So used we to dream when we saw those harmonious gestures and heard that matchless utterance. Then the curtain fell, and we remembered that it was only a play, and that even Sarah Bernhardt must “fare as other Empresses,” and “wane with enforc’d and necessary change.”
Nevertheless, we give thanks—we that have lived in her day; for, whatever the future may bring, there will never be another Sarah Bernhardt:
“Yea, they shall say, earth’s womb has borne in vain New things, and never this best thing again.”
I arrived in Rome, after staying a few days on the way in London and in Florence. In the Drury Lane Pantomime that year, I think it was _Mother Goose_, Dan Leno played a harp solo, which I think is the funniest thing I ever saw on the stage. He had a subtle, early Victorian, Byronic way of playing, refined and panic-stricken, and he played with a keepsake expression, and with sensibility, as though he might suddenly have the vapours; he became confused and entangled with the pedals, and at one moment the harp—and it was a gigantic harp—fell right on to him.
Rome in January was warm; one seldom needed more than a small wood fire. I had rooms at the Embassy at the Porta Pia. The Embassy garden is just within the old walls and is a trap of sun and beauty. The Ambassador was Lord Currie. Lady Currie, his wife, was Violet Fane, the authoress of _Edwin and Angelina_, and of a most amusing novel called _Sophy, or the Adventures of a Savage_, as well as of many books of poems.
The First Secretary was Rennell Rodd. Lord Currie was not well, but he entertained a great deal.
Shortly after I arrived, Madame Ristori celebrated her eightieth or her eighty-fifth birthday, and the Ambassador asked me to write her a letter of congratulation in French. I did it, and at the end I said that Lord Currie hoped to be able to send her birthday greetings for many more years to come. I forget the exact phrase, but I know the words _de longues années_ occurred, and Lord Currie said to me: “Don’t you think it is perhaps a little excessive to talk of _de longues années_ to a lady of eighty?” The expression was slightly toned down.
A few days later Mrs. Crawshay took me to see Madame Ristori. She was a stately old lady with white hair and a beautiful voice, and I imagine Mrs. Siddons must have been rather the same kind of person. She talked of D’Annunzio making a dramatic version of _Paolo and Francesca_; whether he had done so then or not, or whether he had only announced his intention of doing so, I forget. In any case Madame Ristori disapproved of the idea. She said Dante had said all there was to say, and then she repeated the six crucial lines from the _Inferno_ about the _disiato riso_, and I never heard a more melodious human utterance.
