The Washington times., 1914-07-12

Sarah Bernhard will act no more!
There is something almost brutal
about that sentence in the theater news
from Paris. Perhaps II has been read
with an unduly sensitive mind. but the
putting together OF the FIVE simple
words, crude in their simplicity. seems
almost n tragedy. The statement that
Sarah Bernhardt will act no more has
been made several times in the last few
years. But this time there is carried
with the announcement a further state
ment that marks it as the simple truth.
Sarah Bernhard will not act again be-
cause the woman who bears that name
has succumed to physical decay, be-
cause she crowded SO much into the
built her span OF life, the structure Is
tottering and threatens to fall. Sarah
Bernhardt is seventy years old. For
fifty-two years she has been the most
important figure of the dramatic world.
Perhaps there have at times been stars
who flashed a greater brilliancy for a
few minutes-but her light has burned
continuously for almost three genera
tions of men and women with the same
steady, mellow glow.
1t is because the art of Sarah Bern
hardt has absolutely defed the years
which have at last broken her body that
she will always be SO important a figure
in the dramatic world. Others have
grown old in the service of the stage
and they have always shown their age.
They have adapted their parts to their
years. While Mime. Bernhardt has
grown old. the actress has not aged.
The last years of her life have been
as great as the early years. And there
has been little change in the parts she
has played-one change, in fact. 1t was
only few years ago that she played
IL Aiglon'-a part of a child. She
gave to Il Aiglon" what the poet who
wrote the play expected an actress to
give TO II. No one seeing her could
forget that she was the "Eaglet." A
few short months ago she appeared in
this country in a series of excerpts from
her most famous successes playing
parts that were young or old as the
playwright demanded in his script.
with no hint of the infirmities that were
already settling upon her. II is stated
now that she could hardly get about the
stage on that tour. such inroads had
disease made upon her. 1t is said now
that the disease which threatens TO put
her on crutches for the rest of her life,
was even then SO well developed that
she walked with difficulty. There was
little hint of that to the audience that
seemed to have the old fire, the old
spirit-the old art.
Whether or not the plays for which
Bernhard was most noted appeal to
the average theatergoer of today, there
is no gainsaying the fact that neither
age or infirmity withered in the least
the freshness OF her wonderful spirit.
Bernhardt has been the most complete
and convincing proof that art depends
on neither language or country, youth
or old age. That is why it seems brutal
to state that the flesh which meant so
little in the analysis of this great artist
has SO completely crushed spirit that
has meant so much for so loSg a time
to the whole world-this great woman
makes her final adieu in proof of the
fact that the Immortality of art is abso-
Iutely bound to the mortality of the
artistic.
Common. ordinary addition, as a
practice does not apply to
ce cream sodai
This is stated for the benefit of those
who would marvel at the capacity of
4 child or group of children to absorb
.hese delicacies. For some weeks pas.
, group of children living on the block
bounded by Fourteenth and Fifteenth