SARA BERNHARDT IN THE STATES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3100, 4 June 1881, Page 4

SARA BERNHARDT IN THE STATES.

Now that the starring visit of the renowned French actress to the United States is drawing to a close rumours reach this country that it has not been so great a success as was expected. Sara herself is too shrewd a woman of business to be greatly out of pocket, and the loss if any will fall upon the speculators who "promoted" her.. But Sara has suffered in disappointments too. She has hardly carried American society by storm a3 she did that of London at her first visit to this country, when duchesses fought to secure her company at their at-homes, and she received the elite of the Upper Ten at her own picture gallery. Whether the Americans are really more prudish or not they have looked somewhat askance at Madame Bernhardt, and have not made her welcome to the inner privacy of their homes. She has had to bo satisfied with the rich offerings laid at her feet by enthusiastic audiences, the gigantic bouquets, rich wreaths, and valuable jewellery showered upon her in various towns of the United States. Yet even these wore not all bona fide and substantial gifts. The story goes that one devoted admirer begged her to accept a magnificent but not particularly artistic coronet or tiara of gold. It was excessively heavy, and as tho clumsy donor had ommitted to detach the price ticket from the case, had the satisfaction of discovering that the present was worth five thousand dollars. A little later, on her return to New York, being desirous of turning what Mr Wemmick styled his " portable property," into hard cash, she called in a jeweller to make a bid. After applying the usual tests, he coolly offered her sixty dollars for the crown. Sara's wrath changed into the liveliost disgust on finding that the jeweller was right in the estimate he formed. The costly jewel was only copper, gilt.