Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1891-03-05


come with Lent this year. The charm
ing little dibutante, who looks dream,
as she goes off to early church in her
gray gown with dcmure little gray
hat, 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 of what she saw
Madame Sarah do last night. She is
wondering il the five fingers of 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 BERNuARDT's EYES.
These are marvellous eyes, these eyes
of Sarah's. 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 water
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 is 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 open
slowly, surely, until they are two burn
ing orbs gloating with delight on that
sharp bit of steel. You would swear
then that they were black, andyet when
you saw her looking in the face Of her
lover, happy and gay, you believed they
were heavenly blue. When she was
studying her music, just before she is TO
sing before the queen, they looked like
the eyes Of student, and were gray. !
do not believe any woman ever lived
who had such magnificent control over
these windows of the soul as has
Madame Sarah, and there are times
when you confess to yourself that before
she was woman she was an eSquisltely
beautiful panther, and that she still re-
tains her littleness and these wonderful
eyes to let the world guess occasionally
at what she used to be,
Somebody asked,
HOW OLD is SARAH?
Sire mrs no age. Who asks how old
was Lillith or Cleopatra, or Theodore or
Katherine Rorgia, or Mary Queen Of
Scots, or any OF the women who appear
once in century or two and rule the
world? For my own part, have a
little belief that it is always the same
woman, that it is only Lillith reappearing
and reappearing; that sometimes she may
take the form of a queen and rule
nations, sometimes she may take the
form Of circus rider and become a
queen of men, and again she may take
the form of u 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 neryer are
but fascinating, une charmeuse. That's
it, that's the only way You can describe
it. Individual, capricious, talented, and
yet woman, and i'll that lies her
strongest and greatest power. If Sarah
were put in that abomlnation OF abomi-
nations, the ordinary dress clothes worn
by men to-day, she would still look a
woman. She would impress you as
being 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. My friends, don't you
wonder that women with this power
sometimes do not choose to blow up the
world or some portion of itp They
could do it, and it's more than kind Of
them not to. The little maiden going 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
rainbow. Its there, and when she
comes on the stage as GLORIA Tosca,"
when she runs the. whole gamut of love.
making as only woman can, it isn't
the actress or the genius you think of
or see, it's "Toscan 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 life story. Trained at the
Francois? My dear child, all the train
ing 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 marvellous expression
of beauty in color and shape. You can
bring it to your home and the orchid
culuyator may take such care of the
flower that it grows more and more
beautiful, but it was always the orchid
as it 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 OF genius,
THE MASCULINE THEATRE NUISANCE.
It's queer how different people behave
at the theatre. It's curious to see how
absolutely selfish most of them are. The
woman who doesn't hesitate to wear a
bonnet with a rose that stands up a
quarter of yard from it and hobs to
and fro, making you see at intervals
the head OF the principal actress entirely
gone and rose in its place, is not, after
all, the worst offender. Oh, no the
worst offender is a man. His types are
several, but one of the most objection
able is the one who sits in front of you
and wears heavy top coat. Now, IN.
stead of checking this or making bun.
die of it and putting it under the seat
he elects when he takes it off to throw
it over the back of the chair, and you
have the pleasure ~ of holding it in
your lap the greater part of the evening
Then has another way; he is rather
Il large, and instead of getting corner
& seat he gets an inside one and rests moi
"A only on the arms of his own chair, but
s. partially over on youl arm. Then, too,
Y he has more OF less pleasing way OF
N coming in after he has had Il 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 audi
n ence, including yourself, are deeply in
y terested in seeing the heroine make hel
entree. But the man with the oyercoa
Is about the worst, and really the usher
OF any respectable theatre ought to have
an order to Gust him.
THE FEMININE THEATRE FIEND.