We perceive that Sarah Bernhardt, in her new representa- tion
of Cleopatra, has departed from the traditional idea of the Queen's physique, and appears with auburn or reddish- brown hair. That is probably an innovation in the direction of accuracy, the xanthous type certainly existing, and being highly admired in Greece ; but why does not the great actress go a step farther P She represents Cleopatra as " bronzed," her traditional colour ; but where is the probability of that P Europeans do not change their colour in the East, nor has Egypt blackened the Copts; and Cleopatra was a pure Greek, a descendant of the Heracleithe (Ptolemy Soter having been a son of Philip), and heiress of a house so anxious for the purity of its blood that it disregarded the human law against in- cestuous marriages. The great probability is, that she was very like a modern Parisienne, with an eager, mobile face, not beautiful at all in the sculptor's sense, but with a certain magnetic attractiveness, intensely felt by Roman nobles like Caesar and Antony, accustomed to the heavier and more apathetic beauty of their own caste. The Ptolemies were the most cultivated of all the Greek dynasties in the East, and when a line ends in a woman, she usually repro- duces all its peculiarities.
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