WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 163, 28 March 1923, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By T. 'D. H.) After the London lawsuit gramophone records will have to be divided into the new laid and merely fresh. One view of Europe’s troubles is that Germany has ’given up the goosestep’ for the, side-step-“I die terribly twice a day,” once declared Sarah Bernhardt, and now the world’s greatest actress is dead for good and all. Dying was one of Madame Bernhardt’s specialities on tho stage, and she is said to have impersonated death more frequently than any other artist on record. It was computed recently that her deaths by self-administered poison numbered over 10,00,0, her leaps into a scenic Seino 7000, and her deaths by revolver shots 5000. .The realism of her acting in such scenes was overwhelming, and on ono occasion her performance before Abdul the Damned at Yildiz Kiosk completely overcame that monarch, who left tho theatre and declared that he never again wished tq see a woman who imitated death so realistically. Of dying in real earnest Sarah Bernhardt had no intention before she could help it. Thirty-five years ago she took Miss Ellen Terry’s hand across the supper table at the Lyceum Theatre, and declared in her broken English: “My dear, there are two peoples in this world which shall never be old—you and me.” Now she is dead, not having attained the 103 years to which she declared she intended to live for-the discomfiture of her enemies, but Miss Ellen Terry still survives.

The critics may engage in endless disputations as to whether there have been greater actresses than Sarah Bernhardt, bpt never has there been ’ an actress more energetic and more amazingly vital. Her successes were in the portrayal of passion and emotion with a force sometimes terrific, thrilling great audiences to their marrow-bones. Her plays* as a rule represented a life' that never was on land or sea, and pictured a world where anything might happen that was terrible—if you were not poisoned with a magic potion in the second act you Would probably be stabbed with a jewelled dagger in the third. Sarah Bernhardt’s life and art were one, for both on and off the stage she surrendered herself to the emotion of the moment and let it gallop to exhaustion, no matter whether in a scene of Sardou’s or a scene with her manager. Indeed, qn one occasion she paid £4OOO for the pleasure of slapping the face of an actress (who had brushed against her little sister in the theatre) and refusing to appear on the stage with her again.

In her early days the critics refused Madame Bernhardt a hearing, and it was the 'public who approved of her and .insisted on seeing and applauding her, until at last-the critics also had to join in the chorus of praise. This is what bl. Paul de Saint-Victor said of Bernhardt over half a century ago, when he was considered perhaps the most distinguished and influential critic in Paris, with power to make or mar an actor’s future. “The most she can do.” said M. de Saint-Victor, “is to act as a feeble substitute for Madame Favart. The weakness of her voice and the insufficiency of'her talents exclude her from tho leading tragedy parts, and I don’t see that she can take her place anywhere except in the background.” The first great Bernhardt success was in “Buy Blas” in 1872, but it w’as*. London when it first saw her in 1879 that singled out the “divine Sarah” for the pre-eminence that was ever after hers. When the Comedic Francaise paid its memorable visit of that year its leading actress on the bill was Sophie Croizette, but the London audiences took Sarah Bernhardt to thpir hearts, and made her an easy first and indisputable prime favourite.

It was on her first London visit that Sarah Bernhardt added extensively to her bizarro collection of animal pets. She once had an alligator, but report has _it that this died through a too liberal allowance of champagne in its diet. The Bernhardt menagerie as it arrived in London in 1879 consisted only of three dogs, a parrot named Bizibouzow, and a ’monkev christened Monsieur Dar- . win. Tliese were let lose in the garden of her house at 77 Chester Square, but Madame Bernhardt soon visited Mr. Cross, the animal dealer, and became enraptured of his elephants, and ’ demanded a dwarf elephant for a companion. Mr. Cross was not able to produce one, -but be obligingly supplied a cheetah, a wolf, and six chameleons, all duly liberated in the garden to the alarm of the neighbours, which reached a state of panic when the tragedienne took the cheetah abroad for exercise.

Nobody in our day has lived in such an atmosphere of romantic adoration and been such a law unto themselves as Madame Bernhardt. She has had the Baltic Sea strewn with Joses for her, and at the other end of the world South American Raleighs have thrown their cloaks in the mud for her to walk upon. Her freaks, extravagances, quarrels, and advertisements bewildered and fascinated Europe and America. 'Wherever she travelled she carried her coffin and frequently studied her parts in it. She drove an ambulance of tier own cn the Franco-Prussian War, and lived to do an amazing amount of war work in tho Great War. As a sculptress and a painter she won honourable mention in the Paris Salon. She even wrote a plav, which, by the way, was a flat failure. Even in her two months vacation each yeair at Ter country home at Bello Isle, Sarah Bernhardt used to play with as intense an activity as she worked during the rest of the year. It is said that right up to about 1911 or so it was her. custom to bo out from six in the morninc; until eight at night, hunting, fishing, and playing tennis for three hours at a stretch.

A royal flush in a poker hand is a laro thing, and perhaps it is as well that it is.-. A message from Davenport, lowa, and published in the NewYork newspapers some weeks ago, tells of tho fatal effects of such an event “‘A royal flush!’ exclaimed Charles Hass, while at the home of a friend, playing poker this afternoon. He had discarded two cards and picked up a jack an.d ton of spades, filling out a premier hand. As he reached for the chips ho fell dead of a paralytic stroke.”

Tho following could hardly have happened in Masterton. It occurred in London, as reported in “Punch. “Specialist: ‘One more question before you go. What do you drink. Patient:' ‘Thank you kindly, -doctorjust a spot of whisky.’ ” REBIRTH. The tufted tussock-caterpillar Shoved out of his stiff cocoon. Ho did not see the blue sky. Nor the suu-roefed splendour of tho woods. Ho looked at his. dogwood branch. And ho sighed, “What a lot of work For me to accomplish 1” And ho began to eat, And eat, and eat. —Clement Wood.