Charles Henry Meltzer

A dramatic critic who flayed John Drew in his youth and has reached a mellow old age without losing his enthusiasm for carping over fine points in the theatre, Charles Henry Meltzer is a dignified figure. His contact with both American and continental theatres has been long and intimate. Born in England, of Russian extraction, he is an accomplished linguist. He has written plays in French as well as in English. He has made many opera librettos. He has acted as foreign correspondent for various New York newspapers in numerous foreign capitals. He was dramatic and musical critic for both the New York “Herald” and “World.” A precise yet entertaining gentleman, meticulous, courteous, widely read, a type that one does not often meet in theatrical circles of today.

SARAH BERNHARDT

I am old enough to have been under the spell of Sarah Bernhardt when she was in her prime; and young enough to have kept the enthusiasm which she awoke in me till the last days of her long life drew near. To most reviewers of the hour here in New York, with their near backgrounds, Bernhardt has sometimes seemed a tedious legend. But to those of us who were fortunate enough to applaud her at the Théâtre-Français on great nights gone by, she will be always dear and an unfading glory.

It is not, though, to the actress who has passed on to another stage that I ask permission to pay tribute—the poor tribute of a friend who knew her closely, at her best and worst, and who, despite her human faults and human frailties, admired her always and believed her a great woman. Beside her even Duse, a rare artist, seems rather trifling to the writer of these lines. While of the “stars”, so called, to whom most here bow down, who has a scintilla of her brightness?

She was an artist, of the finest, highest kind. But she was first a character—a woman of compelling will and force, individual, all herself, a burning flame. Incidentally, but only in a small way, she was in turn sculptor, painter, and writer. She had invented several plays, some of which were never acted, while one was seen and rather well received at the Paris Odéon. She had also now and then dashed off some novels. Of these the last, I think, was “Petite Idole”, published here last year as “The Idol of Paris”. It is largely autobiographical.

If any person in the world has proved the truth of the perhaps misleading dictum which defines genius as the art of taking infinite pains, Bernhardt surely has. She was an honest, tireless, never resting worker in her chosen field. Her art was the one god she always worshipped. And to that art she gave up all her strength. She had no patience with her many gifted rivals who were content with being charming and inspired. Unless they worked to make the utmost of their gifts, she would condemn them. Thanks to her patience, her intelligence and honesty, her artistic honesty, when she was seventy she could still delight her audiences. Behind all her most amazing exhibitions, we could perceive the great technique which made them possible. Her technique helped her to the very end. It overcame, at times, the tragic handicap of an actress who had lost one of her limbs. It enabled her, only a few years ago, to play the death scene in “La Dame aux Camélias” as touchingly as in her early days. Her devotion to the technique of her art shamed our young “stars”. But our reviewers only saw in her—a woman: a woman maimed and aging, and not beautiful, perhaps, who fought with passion to retain her envied queenship.

For she had been—and she still was—a queen. I can recall a certain night when Paris crowned her, and when the critics of New York, at my petition, sent her a message to express their admiration. And I remember her reply—the gracious telegram in which she thanked them for their tribute. She was not young then. She was growing old. Yet her vitality and will were so surprising that for almost twenty years after that night she kept her grip on Paris. Not till a year or two ago, indeed, did she begin to realize—or to confess—how old she was. When I last talked with her, in her familiar home near the Place Wagram, I noticed that she was ceasing to disguise her age. White locks were mingled with her tawny hair and, to my sorrow, she was slightly hard of hearing. We lunched together. She was full of life, as usual. She talked of everything: the stage, the world, and art. She referred to Charlie Chaplin and to Arbuckle (who, she protested, was too fat to be a criminal). But I could see that it was only by an effort that she kept pace with life. The coquetries and graces which had charmed me many times at her own table were less natural. And they all vanished when a retainer came to carry her upstairs—poor tortured soul—on a chair or litter. I turned away then, for I dreaded to embarrass her, but she rebuked me, saying, “Oh, you needn’t mind me!”

She had been a friend to me, and in her way an ideal, since my young student days at the Sorbonne. And when she chose, she could be a kind friend. Yet caprices were not foreign to her nature, and, if it pleased her, she could be a dangerous foe. She never, I think, wholly forgave Duse for challenging her supremacy, or quite forgot what she regarded—even if she did not say so—as Duse’s ingratitude. It was at Bernhardt’s theatre (then the Renaissance) that Duse had appeared for the first time in Paris. Soon after that, the two “stars” had been parted.

However tragic she might be upon the boards, in private—with her friends—Bernhardt dropped tragedy. She had the gaiety and lightness of a comédienne, though only twice, in great ways, did she reveal this fact—in “Francillon” and in “Frou-frou”. It was a privilege and joy to be her guest, as I have often been. To her the theatre seemed a part, not all, of life. When she was touring in this country, she would miss no chance, if her train stopped here or there, of getting out and driving madly through the neighborhood, till “All aboard!” was heard and she rode on again. Her interest in life was inexhaustible. It was not confined to drama or to those other arts in which she played her part. It embraced religion, science, sociology, politics, and literature.

At our last meeting, she presented me with a copy of her novel “Petite Idole”, which she had written “pour passer le temps” when she was “resting” in her Belle-Ile seaside home. “Read this,” she said. “I think you will like it. Much in the book, as you will see, concerns myself.”

I have not forgotten many other things she said to me, especially as to the folly, as she thought it, of allowing oneself to cease working before one was exhausted. At eighty or thereabouts, the most popular and remarkable journalist of his time in France, Emile de Girardin, had announced to her his intention of retiring. “Don’t do that”, she had answered, “or you’ll—die!” But he persisted. And he lived six weeks.

No matter who might be the guests she was entertaining—royalties had foregathered with her—when she was due at a performance or a rehearsal she would leave them. Art and her public meant much more to her than royalty. Once, when I was among her visitors at Les Poulains (her first Belle-Ile house, off the coast of Brittany) she received a telegram. It reminded her that she had promised to be present at the unveiling of some statue in the north of France. In a moment she began packing. Next morning we were whirled away in a dreadful express train to Paris. A promise of that kind was not mere piecrust to this spoilt tragédienne.

Her leisure? Well, she spent it in reading plays, in writing stories, or in painting, studying parts, and toying with sculpture. She had a quick wit and she liked amusing anecdotes. Her humor helped to sustain her in adversity.

Adversity. It dogged her. Even in the heydey of her career she was in financial difficulties. She had been “sold up” in one of her Paris homes—in the Avenue de Villiers. Her possessions had been scattered. She was constantly in debt. For, though she had earned millions, she had spent freely. Money was much to her. Yet she treated it as if it meant little. I am told (I do not know how truly) that, but for her indebtedness to the United States Internal Revenue Department, she would have returned to America, for the last of her farewell tours. It may have been just as well that she did not return.

Time was, in the days of “Le Sphinx” and “L’Etrangère” at the Théâtre-Français, when it was Sarah Bernhardt’s wish, they say, to be buried at Père-la-Chaise (where she now rests), next to her long popular comrade and rival, Croizette. Later we heard that she had determined she would prefer her tomb to be erected on one of the huge rocks on the dark coastline of Belle-Ile. There the roaring waves and peeping sea gulls would have sung to her an appropriate threnody. And there, perhaps, long after those who loved and applauded her had gone to their accounts, pilgrims would have stared and wondered at her monument.