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