The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1884-11-26
a. DETHRONED QUEEN.
Sarah Bernhardt's Wonderful Genius
and Phenomenal Meanness.
Driven by n Deaf and Blind Passion
for MOney-A Life Of Cold Cali
cuIatIOn-InterestIng
sketch.
[Paris Cor New Orleans Picayllnel

Did it ever occur to you that actors and
actresses ought not to be poor? While in the
heyday of their profession they gain enough
to insure themselves comfort in their old age;
but like the lower classes in England, they
prefer to live on charity in their latter days
to saving up something of their easily
earned salaries. Take Nine Sarah Bern
hardt, for instance. Never has an actress
risen higher in her profession and never has
one fallen into lower depths of despair and
misery than she is sure to fall before many
moons have gone and come unless she puts
on, the brakes very soon. Was there over an
other woman with such a history as hers
has been, and which is not yet ended!
Her beginnings were difficult and
already she was tormentsd by debts;
but one day she scored a success in
the "Passant," at the Odeon, a success due
partly to the tender charm of her voice and
partly to suggestive ambiguity of her
plastique. Then she entered the Comedie
Francaise, where she soon became famous.
She was feted and applauded as no other
actress had been who ever appeared before
the Partisan public
No doubt her talents are of the highest
order and she is original, seductive and
graceful in her ever movement but she had
the good luck to make her appearance at a
time when there was no longer any truly
great actresses on the French stage and when
there were very few left amcng the public
who remembered Rachel and Augustine
Brohan. Her name grew and grew, and
soon it filed Paris, the provinces and foreign
lands. No one was talked about but
her; she was photographed, painted IN
oils, carved in marble, and every one did
their best to surround her with an atmos-
phere of eccentricitieS. Her toilets were
looked upon as enigmas; her slightest gesture
was said to conceala mysterious meaning; her
hair to render those mad who touched it;
her flowers to breathe forth poisons which
were her only food.
When she received, her salon was crowded
with the noblest names in Europe. The kings
of Christendom bowed down before this
stage queen. She went up in a balloon and
a nation watched her ascent in breathless in
terest; she wrote a book for which the pub
fishers contended; she made statues and
painted pictures, which the admiring public
declared masterpieces. 1t seemed as if her
brain must burst under the tremendous pres
sure of her inspiration, that her soul was
shaken like reed by the whirlwind of crea-
ton
All at once the public learned that she had
left the Comedie Francaise and was setting
forth on a victorious tour over the face of tho
earth; then came the news of her triumphant
she was the cause of. She was in America,
in Russia, in London, in Italy; millions were
poured into her lap; to surprise herself as
well as the public she got married, and then
unmarried; she bought all the theatres that
came in her way, and hardly entered into
possession before she relinquished them
again. Now she has signed a contract with
this manager, now she has broken the one
that bound her to another; everything that
she touches falls to pieces; she lives in an at
mosphere of lawsuits and executions, and
wherever she goes long string of creditors
cling to her skirts, and at last she is no
longer able to keep them at bay.
l know that there are people who pity
Sarah Bernhardt, and declare that it is her
love of the ideal which has been her ruin;
they say that in these days of prose and
artistic corruption she has devoted herself to
pure art and that it is her efforts to redeem
the stage that has proved her ruin. For my
part can find nothing of all this in the life
of Sarah Bernhardt. l see in that life
great deal of calculation, of grasping after
the main chance, a cold and Intentional folly
and above all thirst after money. There is
not an act In the life of Sarah Bernhardt
which has not money for its motive; it seems
as if she felt that mountains OF gold would
not suffice for her extravagances, and she is
forever driven by deaf and blind passion
for money.
1t was this that led her to leave the Thea
tire Francois so abruptly and that led her into
all the acts which have made her so much
talked about because she knew that what
Aept her before the public would make the
public willing to pay their money to see and
to hear her. But there is limit to all things,
and she win find this out to her cost when
she goes back to the United States as she in
tends doing under Abbey's management next
zeaSon.