peak English freely and
she rarely sings in our language. Her versatility, it seems to me, is
limitless; she expresses the whole world in terms of her own
personality. She never lacks for a method of expression for the effect
she desires to give, and she gives all, heart and brains alike. Now she
is raucous, now tender; have you ever seen so sweet a smile; have you
ever observed so coarse a mien? She can run the gamut from a sleek
priest to a child (as in _C'est le Mai_), from a jealous husband to a
guilty wife (_Le Jaloux et la Menteuse_), from an apache (_Ma Tete_) to
a charming old lady (_Lisette_).

[Illustration: YVETTE GUILBERT

_from a photograph by Alice Boughton_]

It is easy to liken the art of this marvellous woman to something
concrete, to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec or Steinlen, the posters
of Cheret ... and there is indeed a suggestion of these men in the work
of Yvette Guilbert. The same broad lines are there, the same ample
style, the same complete effect, but there is more. In certain phases of
her talent, the _gamine_, the _apache_, the _gavroche_, she reflects the
spirit of the inspiration which kindled these painters into creation,
but in other phases, of which _Lisette_, _Les Cloches de Nantes_, _La
Passion_, or _Le Cycle du Vin_ are the expression, you may more readily
compare her style with that of Watteau, Eugene Carriere, Felicien Rops,
or Boucher.... She takes us by the hand through the centuries, offering
us the results of a vast amount of study, a vast amount of erudition,
and a vast amount of work. In so many fine strokes she evokes an epoch.
She has studied the distinction between a curtsey which precedes the
recital of a fable of La Fontaine and a poem of Francis Jammes. She has
closely scrutinized pictures in neglected corridors of the Louvre to
learn the manner in which a cavalier lifts his hat in various periods.
There are those who complain that she emphasizes the dramatic side of
the old French songs, which possibly survive more clearly under more
naive treatment. Her justification in this instance is the complete
success of her method. The songs serve her purpose, even supposing she
does not serve theirs. But a more valid cause for grievance can be urged
against her. Unfortunately and ill-advisedly she has occasionally
carried something of the scientific into an otherwise delightful
matinee, importing a lecturer, like Jean Beck of Bryn Mawr, to analyze
and describe the music