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Although no one in Boston has as yet followed the example of the New York woman who threatened to commit suicide unless she were given a ticket to Eleanora Duse's return to the American stage, there is already ample indication that Boston holds the famous actress in the same esteem as the rest of the world.
Attempts to describe the talent of the woman, who like Bernhart, has earned the title of "divine," are futile. It is not for this generation to pass judgement on one who has enjoyed the worship of the theatrical world and now returns after an interval of twenty years.
Those who see "Cosi Sia" will behold a woman aged in years, a woman who, in spite of her sixty six years scorns even the slightest bit of modern stage make up. Her hair is now quite gray, and age shows upon her face, but in her thoughts and her actions she is as young and beautiful as the girl of fifteen who won the love of Italy when she first stopped on the stage as Juliet.
It is interesting to hear stories of her youth--how one day she had to steal some "polenta" to appease her hunger when playing Juliet how she played to an empty house on her first appearance at Vienna in "La Dame aux Camelias" and to an over-flowing audience the next night how she always scorned jewels and adornment, and how she made such expressive use of her hands that legend relates she would sometimes "lay them to rest within a velvet box" after a performance. Those who see her in either of her two Boston performances will find a more tangible link with the past than mere legend. They will case upon the divine Duse whom D'Annunzio praises with the tribute. "There is no nobler woman."
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