The morning news., 1891-03-02
"BAB' SEES BERNHARDT.
SHE SKETCHES HER AS ACTRESS
AND AS " WOMAN.

Different Poop at the Theater-
The Ma culine Nuisance-The Femi-
nine Theater Fiend i enten Sewing
Classes-The New Easter Bonnets-
Some Self-Denials During Lent-Gos-
sip OF the Metr polls in the Social
Seasons Of Time.
! CCopTig1t)
NEW YORK, Feb est has come with
Lent tn year. The charming little debut
ante, who looks dream as she goes of to
early church in her gray gown with a de-
mure little gray at, a prayer-book bound
in gray kid, and the primest of gray gloves
on her hands is thinking not so much Of the
salvation Of her soul as what she saw Nine.
Sarah do last night She is wondering IL
the five fingersof her pretty hand could ever
gesticulate in such an expressive way, and
if she could ever get her eyes to act as do
| those Of the French actress.
SARAH BERNHARDT's EYES.
These are marvellous eyes, these eyes Of
Sar his. just watch them in the scene
where Tosca discovers the knife which she
uses to kill Scarpia. She is holding in her
hand glass OF wa -er-her lips are burning
with fever and she is wild with anguish.
Suddenly straight through the glass,
straight through the clear water she sees
this knife that Ia to kill the man who wishes
TO dishonor her, and she finds in it her refuge
! and her lovers salvation. The eyes close,
| close until they seem merely line of dark
across the face; then they opened slowly,
surely, until they are two burning
oros gloa ing with delight on that
sharp bit Of steel You would swear then
that they were black, and yet whom
you saw her looking in the face of her lover,
happy and gay, you believed they we're
heavenly blue. When she was studying
her music, just before she is to sing before
the queen, they looked like the eyes of a
student, and were gray. do not believe
any woman ever lived who had such mag
niticent control over these windows of the
soul as has Madame Sarah, and there are
times when you confess to yourself that be-
fore she was woman she was an exQui-
sicily beautiful panther and that she still re-
tains her litheness and these wonderful eyes
to let the world guess occasionally at what
she used to be-
Somebody asked,
HOW OLD rs sARAHf
She has no age Who asks how old was
Lillith or Cleopatra, or Theodore or Kath-
crime Borgia, or Mary Queen Of Scots, or
any of the women who appear once in a
century or two and rule the world7 For
my own part. have a little belief that it is
always the same woman, that it is only Lii
nth reappearing and reappearing; that
sometimes she may take the form of a
queen and rule nations, sometimes she may
take the form Of a circus rider and become
queen Of men, and again she may take
the form OF genius and rule not men or
nations, but the whole world, and that's
the form she has chosen to take in Sarah.
There is another queer thing about her
that proves my theory.
Quite Irrespective of the wonderful
genius, the woman holds you, and you
wonder why.
SHE'S NOT PRETTY, NOT BEAUTIFUL
these wonderful women never are-but
fascinating, uTle chGrmeuSe. That's it,
that's the only way you can describe it.
Individual, capricious, talented, and yet
woman, and in that lies her strongest and
greatest power. IL Sarah were put in that
abOmipation Of denominations, the ordinary
dress clothes worn BY men to-day, she would
still look woman. She would impress you
as being a woman who was doing this for a
frolic, and TO save your soul you couldn't
think OF her in any other way. That's
another charm. Ny friends, don't you won
der that women with this power sometimes
do not choose TO blow up the world or some
portion Of it? They could do it, and IT'S
more than kind of them not to. The little
maiden goiag to church thinks out all this
In her own way, and then she wonders why
SHE CAN'T ANALYzE sARAH's ACTING.
You can't analyze what is any more than
you can grasp the sunbeam or hold the rain
bow. It's there, and when she comes on the
stage as "Floria Tosca, when she runs the
whole gamut of love-making as only a
woman can, it isn't the actress or the genius
you think Of or see-it's "Tosca" herself.
The people about you have faded away; if
there is music you hear it in the distance.
and all that you know is that you are wit
Messing a life story. Trained at the Francais
Ny dear child, all the training in the world
will never make a Sarah-such women are
born, not made. You can pluck in the
African forest an orchid that is q marvel
Gus expression of beauty in color and shape.
You can bring it to your home and the or
child cultivator may take such care of the
flower that 1t grows more aud more beauti-
full, but it is always the orchid as 1t first was
plucked improved, made deeper in color,
stronger in perfume, it was yet an orchid to
begin with. and that is the way to work out
the story of the training or genius.
THE MASCULINE THEATER NUISANCE.
It's queer how different people behave at
the theater. It's curious to see how abso-
lutely selfish most Of them are. The woman
who doesn't hesitate TO wear bonnet with
a rose that stands up a quarter of a yard
| from it and bobs to and fro, making YOU
see at intervals the head of the principal
| actress entirely gone aud rose in its place,
is not, after all, the worst offender.
0, no! the worst offender is man.
His types are several, but one of the most
Objectionable is the one who sits in front of
you and wears a heavy top coat. Now, in-
stead of checking this, or making q bundle
of IL and putting it under the seat, he elects,
when be takes it off, to throw it over the
| back of the chair, aud you have the pleas
| ure(D of holding it in your lap the greater
part of the evening. Then he has another
way. He is rather large, and, instead of
getting corner seat, he gets an inside
one, and rests not only on the arms of ills
own chair, but partially over on your arm.
Then, too, he has more or less pleasing
way OF coming in after he has had a drink
| OF ice water and forcing you to come out in
the aisle just at the moment that the curtain
has gone up and all the audience, including
yourself, are deeply interested in seeing the
heroine make her eatree. But the man with
the overcoat is about the worst, and really
the usher Of any respectable theater ought
TO have an order to oust him.
THE FEMININE THEATER FIEND.
The feminine nuisance is given to hum
ming the tunes that she hears between the
acts, or else she is 50 overcome by the play
and the performers that all she can say,
though she says this on an average Of every
three minutes, is, ''How grandw Now you
are not denying this, but you rather she
| WOuld mas one Skatamant of tha fact nd