The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-01-07
ABOUT BERNHARDT
WHAT PROFESSOR SWING THINKS OF
THE FRENCH ACTRESS.
From the Allianee.

From the Alliance
The gradual approach to our city of
the celebrated Sarah Bernhardt raises
not only questions of acting and speak
ing, and of personal beauty, but a
question of conscience. The average
moralist in the church, and out of it,
wonders whether he or she may attend
the dramatic performance of a LADY
who does not think the marriage rela- |
ton essential to the welfare of society. |
The question is indeed most difficult |
one, and If some good people who are
firm believers in that law and order
represented by the domestic tie should
claim that they may patronize an art
when they do not approve of the char
acter of the artist, they may be accused |
perhaps of bad judgment, but not of
sympathy with vice. 1t seems clear |
that those who are members of the |
Christian Church, and those who love |
deeply the fundamental laws of society,
cannot make any good excuses for 90
ing to the theater to see the perform.
ance OF this celebrated actress. OIL
course no GOODNESS or absence of the
religionists can have any effect upon |
the receipts or general fame of the
lady, but such absence might be moral |
protest that would exert some influence
upon the young, who are only too |
ready to learn from persons of such |
confessed genius as Mdlle. Bernhardt. |
some of their lessons of life. AS a |
general rule we all make distinctions
between the art of a person and the
character of a person. Alexander |
Hamilton did not estimate highly the |
marriage relation. Nor did Lord Mel |
son. Turner, the great painter, pos
sessed many vices, but to possess a |
picture by Turner, is something much |
to be desired. Thus always there has
been a distinction made between art
and the character of the artist. And |
yet there is limit to this kind of dis |
elimination. Aaron Burr became |
scorned for his wickedness; his great |
talentS could not save him from exc
Grafton. So the deed of Arnold blinded |
the public forever to his merits as a
general and self-sacrifcing soldier. |
Great and varied as may be the intel
lectual powers of Sarah Bernhardt, she
comes in the name Of such an immense
contempt for society that her art can
not pardon or conceal her conduct. If |
art might excuse the character in her
case her art should be of unrivalled
excellence that it might accomplish the
big task Of pardoning, but her power
as an actress is so common, so easily |
seen upon other stages, that it cannot |
serve as an apology for the sin against |
the public good. Her genius is not |
large enough to pardon her estimate of |
the world.
There seems no clearer law of human !
welfare than that the child is to be
tenderly cared for by father and mother.
The father is to toll with brain or hand |
to build up the home and to supply the
many wants Of the house. The word
husband comes from tile old notion of
a house band, or the power that creates
and holds together a home, and this
century which can look back upon the
old states, and see the vice and ruin
which came from the absence of the
home law and sentiment, should hest
tate much before bestowing all forms
of adulation upon one who sets aside
this house-band and resolves the family
into mother and children only.
The recent teachings the world has
received from what are called "free
lovers" and the condition of public
morals in the native land OF this &C.
tress, make it quite probable that
American moralists would better keep
their hands free from the bouquets
that are to be flung at the feet of this
tragedienne.
1t may be that this lady does not ap-
prove of her own life. 1t may be pos
sible that she would herself condemn
the example of fatal moral anarchy
she has set. If so, such feelings should
go far to make the public pity her as
an unfortunate, but those remarks are
all based upon the assumption that
what is thus condemned by many is
justified by the actress herself. In her
very beautiful letter on behalf of the
families ruined by the flood of the
Murcie, Mdlle. Bernhardt deems the
father an essential figure IN the little
story Of the child and the fairies: "All
the fairies were assembled around the
cradle of child. The father and
mother heard with great interest the
promises of each. Infant thou shalt ]
be beautiful, grand, and well favored,
thou shalt wear crown of gold, thou
shalt be q hero" and when [
another inhabitant of the air came and
undeceived the parents and told them
that the child was to be only an actor
and was to wear gold crown made of
paper and was to be hero by help of
a wooden sword and willing victims.
the father was much shocked by such
a prosaic Interpretation of lofty words
from which story it fully appears that
if the father is not in the house of
Mdlle. B. he at least should be found
in all polite literature. i
The so-called Christian public, should
they throng the play of Mdlle. Bern
hardt, will be estopped from the use of
the plea that they find much moral s
worth in the dramatic and operate
profession. The argument that Miss
Cary and Miss Kellogg and Gerster and
Mary Anderson and Barrett and Booth !.
are all law-abiding members of society t
will be a dead piece Of rhetoric on the /
lips of all who shall attend the plays {
OF this woman. Such ladies as Miss
Cary and Miss Kellogg might well
wonder whether the public had been
sincere in praislng the moral beauty Of G
their lives. Those who lead in the
social life Of Chicago and who are e
the lessons and the examples
of life for the young, those who have I
long offered their hands and their par
lors to the Parepas and Nillssons and
kelloggs, would better consider what
an argument they will lose should they
greet Sarah Bernhard with any degree
of enthusiasm. D.S