There is much in this passage to give pause to the girl who longs for a stage career, for the youthfully ambitious seldom see such a career in its true perspective. Mary Anderson, one in ten thousand in her equipment as an actress, one in a million in the triumphs she won, yet was eager to give it all up. On the audience’s side of the footlights the stage is (and rightfully so) a place of beauty, of inspiration, of revelation of the truth. To the actor or actress it is more often than not a place of stern toil, of uncertainty, of disappointment and disillusionment. The provincial tour following the London engagement ended at Dublin, where the public was as wildly enthusiastic as before. Some of the last night audience even went so far as to follow in the same train to Queenstown, awakening her at each stop with cheers and greetings. There followed the final tour in the United States. At Louisville she visited the scenes of her youth and received the congratulatory resolutions of the state senate. She had begun the season with as much zest as she could command, but the strain was beginning to tell on her health. At Cincinnati she acted with difficulty, but completed the engagement. At Washington, in the middle of inauguration week, in 1889, the crisis was reached. “The first scenes of _The Winter’s Tale_ went very smoothly. The theatre was crowded. Perdita danced apparently as gayly as ever, but after the exertion fell fainting from exhaustion and was carried off the stage. I was taken into the dressing-room, which in a few moments was filled with people from the boxes. Recovering consciousness quickly, I begged them to clear the room. Realizing then that I would probably not be able to act any more that season, though there were many weeks yet unfinished, I resolved at any cost to complete that night’s work. Hurriedly putting on some color, I passed the groups of people discussing the incident, and before the doctor or my brother were aware of my purpose, ordered the curtain to be rung up and walked quickly upon the stage. As I did so I heard a loud hum, which I was afterwards told was a great burst of applause from the audience. The pastoral scene came to an end. There was only one more act to go through. Donning the statue-like draperies of Hermione, I mounted the pedestal. My physician, formerly an officer in the army, said that he had never, even in the midst of a battle, felt so nervous as when he saw the figure of Hermione swaying on her pedestal up that long flight of stairs. Every moment there was an hour of torture to me, for I felt myself growing fainter and fainter. All my remaining strength was put into that last effort. I descended from the pedestal, and was able to speak all but the final line. This remained unuttered, and the curtain rang down on my last appearance on the stage.”[160]