SOURCE: "Eve in the Spotlight: Sarah Bernhardt," in Daughters of Eve, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930, pp. 241-82.

In the following essay Bradford surveys Bernhardt's life and works.

I

Sarah Bernhardt's superbly characteristic motto was, Quand même—Even if—What if it does—No matter. Take the sweet of life, crowd it full of beauty and splendor, make a tumultuous riot and revel of it. No matter if disasters come, and diseases, and decay, no matter if crooked fortune does her spitefulest, you will have had your hour and made the most of it—Quand même.

Assuredly no career could be more startling or more picturesque. Born in Paris, in 1844, of dubious paternity, Jewish in origin, Catholic and conventual in training, sometimes fondled and petted by her mother, sometimes neglected and abandoned for months together, the child was finally flung into the whirlpool of the Parisian theater. For...