A great deal of contemporary criticism was decidedly less enthusiastic than this. While thoroughly believing in Miss Anderson’s devotion to her profession and her conviction of its dignity, many good judges saw in her a woman of talent only, not a genius. The art of the theatre was to her a matter of the highest ideals, deserving the service of the best and noblest in the natures of its followers. Yet as an actress practicing this art she seemed to many incapable of placing her work on any but a personal basis. Insight into character, it was said, was impossible to her--her Galatea, Parthenia, Pauline, Rosalind and the rest were but herself in different guises. A striking instance of her lack of dramatic insight was her inability to adapt herself to W. S. Gilbert’s conception of his own _Galatea_. He wished her to suggest the comic or satiric value of some of her speeches, but she was unable to bring about the necessary subordination of her own personality. The heroic and obviously tragic were her forte. A thoroughly good woman herself, she was rigidly confined by the limits of her temperament, as well as by her views of what the stage should show, to the delineation of good women. She was probably quite incapable of expressing a purely animal nature. “Her acting is polished, and in correct taste,” said the _Morning Post_ of London, “what it wants is freshness, spontaneity, _abandon_. Of the _feu sacre_ which irradiated Rachel and gives to Bernhardt splendor ineffable, Miss Anderson has not a spark. She is not inspired. Hers is a pure, bright, steady light; but it lacks any mystic effulgence. She is beautiful, winsome, gifted, and accomplished. To say this is to say much, and it fills to the brim the measure of legitimate praise. She is an eminently good, but not a great artist.” The word “beautiful” is sure to turn up in any criticism of Mary Anderson. Never was the word used with more justification. She was “a classic figure gotten by mistake into an unclassic epoch.” She was of innate dignity, tall and statuesque, “of imperial figure,” fair haired, blue-eyed. Her features were finely chiseled and regular and at once suggested the Greek ideal. Her voice, rich, tender, and with wonderfully full bodied and expressive lower tones, was one of her chief charms. Many men today have those tones still echoing in their minds.