SARAH BERNHARDT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2104, 1 February 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

SARAH BERNHARDT.

(“The Gentlewoman.”)

Sarah Bernhardt is playing in Eng.and as we write, but even the thousands —they must be millions—who have seen this greatest actress of our time will get fresh views of her wonderful personality from her memoirs. The first volume is, the story if a temperament, the record of tlioso sufferings and struggles and revolts through which this emotional genius arrived at a career and reached the moment long after she was famous when she resolved to live and to give herself up fully to her chosen life. Her return to Franco at the end of her first American tour was this halfill g-placo, described by her as ‘‘the real starting-point of my physical and moral being.” But tho youthful all-important years beforo that: what a record it is. From tho moment when the baby “Alilk-BIossom” fell into the lire in her nurse’s cottage in Brittany—“a little white house with a low-thatch-ed roof ou which wild gilly-fiowers grew”—:and through the years at boarding-school and convent, at tho Conservatoire, the Comedie Franca iso and the Odeon, even when, she turned tho Odeon into a hospital during the Franco-Prussian war, and did grand service to the wounded, wo see the same abnormally sensitive spirit for ever at war with its environment. She thought Madame Fresssird’s boarding-school » cage, but she grew fond of her preceptress, and when her aunt Itosino came to take her away-—“ The idea that I was to bo ordered about, without any regard to my oun wishes or inclinations, put me into an indescribable rage. I rolled about on the ground, uttering the most heartrending cries. I yelled out all kinds of reproaches. . The struggle lasted two hours, and while I was being dressed I escaped twice into the garden and attempted to, climb the trees and to throw myself into the pond, where was more mud than water.” A similar scene was enacted on her first morning at the Grand Cham Convent. In vain tho Mother Prefect threw holy water upon her to exorcise tho evil spirit, but when the Mother Superior arrived on the scene, the poor child saw “such an expression of pity oil her sweet face that 1 was all trembling and ashamed.”

One September day the Due do Mornv ended the family council, which had been summoned to decide Sarah’s fate by the following uivico: “Do you know what you ought to do with this child"” lie said; “you

ought to send her to the Conservatoire.” And to the Conservatoire the Vlitt-Io scraggy child,” who wanted to be a nun, went. The day of her second examination came, and intuitivo readers will realise how her nervous terror was augmented by the following preparation : “My mother had insisted on my having my hair done by her hairdresser, and I had cried mid sobbed on seeing this ‘Figaro’ make partings all over any head in order to separate my rebellious mane. Idiot that lie was he had suggested that style to my mother, and my head was in his stupid hands for more than an hour and a half,,' for he never before had to deal with a mane like mine. He kept mopping his forehead every live minutes and muttering, ‘What hair! Good heavens, it is horrible, just

like tow! It might be the hair of n white negressl’ .... Finally I was out of the hands of this wretched man, and was nearly dead with fatigue I was late, and so’l had to dress very quickly. I cried with •u.gcr, and my eyes looked smTTier. "ov nose larger and inv veins swell■d.” The consequence of this unFortunate .contretemps was that. Sarah Bernhardt went through her scene “life a sonuiaminilist,” fainted directly i! was over, and got nothing in the tragedy competition, but secured the second prize for comedy in i'li-e competition which followed through sheer dclermintuion and excitement. She returned home more dead than alive, was advised by all her family to give up the stage, and the next morning woke to hear doit she was to be engaged Irv the Comedie Francaisc. Thus was her fate decided. From that time- onwards the early stage of Sarah Bernhardt's career * Manager,