Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1878-01-17

nani' was great event in the Partisan world
of art. The representation of the play, with
Madam Bernhardt in the personaton of Dono
Sol, was a grand dramatic triumph, and
Hugo at dinner, called about him the artists
and many others of brilliant array of Gel
ebrities to celebrate at the Grande Hotel.
The glowing speech of thanks to bis friends
and the touching kiss of homage to the genius
of Bernhardt are reported by Smalley in are
cent letter to the Tribune. Here is the ora
tion
Il ask permission of my guests to drink to
their health.
II am here as the debtor of you all, and l
| begin by an expression of thanks. For their
presence, their help, their sympathetic sup
| port, thank the great talents, the noble spir-
it's, the generous writer's, the lofty leputa-
| tiOns. which surround me. l thank, in the
person of its honorable director, that mag
nificent national theatre with which half
century of my life is connected, at one and
the other end l thank my dear and valiant
coad tutors, those excellent artists whom the
! public nightly crowns with its plaudits.
Il will pronounce no name, for l should
have to name them all. Nevertheless turn
ing to Mile. Sarah Bernhardt- -''permt me,
! madame, to make an exception which your
sex authorizes-more than that, commands.
''You have shown yourself not only the
rival, but the equal, of the three great act
resses, Mile. Mars, Nine. Dorval, Mme Fa-
vart, who were your predecessors in the role
| of DonG Sol.
Il 60 further have the right to say-I
who, alas saw the representation of 1880
you have surpassed and eclipsed Mile. Mars.
This is your glory; you are queen in your
own right; thrice queen: queen by your beau
| ty and queen by your talent
Then bending over and kissing the hand
of Mile. Sarah Bernhardt-
II thank you, madame - and thunders of
applause rolled through the hall at this grace
| full homage from the illustrious old man to
the beautiful and brilliant young actress.
then resuming:
"Gentlemen, what is this gathering? 1t is
| simple festival, purely friendly and purely
| literary; and festivals of that sort are always
welcome even in-and above all in-stOrmy
| and difficult times
''Not single word shall be ssid here which
can be thought to contain an allusion to any
other passion than that passion for the ideal
and for the absolute which inspires US all.
I'VE are in region of tranquility. We
meet on the calm summit where pure spirits
dwell. There are storms around us, but not
| among us.
s'It is good that the world of literature
should cast its luminous and cloudless ray
upon the political world. 1t is good that our
peaceful domain should offer to the regions
of perplexity this grand example of concord
and this beautiful spectacle of brotherhood.
''Here meant to stop, but your applause
encouraged me to 60 on, and will say q
! word or two more.
'Gentlemen, at my age it is rare for man
not to have-not to end by having-a fixed
idea. A fixed idea is like a fixed star; the
darker the night, the more brightly the star
shines.
''It is the same with the idea.
my idea appears to me with all the more
splendor because the period through which
we are passing is the more gloomy. will
tell YOU what this idea is-it is Peace.
call my life long, from the beginning OF
my youth to this old adage with which my
career will soon close. I have had one end in
view only, paci6cation the pacification OF
spirits, pacifcation of souls, pacitcatlon OF
hearts, My dream would have been no more
war, no more hate; the nations of the world
devoted wholly to labor, to industry. to well
being, to progress. to progress by means OF
tranquility.
''This dream I shall continue to dream,
whatever the trials of the past or the future,
and to my last breath shall strive without
yielding for one moment to despair, to make
it reality"
sCorneille, the old Corneille, the great
Corneille, feeling himself near to death,
breathed out this supreme, proud longing for
fame, this great and last cry, in this verse:
eau momentd d. expirer, je tache d. eblouir
"Well, gentlemen, if one had right to
speak after Corneille, and if / were allowed
to express my last wish, for my part would
say:
"Au moment d. expirer je tache d. apaiser.
sThat gentlemen, is the significance, that
is the sense, that is the object of this gather
ing, this feast of brotherly love, in which
there is no hidden meaning. no misunder-
standing; nothing but what is great, good,
noble.
IAN of US who are here, poets, philoso-
pliers, writer's, artists-we all have two coun-
tries-one, France, the other, Art.
"Yes, Art is country; it is q city whose
citizens are those sons of light, Homer, Ats-
chylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Theocrltus,
Plsntus Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal,
Dante, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Mollere, COT
nellie, Voltaire' and all the guests broke IN
with the cry-Victor Hugo. "And there Is
another city, too, less vast but equally great;
which we call our National History, ana
which counts these men not less great
Charlemagne, Roland. Duguesclin, Bayard,
Turenne, Conde, Villars, Vauban, Hoche,
Merceau, Kleber, Mirabeau."
sWell, dear comrades, dear guests, we be.
long to those two cities. Let US be proud OF
it, and let me say to you in drinking your
health that drink to the health OF our two
countries-to the health of Ia grGnde France, |
and to the health dn grand Art !"