SARAH BERNHARDT
SARAH BERNHARDT
BY
JULES HURET
WITH A PREFACE BY
EDMOND ROSTAND
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
G. A. RAPER
WITH FIFTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.
1899
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.
vii
PREFACE
My Dear Huret,
You have given me an attack of vertigo. Ihave been reading your biography of our illustriousfriend. Its rapid, nervous style, its accumulation ofdates and facts, its hurried rush of scenery andevents flying past as though seen from an expresstrain, all help to attain what I imagine must havebeen your object—to give the reader vertigo. Ihave got it.
I knew all these things, but I had forgotten them.They are so many that no one even attempts toreckon them up. We are accustomed to admireSarah. “An extraordinary woman,” we say, withoutat all realizing how true the remark is. Andwhen we find ourselves suddenly confronted with anepic narrative such as yours; with such a series ofbattles and victories, expeditions and conquests, weviiistand amazed. We expected that there was moreto tell than we knew, but not quite so much more!Yes, here is something we had quite forgotten, andhere again is something more! All the earlystruggles and difficulties and unfair opposition!All the adventures and freaks of fancy! Twentytriumphs and ten escapades on a page! You cannotturn the leaves without awakening an echo of fame.Your brain reels. There is something positivelyalarming about this impetuous feminine hand thatwields sceptre, thyrsus, dagger, fan, sword, bauble,banner, sculptor’s chisel, and horsewhip. It is overwhelming.You begin to doubt. But all this istold us by Huret, or, in other words, by History,and we believe. No other life could ever have beenso full of activity. The poet I was used to admirein her the Queen of Attitude and the Princess ofGesture; I wonder now whether the other poet Iam ought not to still more admire in her theLady of Energy.
What a way she has of being both legendary andmodern! Her golden hair is a link between herand fairyland, and do not words change into pearlsand diamonds as they fall from her lips? Has shenot worn the fairy’s sky-blue robe, and is not herixvoice the song of the lark at heaven’s gate? Shemay be an actress following an impresario, but sheis none the less a star fallen from the sky of theThousand and One Nights, and something of themysterious blue ether still floats about her. Butjust as the enchanted bark gives way to the greatA