The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1891-05-13
THE ARG0NAUT ON SARA BERN
HARDT.
Can the Artist Be Isolated from
the Woman?

| the woman
1t CHANGED, thirty odd years ago,
that simultaneously with the ap-
pearance of the first number OF
that admirable journal, Harper's
Weekly, the play of Camille, by
Alexandra Dumas fills, was first
produced before an American audi
ence; and the late Theodore Sedg-
wick, who was under contract to
finish leading articles for the new
paper, chose, as the subject Of his
initial leader, the monstrous incon-
sistency involved in the rush Of the
best and most moral people of New
York to witness play which, as
he said, was "an apothcosis OF q
poor pulmonary prostitute" 1t
was George William Curtis, now
leading editorial writer OF the
Weekly, who observed that it must
possess extraordinary innate vital
lty to have survived its first lead
ing article. And, indeed, neither
the eIoquence nor the honest indig-
nation of Mr.. Sedgwick have avail
ed the popularity OF Camille" 1t
holds the boards to this day as
firmly as it did thirty years ago.
Maidens and matrons, to whom
the calling of Camille is not to be
whispered, and who glide serenely
through life unconscious OF the
medium in which she foated, go to
hear each successive tragedienne in
the part, and compare them with
complacency.
The anomaly recurs in the pres
ent rush to hear Sarah Bernhard.
| The lady has lived in such glare
of light that it did not need the
memoirs of Sara Barnum to en-
tighten the world as to her antece-
dents. Her sad girlhood, her mad
womanhood, her escapades innumer-
able, her bold defiance OF social
law, the paternity of her son, the
circumstances of her marriage, are
all known to every one. There ID
no scandal about her, because
scandal implies doubt. She hat
lived ner life In tho face Of men &C
brazenly that there is no doubt
about anything. Everything hal
been revealed. She has hidden
nothing. Every page of her shame
full career has been opened in broad
day, so that he who ran could read
She has lifted up her face, with the
stamp on her brow, with defiant
indifference to what people might
say of her.
And yet the purest and most
modest ladies of San Francisco
have been for a week tulmbline
over each others feet, in a fierce
rage for tickets, to see this person
play the part Of another prostitute
who only differed from Camille il
that she was not pulmonary.
The incident implies an ethica
distinction which deserves to b.
analysed and explained. Not ONT
Of the ladies who have crowded.
and are crowding the Opera Hous,
would for a moment think OF ad
hitting to her drawing-room a per
J son of the class to which Bernhard
belongs. If man should introduc
a woman of loose life into hons
&c of which he had the entry, b
would be kicked into the street.
,e the person found her way into
ID gathering of ladies, the polio
would be called to remove bel
Contact with her would be pollr
" ton. Conversation with her woul
" ostracize any who ventured on i
: Society places her and women lik
her on the footing of lepers an
smallpox patients, who must b
treated by isolation.
We are then to infer that the in
fanny of association with sole
doves springs not from the stat
!, they bear, but from the mediul
through which they are viewet
Seen in a drawing-room, by th
light of chandelier, the dove is G
, loathesome that the sight Of her
l defilement. But seen across ro'
of footlights, on a background ,
painted Oriental scenery, she is a
interesting object OF art, upo
J which the chastest eye may dive
with pleasure. 1t is all questio
of locality and environment. III
woman is the same, whether in
Worth dress at q reception or in
roll of Persian stuff on the stag
.. But the glamour Of stage acce
series and the license of art CO
- verts that which is simply revol
ing in the one place to that whit
is attractive in the other. We Ia
I. down the rule that art redeem
everything, and reconciles us
take our daughters to sec on t
,E stage woman, to gaze upon who
under any other circumstanc
70 would be an unforgivable sin.
10 These rules are after all main
conventional. It is not usual
tho United States for young ladi
me to take the air in simple costul
of back comb and slippers; /
x~,,~r laJ;os ~ tho COMA a po q