' It was the first
one I had seen you in, and I wish to write my delightful impressions of
it.
"Will you be so very kind as to tell me the name of your character and
the two Mr. Irving acted so wonderfully in that play?
"There is a brilliant blue sea before my windows, with purple mountains
as a background and silver-topped olives and rich green pines in the
middle distance. I wish you could drop down upon us in this golden land
for a few days' holiday from your weary work.
"I would like to tell you what a big darling my husband is, and how
perfectly happy he makes my life--but there's no use trying.
"The last time we met I promised you a photo--here it is! One of my
latest! And won't you send me one of yours in private dress? DO!
"Forgive me for troubling you, and believe me your admirer
"MARY ANDERSON DE NAVARRO."
Henry and I were so fortunate as to gain the friendship and approval of
Dr. Horace Howard Furness, perhaps the finest Shakespearean scholar in
America, and editor of the "Variorum Shakespeare," which Henry
considered the best of all editions--"the one which counts." It was in
Boston, I think, that I disgraced myself at one of Dr. Furness's
lectures. He was discussing "As You Like It" and Rosalind, and proving
with much elaboration that English in Shakespeare's time was pronounced
like a broad country dialect, and that Rosalind spoke Warwickshire! A
little girl who was sitting in the row in front of me had lent me her
copy of the play a moment before, and now, absorbed in Dr.
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