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Show I PASSING OF BERNHARDT. Curl(3lty (Oven vulga? curiosity received a shock at Saltalr on Monday Mon-day night. Forty years ago Sarah Bernhardt was was leading woman at the Comedie Francaise. At that time so runs the story sho possessed a divine stage presence. She was an actress of emotional thrills, playing upon the hearts ot the multitude with the deep music of sympathy. Her voice was described as liquid gold poured on velvet. All this must have been true else dramatic history is a ?' cheat and our grandfathers are sim- ply liars. In dusty libraries one may still read of the early triumps of this wondrous nrctress that was this former queen of the world's footlights. 1 But that was long ago oh so long ' ago! So long ago, in fact, that she herself forgets the exactness of tho time forgets it as she tries to forget her age. How old is madame? Nobody No-body knows, tho Bernhardt least of nil. AH that she knows positively Is that she is not French at all, but I a capricious mixture of Jew and Ger man, born in Paris at a time when ' geography was so twisted that, per haps, Paris wasn't even in France. And this woman of uncertain age but I very uncertain years attempting the v illusion of a Camille whoso age was twenty. Oh, tho pity the youthful Y pity of it all! How utterly futile, as we saw her Monday night, were her attempt to conceal infirmity and beckon back the faded years. What r a heroic effort was made to put elas- tlcity.into faltering steps; to chaso . away the wrinkles, the sunken cheeks, the dullness of the eyes all the dark warp and woof of years! Was it not pitiful, my masters? All the cunning of tho toilet, all tho Ingenuity of tho j. dressmaker's art, all the paints and jf powders of tho dressing room, did not (' for a single minute, transform Sarah Bernhardt into Camille Gautler. And the voice of this once mystic acrtress . whither has it ilown? Perhaps It t Is still singing in tho leafless branches of tho tree of age for away among tho sero and yellow leaves of many, ( many yesterdays, j T HARRY LB GRANDE. |