re, she gives you merely the thing itself, without a
disturbing atom of self-consciousness; she is grotesque, she is what you
will: it is no matter. The emotion she is acting possesses her like a
blind force; she is Sapho, and Sapho could only move and speak and think
in one way. Where Sarah Bernhardt would arrange the emotion for some
thrilling effect of art, where Duse would purge the emotion of all its
attributes but some fundamental nobility, Rejane takes the big, foolish,
dirty thing just as it is. And is not that, perhaps, the supreme merit
of acting?

YVETTE GUILBERT

I

She is tall, thin, a little angular, most winningly and girlishly
awkward, as she wanders on to the stage with an air of vague
distraction. Her shoulders droop, her arms hang limply. She doubles
forward in an automatic bow in response to the thunders of applause, and
that curious smile breaks out along her lips and rises and dances in her
bright light-blue eyes, wide open in a sort of child-like astonishment.
Her hair, a bright auburn, rises in soft masses above a large, pure
forehead. She wears a trailing dress, striped yellow and pink, without
ornament. Her arms are covered with long black gloves. The applause
stops suddenly; there is a hush of suspense; she is beginning to sing.

And with the first note you realise the difference between Yvette
Guilbert and all the rest of the world. A sonnet by Mr. Andre
Raffalovich states just that difference so subtly that I must quote it
to help out my interpretation:

If you want hearty laughter, country mirth--
Or frantic gestures of an acrobat,
Heels over head--or floating lace skirts worth
I know not what, a large eccentric hat
And diamonds, the gift of some dull boy--
Then when you see her do not wrong Yvette,
Because Yvette is not a clever toy,
A tawdry doll in fairy limelight set ...
And should her song sound cynical and base
At first, herself ungainly, or her smile
Monotonous--wait, listen, watch her face:
The sufferings of those the world calls vile
She sings, and as you watch Yvette Guilbert,
You too will shiver, seeing their despair.

Now to me Yvette Guilbert was exquisite from the first moment.
"Exquisite!" I said under my breath, as I first saw her come upon the
stage. But it is not merely by her personal charm that she thrills you,
though that is strange, perverse, unaccountable.

It is not merely that she can do pure comedy, that