BERNHARDT LOVE LETTERS

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 12

BERNHARDT LOVE LETTERS

SARDOU.

14 PARIS WITHOUT THEE A MORGUE.”

The divine Sarah and the poet Sardou spent some time together in Brittany, states M. Sylvcstro Dorian, an intimate friend of the late Mmo. Bernhardt, who is now editing the actress’s letters. “ What happened during the month and a-half of summer they spent together,’'’ ho says, “ the little birds have not placed on record. Her letters intimate, however, that they talked about more things than poetry and purple, for. from those days on, Sardou is 11 thee ” and “ thou,” whereas he had only been plain “ you ” like tiro rest of ns up until then. Purple, at any rate, had apparently not been altogether overlooked. In several letters written after their return to Paris there is some reference to that most royal of colors; she says once that, for his pleasure, since it is his favorite color, she is going to write au essay on it. Then in a letter, and in prose as poetical as there is, perhaps, in the language, her idea comes to its full fruition. ” Poet. “ Thou who art of the company of the unconscious legislators of the world, I salute thee affectionately. ” I have taken thy fair thoughts and sung them in a lowor key; I have given them a more varied setting without trespassing upon anything that was not mine In the beginning as well' as thine, “ If two poets spent a night under the wide sides together, they would both be privileged to go away and write their separate sounot without subjecting themselves to charges of plagiarism as long as they did not borrow each other’s phrase. “ Had I not such an intense horror for seeing things in print, I would write a little book of essays called ‘ Purple and Passion,’ and bring it out just to show thee that I can do it. “ Purple is, indeed, my favorite color, just ns it is thine. It is on that foundation that wo must stand united. PALE LIKE LIPS OF MALDEN UNLEAENED IN WONDER OF KISS. M In childhood wo all have a far mors exalted sense of color than wo ever fully retain or quite recover—a heartache for them which in riper years is gradually and irretrievably consoled. ‘‘ Hie months, like mighty boats in their passage, leave a wake behind them, and wo have no lovelier example than now in the opening of May, when ours to learn and to love are all the purples born between the rains and rainbows of long April days, “ If c-jly because it was the color of Cmsar’s cloak and the violets in Ophelia’s hand, wo must love purple, and the wisdom of this love is to understand April at whoso voico all purples of field and garden wako and bloom. “Our more significant, our stronger colors, tho two colors that dominate all pictorial life and loveliness including them and giving to the artist basis for a hundred other colors, are red and blue; the purplo represents nob only her proper, separate, shining self, but these two splendidly waited in the same person.

“Now it is May! ‘ No flower in the garden wears a robo of gaudier beauty than tho purplo pansy, and the wayfarer of the forest beholds nothing in wild-flower-land richer than tho wild wistaria, whoso beauty, ono sometimes fancies, is burdensome to tho tree it climbs. Then there are violets everywhere, and in the light summer wind the long plumes of the lilac leap in all directions. “It is May, but these flowers are of April; they were born off April and nourished in tho cradle where fell her sun and showers, and constitute her legacy to May. “ In the wake of May there will bo manifold rods. (All reds, in fact, save the foliage-red that comes in autumn.) “Not a few will bo.pale and premature, colored like the lips of the maiden who has yet to learn tho wonder of a kiss (mine, since those radiant nights with thee, do not fall into this classification surely), coral, pink, lifeless; but these are transitional moods and moments from which tho crimson rosea of late June evolve.

“ Then, too, the musk rose, which Keats, in error, named ‘ the child of mid-May.’ is ripe. Not only is tho musk roso no ‘child of mid-May’; no flower of tho profoundest red comes to maturity under the May sun. Red, then, is the.legacy of May to June; Juno wakca- tho wholo world of green, and. so forth. "It is during tho stretch of time between mid-Juno and mid-July that we may first perceive all the differences of tho green of leaves. It is no difference in degrees of maturity, for ail the trees have darkened to their final tone, and stand in their differences of character and not of mere date. SARAH MOURNS THE "PATH OP THE PAST.” " That each month has its Justified claim to the color it bears and nourishes every year was felt by Hugo: “And hero is May, tho fairest of tho fair, In April’s dress j pale lilacs crown her hair. “And' in ono of 'Marcelino Valmoro’s letters to her sister ehe wrote i "‘ It is tho middle of Juno, hut tho real son! of June has not reached our hills; the reds aro the lifeless reds of early May. which by this time are usually Hko blood among the groans of Juno.’ "This little thought lias coviniously visited tho minds of many poets. . . “ Now wo aro in tho wake of April, and are privileged to start intimately the refreshing conceit of Hugo and Marcelino Valmoro. The purples may be more memorable than tho pains that April brought, and the reds of May more soothing than her rains.

“ Gan desire fashion fee onr pleasure a sweeter, a more perfect, condition of the mind than looking backward over tl e waste of years that are sped, able to distinguish one month from {mother, not by the falling of a tear or the parting for a for port of a friend, but only by the flowering of some hawthorn or the waking of some rose ? ** Sabah.” " PARIS WITHOUT THEE A MORGUE,” SHE WROTE POET. The following letter was written ton months after Sardou’s visit to Brittany: “ Wonderful boy: Whore art thou tonight? Thy letter came but an hour ago —a cruel hour—l had hoped that thou wouldst pass tt lie re with me. “ Paris now without thee is but a morgue; before I knew thee it waa Paris, and I thought it heaven; but now it is a wide desert of desolation and loneliness. It is like the face of a clock when the hands have been taken away. "All the pictures that hung in ray memory before I knew thee have gone and given place to the radiant momenta that we have spent together. “ I cannot live now away from thee—thy words, even though they were bitter words—would give chase to all the world’s uneasiness and make me glad; my art has been nourished by them and softly rocked in their tender cradle until they are as requisite to me now as are the sunlight and air. “ I am hungry lor thorn as I would bo for food. I am thirsty for thorn, and my thirst is surpassing. Thy words are my food, thy breath my wine. Thou art all to roe! “ On returning to Paris 1 sliatl insist that thou givest up thy apartment and comest to live here with rno in this great house which only has need of thy presence in order to become an enchanted palaco. “ Thou willst have recourse to all my bools, to the great rooms, and halls, and the garden. And thou willst have recourse to two open arms wherein thou willst be enveloped lovingly, I would fondle ones as would a young mother her lirst-bom. "And thou wouldst benefit by my aflectioa to thee just an I yy.ould benefit by

thin®. Wo most loam to contribute to each other’s life. “ Wo must search out the things *n the character of each that will bo Borvlccab'o. and the things that will make ua essential to each other—the ‘hing th it will un.ftituto an essential and harmonious counterpart to our own existence. “I am away most of the day, when I am not sleeping, and am away at night until midnight, and thou w.iuldst bo at perfect peace hero in the house, troubled by no one (save the ersditora, and thou lenowost bettor than to open lbs door to such horrible people). "My dear boy, weigh dil that I have asked of thee, and let mo have a word saying that then art coming soon to tske up thy residence hero with me. Impatiently, “Tet Sarah."