Life — December 21, 1905 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Homesick Boy. ] M visitin’ a And I'm hor! It’s sawdust and shavin’s for br Aunt Maria's, kas I can be; fast, And shavin's and sawdust for tea ! She says it ain't sawdust nor shavin's, But some kind o' nu-triment food ; A way, 'tain’t pie nor doughnuts, Nor fritters, nor anything good ! She never has jam nor cookies, he says they are awful for me We And we're all of us healthi at ‘em like sixty to our house, “a she! She won't let me have any sugar, Because it will give me the gout, And meat I can't swallow a mite of Till I've chewed it an hour about! Didn't know that I had any liver, ‘ause, you see, I was never sick much ; But I'm hungry for all I can think of "Cept sawdust, and shavin's and such. Oh, I want to see Ma and Louisa And Grandma and my old ball! But I guess I'm homesicker for doughnuts Than anything else at all! Emma C. Dowd. tS Pour Dire Adieu (?) OT for a long time has New York witnessed that old-time spectacle of persons standing in line all night to be first at the box office Tt hap- window in the morning. us pened, though, when the seats SE. <* were put on sale for Mme. Bern- hardt's present engagement More than that, the theatre was sold out for every performance. Why? When she was last here she frequently played to houses There was certa’ no reason to believe that she had improved in more than half empty. her art; on the other ha ing years might argue that her abilities as well as her Do New York- ers believe the announcement that this is really her farewell tour? Hardly, for that would argue that they believe more implicitly in Bernhardt’s announcement than they do in their President's that he will not accept a re- nomination, ava: attractions were on the wane. Was it clever management and playing in an skilful way upon the curious caprices of this clever press-work unusually The last seems the best explanation, but it isa fact that t terest in her present engagement more nearly approached that which attended her first ap- pearance in this country than that which has been evinced towards her more recent ones. easily fooled community a= THE DIVINE SARA. ERTAINLY Mme. Bershardt appeared at almost her best in her performance of Zoraya in ** La Sorciére,” the piece chosen for her first appearance, She had tne inspiration of a packed house, and of a return after a long absence to the scene of former triumphs. The play is far from being among the best of Sardou’s, and the part is not one which makes the highest demands on her powers, but it was enough to show that she has not greatly changed. The voice is still the same, if any- thing agreeably softened in the raucous throat tones on which she depends for the vehement passages, In the higher register which she uses in the scenes of tenderness, it is unchanged from the familiar, reedy, plaintively sweet tremolo with its regularly falling cadences, As Zoraya she indulged less in gesture and in unusual posturing than of yore, but this may well be part of her conception of the languid nature of the Moorish girl, In her ability to carry her audience with her to a high point of tension in a sustained scene of passion and intense mental anguish, she is still the artist who has been acclaimed great in every capital of the world, ME, BERNHARDT'S present management has given her better settings and a better support, both in quantity and quality, than she has ever brought with her before, M.de Max has in La Sorciére” not much todo, and that the strongly outlined part of Cardinal Ximenes who presides in the torture chamber, but he gave to it a finish and force which called to mind the excellencies of Irving's Louis X7. and the deficiencies in Mr. Mansfeld's /van, M. Decoeur’s Don Enrigue was also a per-