sinking peacefully to rest amid banks of cloud,
aflame with rose and violet and gold.
About a mile back from the shore stands a rambling country house embosomed
in a small park a few acres in extent, and immediately surrounding it
masses of the magnificent shrub known as Rose of Sharon, in full bloom, in
which the walls of snowy white, with their windows gleaming in the
sunlight, seem set as in a bed of color. The air is full of perfume. The
scent of flower and tree rises gratefully from the rain-laden earth. The
birds make the air musical with song; and here and there in the
neighboring wood, the pretty brown squirrels spring from branch to branch,
and dash down with their gambols the rain drops in a diamond spray. A
broad veranda covered with luxuriant honeysuckle and clematis stretches
along the eastern front of the house, and the wide bay window, thrown open
just now to the summer wind, seems framed in flowers. As we approach
nearer, the deep, rich notes of an organ strike upon the ear. Some one,
with seeming unconsciousness, is producing a sweet passionate music, which
changes momentarily with the player's passing mood. We pause an instant
and look into the room. Here is a picture which might be called "a dream
of fair women." Seated at the organ in the subdued light is a young woman
of a strange, almost startling beauty. Her graceful figure clad in a
simple black robe, unrelieved by a single ornament, is slight, and almost
girlish, though there is a rounded fullness in its line which betrays that
womanhood has been reached. A small classic head carried with easy grace;
finely chiseled features; full, deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealth
of auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like ear;
these complete a picture which seems to belong to another clime and
another age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of Titian. We are almost
sorry to enter the room and break the spell. Mary Anderson's manner as she
starts up from the organ with a light elastic spring to greet her visitors
is singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the
beautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness
and decision in the mouth, with an utter absence of that
self-consciousness and coquetry which often mar the charm of even the most
beautiful face. This is the artist's study to which she flies back gladly,
now and then, for a few weeks' rest and relaxation from the exacting life
of a strolling player, whose days are spent wandering in pursuit of her
profession over the vast continent which stretches from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. Here she may be found often busy with her part when the faint
rose begins to steal over the tree tops at early dawn; or sometimes when
the world is asleep, and the only sounds are the wind, as it sighs
mournfully through the neighboring wood, or the far-off murmur of the
Atlantic waves as they dash sullenly upon the beach. On a still summer's
night she will wander sometimes, a fair Rosalind, such as Shakespeare
would have loved, in the neighboring grove, and wake its silent echoes as
she recites the Great Master's lines; or she will stand upon the
flower-clad veranda, under the moonlight, her hair stirred softly by the
summer wind, and it becomes to her the balcony from which Juliet murmurs
the story of her love to a ghostly Romeo beneath.
A large English deerhound, who was dozing at her feet when we entered the
room, starts up with his mistress, and after a lazy stretch seems to ask
to join in the welcome. Mary Anderson explains that he is an old favorite,
dear from his resemblance to a hound which figures in some of the
portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. He has failed ignominiously in an
attempted training for a dramatic career, and can do no more than howl a
doleful and distracting accompaniment to his mistress' voice in singing.
We glance round the room, and see that the walls are covered with
portraits of eminent actors, living and dead, with here and there
bookcases filled with favorite dramatic authors; in a corner a bust of
Shakespeare; and on a velvet stand a stage dagger which once belonged to
Sarah Siddons. Over the mantelpiece is a huge elk's head, which fell to
the rifle of General Crook, and was presented to Mary Anderson by that
renowned American hunter; and here, under a glass case, is a stuffed hawk,
a deceased actor and former colleague. Dressed in appropriate costume he
used to take the part of the Hawk in Sheridan Knowles' comedy of "Love,"
in which Mary Anderson played the Countess. The story of this bird's
training is as characteristic of her passion for stage realism as of that
indomitable power of will to overcome obstacles, to which much of her
success is due. She determined to have a live hawk for the part instead of
the conventional stuffed one of the stage, and with some difficulty
procured a half-wild bird from a menagerie. Arming herself with strong
spectacles and heavy gauntlets, she spent many a weary day in the painful
process of "taming the shrew." After a long struggle, in which she came
off sometimes torn and bleeding, the bird was taught to fly from the
falconer's shoulder on to her outstretched finger and stay there while she
recited the lines--
"How nature fashioned him for his bold trade!
Gave him his stars of eyes to range abroad.
His wings of glorious spread to mow the air
And breast of might to use them!"
and then, by tickling his feet, he would fly off: and flap his wings
appropriately, while she went on--
"I delight
To fly my hawk. The hawk's a glorious bird;
Obedient--yet a daring, dauntless bird!"
Here, too, are her guitar and zither, on both which instruments Mary
Anderson is a proficient.
And now that we have seen all her treasures, we must follow her to the top
of the house, from which is obtained a fine view of the Atlantic as it
races in mighty waves on to the beach at Long Branch. She declares that in
the offing, among the snowy craft which dance at anchor there, can be
distinguished her pretty steam yacht, the Galatea.
Night is falling fast, but with that impulsiveness which is so
characteristic of her, Mary Anderson insists upon our paying a visit to
the stables to see her favorite mare, Maggie Logan. Poor Maggie is now
blind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry her mistress, who is
a splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five miles across the prairie in
sixteen minutes. As we enter the box, Maggie turns her pretty head at
sound of the familiar voice, and in response to a gentle hint, her
mistress produces a piece of sugar from her pocket. As Mary Anderson
strokes the fine thoroughbred head, we think the pair are not very much
unlike. Meanwhile, Maggie's stable companion cranes his beautiful neck
over the side of the box, and begs for the caress which is not denied him.
Night has fallen now in earnest, and the beaming colored boy holds his
lantern to guide us along the path, while Maggie whinnies after us her
adieu. The grasshoppers chirp merrily in the sodden grass, and now and
then a startled rabbit darts out of the wood and crosses close to our
feet. The light is almost blinding as we enter the cheerful dining-room,
where supper is laid on the snowy cloth, and are introduced to the
charming family circle of the Long Branch villa. Though it is the home now
of an old Southerner, Mary Anderson's step-father, it is a favorite
trysting-place with Grant, the hero of the North, with Sherman, and many
another famous man, between whom and the South there raged twenty years
ago so deadly and prolonged a feud. While not actually a daughter of the
South by birth, Mary Anderson is such by early education and associations,
and to these grim old soldiers she seems often the emblem of Peace, as
they sit in the pretty drawing-room at Long Branch, and listen, sometimes
with tear-dimmed eyes, to the sweet tones of her voice as she sings for
them their favorite songs.