Still in her ’teens, Mary Anderson was by now firmly established in her chosen profession. The period just past had been full of discouragements and difficulties, as well as triumphs. Plunging as she did, without any training to speak of, at once into the impersonation of leading parts was an ordeal bound to result in occasional failure. She afterwards said that she would not wish her dearest enemy to pass through the uncertainties and despondencies of these early years--circumstances which she left out of account on that sleepless night after seeing Booth in _Richelieu_. She had come through the San Francisco ordeal, which was enough to crush the spirit of a girl of seventeen. She still suffered from want of systematic training, she was still painfully conscious of the crudities of her own work, and she lacked even the experience of seeing others in the rôles in which the public compared her with tried favorites. She had seen Charlotte Cushman as Meg Merriles, but as for Juliet, Evadne and Bianca, her own feelings had been almost her sole resource. Like that of Fanny Kemble and Garrick, her novitiate, had, after all, been extraordinarily brief. There followed extensive tours which took her throughout the South and Middle West, to Canada and finally to the goal of American actors, the larger Eastern cities, Philadelphia, Boston, New York. In New York she profited by the expert advice of Dion Boucicault and William Winter, and the friendship of her elders in the profession--Lawrence Barrett, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson and Clara Morris. In Boston she formed another of her invaluable friendships--with Longfellow. The old poet and the young girl-artist delighted in each other’s company and after her engagement was over, they went several times to the opera together. Her professional success in the Eastern cities was such that she could now feel that the ordeal was passed--that she had attained fame. Not that she was by any means universally admired and approved; a part of the public and some of the critics were not won over. Such, while admitting her beauty and her promise, suspected her success. It was, they said, too triumphant, too easy. Yet the undoubted fact was that she had won her public. The Boston engagement was unmistakably successful and in New York she enjoyed a “run” of six weeks.[155]