Sand, George, 13.
Sarcey, Francisque, 10 (note), 15, 17, 25, 36, 137, 140, 144, 150,
154, 155, 177, 187, 190, 192.
Sardou, Victorien, 25 (note), 41, 150, 155, 162, 223.
Saunderson, Mrs., 370.
Scott, Clement, 94, 106, 111, 112, 114, 221, 222 (note).
Scott, Sir Walter, 93.
Sembrich, Marcella, 91 (note).
Shannon, Effie, 362 (note).
Shaw, George Bernard, iii, 38, 113–4, 115, 117, 120, 121, 199,
225–7, 273.
Shaw, Mary, 308, 362 (note).
Sheldon, Edward, 288.
Sherman, General Wm. T., 87, 241.
Siddons, Sarah, iv, 374.
Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 75, 81.
Simon, Charles, 133.
Skinner, Otis, 226, 227, 350.
Sothern, E. A., 103, 118.
Sothern, E. H., 265, 316–20, 330, 350.
Stahl, Rose, 362.
Starr, Frances, 362, 365.
Stedman, E. C., 91, 92.
Stevens, Emily, 362, 364.
Stinson, Fred, 308, 312.
Stoddard, Lorimer, 284.
Sudermann, Hermann, 276.
Symons, Arthur, 159, 194, 318.
Synge, John M., iii.
Taber, Robert, 308, 311–2, 313 (note).
Tarasiewicz, Michael, 92.
Taylor, Laurette, 362, 366.
Tellegen, Lou, 350.
Tempest, Marie, 366.
Tennyson, Lord, 87, 223, 248, 256.
Terry, Beatrice, 94 (note).
Terry, Benjamin, 93, 94, 95, 96.
Terry, Charles, 94 and note.
Terry, Ellen, iii, 93–125;
parentage, 93;
family, 94–5;
birth, 94;
early training, 96, 99–100;
first appearance, 96–8;
a strolling player, 101;
_Atar-Gull_, 102;
at Bristol, 102–3;
with the elder Sothern, 103;
marriage and retirement, 103–4;
returns to stage, 104;
acts first with Irving, 105;
second retirement, 106–8;
returns to stage, 109;
with S. B. Bancroft, 109–11;
first plays Portia, 109;
with John Hare, 111–12;
_Olivia_, 111;
becomes leading woman at the Lyceum, 112;
the Irving _régime_, 113;
her personality, 114, 118, 121;
Bernard Shaw’s estimate, 113, 115, 117, 120;
her art, 116;
leaves Irving’s company, 121;
the Terry Jubilee, 122;
a lecturer on Shakespeare, 123–4;
_repertoire_, 119 (note); 247.
Terry, Florence, 94, 95.
Terry, Fred, 94 and note.
Terry, George, 94 (note).
Terry, Kate, 94, 95, 101, 102.
Terry, Marion, 94, 95.
Terry, Minnie, 94 (note).
_Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, 284.
Theuriet, André, 41, 42.
Thierry, Edward, 135.
Thomas, Ambroise, 136.
Thompson, Vance, 157.
Tilden, Samuel J., 244 (note).
Tree, H. Beerbohm, 318, 376.
Vandenhoff, George, 236.
Varrey, Charles, 20 (note).
Verbruggen, Mrs., iii.
Victoria, Queen, of Spain, 49.
von Bülow, Hans, 87.
Walkley, A. B., 318, 319 (note).
Wallack, Lester, 355.
Walsh, Blanche, 362 (note).
Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, 248.
Wardell, Charles, 106, 123 (note).
Ware, Helen, 362, 365.
Warfield, David, 350.
Watterson, Henry, 87, 232 (note), 238 (note), 244 (note).
Watts, George Frederick, 87, 103–4, 248.
Western, Lucille, 270.
White, LeGrand, 272 (note).
Wilde, Oscar, 157, 273.
Wills, W. G., 112.
Wilson, Francis, 265.
Winter, William, 3, 26, 35, 37, 38, 44, 46, 85, 90 (note), 123, 165,
211, 212, 220 and note, 228, 238 (note), 242, 247, 251,
261, 313 (note), 315, 335, 338 and note, 340, 347.
Woffington, Margaret, iii.
Worthing, Frank, 360.
Wyndham, Charles, 376.
Young, Mary, 214 (note).
Zimmern, Helen, 196 (note).
FOOTNOTES
[1] See Appendix: _The First English Actresses_, and _The Change in the
Actor’s Social Status_.
[2] For the lives of actresses of earlier days the reader is referred
to the bibliography at the end of the volume. The outstanding names
are: Elizabeth Barry, 1658–1713; Anne Bracegirdle, 1663–1748; Anne
Oldfield, 1683–1730; Catherine Clive, 1711–1785; Hannah Pritchard,
1711–1768; Susannah Maria Cibber, 1714–1766; Margaret Woffington,
1720–1760; Mary Porter--d. 1765; George Anne Bellamy, 1731–1788;
Frances Abington, 1737–1815; Sarah Siddons, 1755–1831; Mary Robinson
(“Perdita”) 1758–1800; Dorothy Jordan, 1762–1816; Frances Anne Kemble,
1809–1893; Charlotte Cushman, 1816–1876; Helena Faucit, 1817–1898;
Rachel Felix, 1821–1858; Adelaide Ristori, 1822–1906; Francesca
Janauscheck, 1830–1904; Adelaide Neilson, 1846 (?)-1880.
Some of the names in this list are, of course, among the greatest
in theatrical history. In Anne Bracegirdle and Elizabeth Barry the
Restoration rejoiced in two actresses of the first order. “Bracey”
was the Ada Rehan of her day, a blithe creature of comedy who seems
to have possessed the temperament and the charms of the typical born
actress. Cibber called her “the _Cara_, the Darling of the Theatre.”
She excelled in the comedies of Congreve, but she was versatile, and
played also in tragedy. Elizabeth Barry was England’s first great
tragic actress. She was of the august, severe, _tragedienne_ type that
was later exemplified in Siddons and Ristori, and that has nowadays,
with the decline of the poetic drama, virtually disappeared. With
these women, and with a number of others,--some of whom, like Mrs.
Betterton and Mrs. Verbruggen, were skilled actresses,--the standard
was surprisingly early set high.
Anne Oldfield charmed the England of Addison and Steele with a
versatility and brilliance of acting that has never been surpassed. She
acted with great majesty and fire in the tragedies of the day,--such as
_Cato_ and _The Distressed Mother_,--while in comedy she “played with
the enthusiasm of a child.” There is much in the sunny amiability, the
volatile, zestful personality and the wide-ranged equipment of “Nance”
Oldfield to remind one of that modern actress,--Ellen Terry,--who often
herself impersonated Mistress Oldfield.
One thinks again of Terry in reading of Margaret Woffington. “The
Woffington” was a beauty, a hard worker, an adept in comedy, and only
less successful in tragedy. She played captivatingly the rakish Sir
Harry Wildair in Farquhar’s _The Constant Couple_; she was notably good
in parts as diverse as Sylvia in _The Recruiting Officer_ and Cordelia
in _Lear_; but the parallel to Ellen Terry appears when we read of her
lovely Portia and of her Rosalind (a part that Terry was born to play,
but somehow never tried). “Peg” Woffington was one of that long line of
geniuses with whom Ireland has continued to enrich the English theatre,
from her day and Sheridan’s down to that of Ada Rehan, Bernard Shaw and
Synge.
Frances Abington, a person of temper and caprice, but a true daughter
of comedy nevertheless; Dora Jordan, who was really two Dora
Jordans,--“one the whimsical, hoydenish performer, all laughter, or the
delineator of graceful sentiment,--the other, only seen off the stage,
a shrewd little woman, of kind heart and exquisite sensibility”; Mary
Robinson, the “Perdita” of him who was to be George IV of England,
and a graceful, appealing actress of the tenderly comic and of such
characters as Viola and Rosalind--the Julia Marlowe of the eighteenth
century; such are hints of a few of those women who have continued the
line of gifted actresses of comedy and sentiment down from the days of
Bracegirdle and Oldfield.
For commanding figures in tragedy, for the Duses and Bernhardts of
earlier days, we must look, as a rule, outside of England and America.
There is, to be sure, always Sarah Siddons, a majestic figure, a
veritable Queen of Tragedy, who made her characters--such as Lady
Macbeth and Queen Katherine--awe-inspiring even to those who acted
with her. Her niece, Frances Ann Kemble, was prevented from being a
truly great actress only by a dislike for the stage. As it was, with
her Juliet, her Belvidera in _Venice Preserved_, and her Julia in _The
Hunchback_ she takes her place in that succession of tragic actresses
which, with the change in theatrical fashions, has now ceased, and
which has had its best examplars on the Continent rather than in
England.
In Charlotte Cushman, America produced a tragic actress of commanding
dignity and power. She was “a noble interpreter of the noble minds of
the past,” a stately and vigorous woman, unique as Meg Merrilies, and a
powerful and poetic interpreter of Shakespeare’s tragic women.
The daughter of a Jew, Rachel Felix was a Parisian by birth, and thus
far she was an earlier Bernhardt. In the thrilling intensity of her
acting and in the capricious imperiousness of her own nature, she again
suggests Madame Sarah. She introduced a measure of naturalness of
speech and spontaneity of action into the French theatre, and here her
influence was like that of Duse.
The rise of Adelaide Ristori spelled the decline of the great Rachel.
In her earnestness, in her choice of plays, in the quiet dignity of her
life and nature, Ristori is recalled by that later great Italian, Duse.
And just as Duse invaded Paris and rivaled the reigning queen of the
stage there, so (only more successfully) did Ristori when she replaced
Rachel in French esteem. Ristori’s parts, however, suggest rather
Bernhardt, though in general all four actresses--Rachel, Ristori,
Bernhardt and Duse--have worked in the same _metier_. Ristori’s great
parts were Medea, Francesca, Myrrha, Lady Macbeth, Phédre, Marie Stuart
and Queen Elizabeth.
Janauscheck, “the last of the actresses of the ‘grand style,’” born in
Prague and for years a successful _tragedienne_ in Germany, anticipated
Modjeska by her adoption of America and the English tongue. She too
was an heroic woman, who impressed her generation by the intensity and
sincerity of her acting, her wonderful voice, and the dignity she lent
her profession. Her best parts were in _Bleak House_, _Brünnhilde_,
_Medea_ and _Marie Stuart_.
Adelaide Neilson, a womanly and gracious personality, an ideal
Juliet, and a Shakspearean actress who as Viola, Imogen and Rosalind
foreshadowed and combined many of the merits of Modjeska, Rehan and
Marlowe, died in the ripeness of her youth and ability.
[3] _The Wallet of Time._
[4] “All these things that I have known only in the telling--all these
journeys, these changing skies, these adoring hearts, these flowers,
these jewels, these embroideries, these millions, these lions, these
one hundred and twelve rôles, these eighty trunks, this glory, these
caprices, these cheering crowds hauling her carriage, this crocodile
drinking champagne--all these things, I say, astonish, dazzle, delight,
and move me less than something else which I have often seen: this--
“A brougham stops at a door; a woman, enveloped in furs, jumps out,
threads her way with a smile through the crowd attracted by the
jingling of the bell on the harness, and mounts a winding stair;
plunges into a room crowded with flowers and heated like a hothouse,
throws her little beribboned handbag with its apparently inexhaustible
contents into one corner, and her bewinged hat into another, takes off
her furs and instantaneously dwindles into a mere scabbard of white
silk; rushes on to a dimly lighted stage and immediately puts life into
a whole crowd of listless, yawning, loitering folk; dashes forward and
back, inspiring every one with her own feverish energy; goes into the
prompter’s box, arranges her scenes, points out the proper gesture and
intonation, rises up in wrath and insists on everything being done over
again; shouts with fury; sits down, smiles, drinks tea and begins to
rehearse her own part; draws tears from case-hardened actors who thrust
their enraptured heads out of the wings to watch her; returns to her
room, where the decorators are waiting, demolishes their plans and
reconstructs them; collapses, wipes her brow with a lace handkerchief
and thinks of fainting; suddenly rushes up to the fifth floor, invades
the premises of the astonished _costumier_, rummages in the wardrobes,
makes up a costume, pleats and adjusts it; returns to her room and
teaches the _figurantes_ how to dress their hair; has a piece read to
her while she makes bouquets; listens to hundreds of letters, weeps
over some tale of misfortune, and opens the inexhaustible little
chinking handbag; confers with an English _perruquier_; returns to the
stage to superintend the lighting of a scene, objurgates the lamps and
reduces the electrician to a state of temporary insanity; sees a super
who has blundered the day before, remembers it, and overwhelms him with
her indignation; returns to her room for dinner; sits down to table,
splendidly pale with fatigue; ruminates her plans; eats with peals
of Bohemian laughter; has no time to finish; dresses for the evening
performance while the manager reports from the other side of a curtain;
acts with all her heart and soul; discusses business between the acts;
remains at the theatre after the performance, and makes arrangements
until three o’clock in the morning; does not make up her mind to go
until she sees her staff respectfully endeavoring to keep awake; gets
into her carriage; huddles herself into her furs and anticipates the
delights of lying down and resting at last; bursts into laughing on
remembering that some one is waiting to read her a five-act play;
returns home, listens to the piece, becomes excited, weeps, accepts
it, finds she cannot sleep, and takes advantage of the opportunity
to study a part! This is the Sarah I have always known. I never made
the acquaintance of the Sarah with the coffin and the alligators. The
only Sarah I know is the one who works. She is the greater.”--Edmond
Rostand, in _Sarah Bernhardt_, by Jules Huret.
[5] The correct date and place, according to the official record of the
_Conservatoire_. The year has sometimes been given 1845. Some accounts
have given Holland, others Havre, as the birthplace. Sarah herself says
Paris.
[6] At Neuilly her aunt Rosine came one day to see her. “I insisted
that I wanted to go away at once. In a gentle, tender, caressing voice,
but without any real affection, she said all kinds of pretty things.
She then went away. I could see nothing but the dark, black hole which
remained there immutable behind me, and in a fit of despair I rushed
out to my aunt who was just getting into her carriage. After that I
knew nothing more. I had managed to escape from my poor nurse and had
fallen down on the pavement. I had broken my arm in two places and
injured my knee cap. I was two years recovering.” _Memoirs._
[7] _Memoirs._
[8] “One day, when we heard that all the schools in France, except
ours, had been given bonbons on the occasion of the baptism of the
Prince Imperial, I proposed to several other girls that we should run
away, and I undertook to manage it. Being on good terms with the sister
in charge of the gate, I went into her lodge and pretended to have a
hole in my dress under the armpit. To let her examine the hole I raised
my arms toward the cord communicating with the gate, and whilst she was
looking at my dress I pulled the cord, my accomplices rushed out, and I
followed them. Our entire stock of provisions, ammunition, and sinews
of war consisted of a few clothes, three pieces of soap in a bag, and
the sum of seven francs fifty centimes in money. This was to take us
to the other end of the world! A search had to be made for us, and as
the good sisters could hardly undertake it, the police were set on our
track. There was not much difficulty in finding us, as you may imagine.
I was sent home in disgrace. On another occasion, I had climbed on to
the wall separating the convent from the cemetery. A grand funeral was
in progress and the Bishop of Versailles was delivering an address. I
immediately began to gesticulate, shout and sing at the top of my voice
so as to interrupt the ceremony. You can imagine the scene--a child of
twelve sitting astride a wall, and a bishop interrupted in the midst of
a funeral oration! The scandal was great.”--Huret.
[9] “Consequently I entered the _Conservatoire_. The next question
was, in which class was I to study? Beauvallet said: ‘She will be a
_tragedienne_.’ Regnier maintained: ‘She will be a _comédienne_,’ and
Provost put them in agreement by declaring: ‘She will be both.’ I
joined Provost’s class.”--Huret.
[10] One for tragedy in 1861, and one for comedy in 1862. She never won
a first prize.
[11] M. Regnier and M. Doucet among them. Both had been her teachers,
as had M. Provost and M. Samson, the latter of whom had taught Rachel.
[12] She says she had chosen this device at the age of nine, “after
a formidable jump over a ditch which no one could jump, and which
my young cousin had dared me to attempt. I had hurt my face, broken
my wrist and was in pain all over. While I was being carried home I
exclaimed furiously: ‘Yes, I would do it again, _quand-même_, if any
one dared me again. And I will always do what I want to all my life.’
In the evening of that day, my aunt, who was grieved to see me in such
pain, asked me what would give me any pleasure. My poor little body
was all bandaged, but I jumped with joy at this, and quite consoled I
whispered in a coaxing way: ‘I should like to have some writing paper
with a motto of my own.’ My mother asked me rather slyly what my motto
was. I did not answer for a minute, and then, as they were all waiting
quietly, I uttered such a furious ‘_Quand-même!_’ that my Aunt Faure
started back muttering: ‘What a terrible child!’”
[13] The great critic Sarcey’s comments in _L’Opinion Nationale_
were read to her by her mother: “Mlle. Bernhardt, who made her début
yesterday in the rôle of Iphigénie, is a tall, pretty girl with a
slender figure and a very pleasing expression. The upper part of
her face is remarkably beautiful. She holds herself well, and her
enunciation is perfectly clear. This is all that can be said for
her at present.” “The man is an idiot,” said her mother, “you were
charming.”--_Memoirs._
[14] Characteristically, she brought her engagement at the _Gymnase_
to a sudden close by quietly going to Spain the day after the first
performance of a play in which she disliked her part.
[15] Thin she was, and thin she remained. She once said, in after
years: “As for me, if I should cease to be thin, what would become of
some of the Paris journalists? Scarcely a day but they have some _mot_
about me personally. Really I am almost the _raison d’être_ of some of
these small wits!”
[16] She played at the _Odéon_: Albine in _Britannicus_; Sylvia in _Le
Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard_; Zacharie in _Athalie_; the Baroness in
_Le Marquis de Villemer_; Mariette in _François le Champi_; Hortense
in _Le Testament de César Girodôt_; Anna Damby in _Kean_ (Dumas’
_Sullivan_); in _La Loterie du Mariage_; Zanetto in _Le Passant_ by
Coppée; in _L’Autre_ by George Sand; Armande in _Les Femmes Savantes_;
Cordelia in _King Lear_; in _Le Bâtard_; _L’Affranchi_; _Jean-Marie_,
by Andre Theuriet; _Les Arrêts_ by de Boissières, _Le Legs_; _Le Drame
de la Rue de la Paix_; _Fais ce que dois_, by Coppée; _La Baronne_ by
Edmond and Foussier; _Mlle. Aïsse_; and the Queen of Spain in _Ruy
Blas_ by Victor Hugo.
[17] On the first night of Dumas’ play, the distinguished author was
the victim of a remarkable demonstration by the audience. He sat in
a box with “Oceana.” The novelist’s alliance with this woman was
evidently unpopular, for a great shout was sent up and many in the
audience were heard to call for the woman’s removal. In the midst of
the uproar the play, already long delayed, was begun. The woman finally
left the house. The _Figaro_ next day said: “Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt
appeared wearing an eccentric costume, which increased the tumult, but
her rich voice--that astonishing voice of hers--appealed to the public,
and she charmed them like a little Orpheus.”
[18] Now about five. Although she was a mother Sarah had not yet
married.
[19] Mme. Bernhardt tells a rather pretty story of the great novelist:
“One day when the rehearsal was over an hour earlier than usual, I was
waiting, my forehead pressed against the window pane, for the arrival
of Mme. Guérard, who was coming to fetch me. I was gazing idly at
the footpath opposite, which is bounded by the Luxembourg railings.
Victor Hugo had just crossed the road and was about to walk in. An
old woman attracted his attention. She had just put a heavy bundle of
linen down on the ground and was wiping her forehead, on which were
great beads of perspiration. In spite of the cold, her toothless mouth
was half open, as she was panting and her eyes had an expression of
distressing anxiety, as she looked at the wide road she had to cross,
with carriages and omnibuses passing each other. Victor Hugo approached
her, and after a short conversation, he drew a piece of money from his
pocket, handed it to her, then taking off his hat he confided it to
her and, with a quick movement and a laughing face, lifted the bundle
to his shoulder and crossed the road, followed by the bewildered
woman. The next day I told the poet that I had witnessed his delicate,
good deed. ‘Oh,’ said Paul Maurice, ‘every day that dawns is a day of
kindness for him!’”
[20] It was small enough, to be sure. Her demand was for only 15,000
francs ($3,000) a year.
[21] It was on the occasion of the first night of this play that she
says she reverted to a trick of her childhood. Once when she had been
fed something disagreeable, Sarah deliberately drank off a bottle of
ink in the hope that she would die and vex her mother. Now when Perrin
refused her a month’s needed holiday and forced her to play Zaïre in
midsummer: “I was determined to faint, determined to vomit blood,
determined to die, in order to enrage Perrin. Although the rôle was
easy, it required two or three shrieks which might have provoked the
vomiting of blood that frequently troubled me at that time. I uttered
my shrieks with real rage and suffering, hoping to break something.
But my surprise was great when the curtain fell at the end of the
piece, and I got up quickly to answer to the call and salute the public
without languor, without fainting, ready to recommence the piece. I had
commenced the performance in such a state of weakness that it was easy
to predict that I should not finish the first act without fainting. And
I marked this performance with a little white stone--for that day I
learned that my vital force was at the service of my intellect.” This
is a significant passage. It helps to explain the wonder of Bernhardt’s
unexampled vitality in the face of hard work and a frail physique.
[22] She remained at the _Comédie_ this time eight years, 1872–1880.
Her first appearances were: Gabrielle in _Mlle. de Belle-Isle_, Junie
in _Britannicus_, 1872; Chérubin in _Le Mariage de Figaro_, Léonora
in _Dalila_, Mrs. Douglas in _L’Absent_, Marthe in _Chez l’Avocat_,
_Andromaque_, Aricie in _Phèdre_, 1873; _Peril en la Demeure_, Berthe
de Savigny in _Le Sphinx_, _La Belle Paule_, _Zaïre_, Phèdre in
_Phèdre_, 1874; Berthe in _La Fille de Roland_, _Gabrielle_, 1875; Mrs.
Clarkson in _L’Etrangère_, Posthumia in _Rome Vaincue_, 1876; Doña
Sol in _Hernani_, 1877; Desdemona in Aicard’s _Othello_ (once only),
Alcmène in _Amphitrion_, 1878; Monime in _Mithridate_, 1879; Clorinde
in _L’Aventurtière_, 1880.
[23] For many years her tomb in Père Lachaise has been awaiting her.
[24] She published an account of these aerial experiences: _Dans les
nuages; Impressions d’une Chaise_.
[25] The Associates or _Sociétaires of the Comédie Française_ are
sharers in the profits, a custom that has come down from the days
of Molière. A member of the company is at first a _pensionnaire_,
and serves upon a salary only. After proving his worth he is made
_Sociétaire_. He does not at once receive a full share of the profits,
however, but must progress from an eighth, fourth and half share to the
full rank of _Sociétaire_ _à parte entière_. Bernhardt had been made
_Sociétaire_ in 1875. During the year 1879 the share received by the
leading actors and actresses of the _Comédie_ varied from 55,000 to
70,000 francs, besides their salaries. Sarah’s share was 62,000 francs.
[26] Perrin and his fellow directors were not the only ones who felt
the strain imposed by Sarah’s presence on earth. She herself tells of
the dying words of Charles Varrey: “I am content to die because I shall
hear no more of Sarah Bernhardt and the great Français.” The latter was
de Lesseps, then much in the public eye.