SOURCE: "Sarah Bernhardt," "Sarah Bernhardt in Phedre," and "Pelleas and Melisande," in Punch and Judy & Other Essays, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923, pp. 25-42; 322-6

In the following essay, Baring provides an overview of Bernhardt's career.

I

"Sans doute il est trop tard pour parler encor d'elle. " So Alfred de Musset began his beautiful poem to La Malibran, in which he said almost all there is to be said about the death of one of the queens of the stage. Only, in the case of La Malibran, the world's regret, which found so lovely an echo in the song of the poet, was all the more poignant because La Malibran died in the flower of her youth.

Sarah Bernhardt, according to standards which we should apply to any one else, was an old woman when she died; old, and full of glory, "having seen, borne, and achieved more than most...