somewhere." The "something" is often a perfectly different blemish from
that to which the critic drew attention.

Unprofessional criticism is often more helpful still, but alas! one's
friends are to one's faults more than a little blind, and to one's
virtues very kind! It is through letters from people quite unknown to me
that I have sometimes learned valuable lessons. During the run of "Romeo
and Juliet" some one wrote and told me that if the dialogue at the ball
could be taken in a lighter and _quicker_ way, it would better express
the manner of a girl of Juliet's age. The same unknown critic pointed
out that I was too slow and studied in the Balcony Scene. She--I think
it was a woman--was perfectly right.

On the hundredth night, although no one liked my Juliet very much, I
received many flowers, little tokens, and poems. To one bouquet was
pinned a note which ran:

"To JULIET,
As a mark of respect and Esteem
From the Gasmen of the Lyceum Theater."

That alone would have made my recollections of "Romeo and Juliet"
pleasant. But there was more. At the supper on the stage after the
hundredth performance, Sarah Bernhardt was present. She said nice things
to me, and I was enraptured that my "vraies larmes" should have pleased
and astonished her! I noticed that she hardly ever moved, yet all the
time she gave the impression of swift, butterfly movement. While
talking to Henry she took some red stuff out of her bag and rubbed it on
her lips! This frank "making-up" in public was a far more astonishing
thing in the 'eighties than it would be now. But I liked Miss Sarah for
it, as I liked her for everything.

How wonderful she looked in those days! She was as transparent as an
azalea, only more so; like a cloud, only not so thick. Smoke from a
burning paper describes her more nearly! She was hollow-eyed, thin,
almost consumptive-looking. Her body was not the prison of her soul, but
its shadow.

On the stage she has always seemed to me more a symbol, an ideal, an
epitome than a _woman_. It is this quality which makes her so easy in
such lofty parts as Phedre. She is always a miracle. Let her play
"L'Aiglon," and while matter-of-fact members of the audience are
wondering if she looks _really_ like the unfortunate King of Rome, and
deciding against her and in favor of Maude Adams who did look the boy to
perfection, more imaginative watchers see in Sarah's performance a truth
far bigger than a mere physi