Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, April 27, 1913, Image 136
Copyright,, 10.- Uit St a; «Juiupan>
iJi’llain Higiitb Reserved.
4
Anna Held Plays aPespectableAmeiocanWiman
Mmc. Anna Held, the Fascinating French Actress, Whose Long Experience
in America Enables Her to Defend American Women So Charmingly.
How Lions Help the Crops on Jungle Farms
V KIUCAN farmers are beginning to regret
the activity of sportsmen who come
into their territory and kill off the
lions. There was once, a time not long ago,
when it was believed to he a great thing to
have this king of beasts killed off. and the na
tives rejoiced, ever, as they do to-day in many
sections of Africa, but the intelligent farmer
has learned to his cost that the untamed lion
of the jungle is really a great help to hint
The lion is a beast of prey. He is a hearty
eater, and gets his entire living on the fresh-
killed beasts of the forests, jungles and plains.
These beasts incude antelopes in a great many
varieties, zebras and other animals of that
class. In one season it is claimed that 350
lions were killed. This number of lion-, would
have, in a single season, killed from thlrt> to
*
forty thousand zebras and antelopes.
Now the zebra.--, and antelopes do not pounce
upon the natives and kill ana eat them. Lions
do. occasionally, kill a native, but this does
not happen frequently. The zebras and an
telopes and such animals as me lions live on
cause untold loss,to the farmers, as they are
herbivorous, and destroy valuable crops as
'fast ns the farmer and his native workmen
can plant and grow them.
It is not impossible that tne prosperous
farmers will take some means to prevent
sportsmen front all over the world coming
into their territory and killing off the lions,
for, they declare, if the lions are left un-
slaughtered for a few years they will so re
duce the zebras and antelopes that the crops
. ill be given a chance to grow, and the farm
ers can hope to get big returns.
Captivaung Conversation with a
Frivolous Frenchman, Who
Declares Our Girls Detest Love,
but Adore Flirtation, and
Have Wooden Souls
A NNA HELD, accompanied by one actor, ha* been
giving an odd tittle playlet called “Le Chic
Amerlcain,’’ at the Theatre Marigny, in Paris.
Perhaps the oddest thing about it is that Anna Held
represents herself for a time as a highly respectable
American woman and makes herself the spokeswoman
of American womanhood’s ideals, manners, elegances
and standards of conduct, in a conversation with a
frivolous Frenchman. The playlet fellows:
(Anna Held Sings “I Cannot Make My Eyes
Behave”)
HE FRENCHMAN—How true that is.
ANNA HELD—Then you understand
English?
THE FRENCHMAN—Not a word. But I
have a heart, and when one has a heart, “a man
thinks of his wife and little ones,” as the song
says. No, I don’t mean that exactly, but when
one has a heart there are certain words a man
understands without knowing the language.
ANNA HELD—I don’t think you are serious,
Monsieur.
THE FRENCH-MAN—Oh. yes, indeed, 1 am,
only I don't look it. * * * As soon as I
saw you with your dashing air, your splendid
carriage, your "chic,” so American and yet
rather French, 1 adored you.
ANNA HELD—You talk about the American
• chic" as if you knew all about it? Do you
know anything about American girls?
THE FRENCHMAN—Oh, yes; I knew all
about them, believe me. American girls speak
English and go in for every sport. They walk
like professional pedestrians. They box like
■lack Johnson. They detest love, but adore
flirtation * * * and they play with senti
ments like tennis balls. They avoid kissing for
fear of microbes, and in short, they are a sort
of hybrid, neither man nor woman.
ANNA HELD—Thanks! That is a pretty
portrait.
THE FRENCHMAN—Oh, it is quite life-like.
ANNA HELD—It is a gross and, clumsy cari
cature. If you knew the true American girl, en
dowed with every feminine grace and every in
tellectual accomplishment, you would immedi
ately become her admirer. The American girl
you described is taken from the French musi
cal comedies, where the part is played by the
funny woman of the company. The real person
is very different. She lacks none of the seduc
tive graces of the French woman. She as
similates them easily, but in adapting them to
her temperament and the conditions of her life,
Bhe shows a very acute intelligence. You are
trying to keep woman as she was ages ago.
Modern women in France and in Europe gener
ally, however bold, however desirous of eman
cipation they may be, are always held down by
prejudices, by family and social customs, by a
whole mass of basic principles of education and
routine. Behind the French woman there are
twenty centuries of slavery from which she
cannot free herself.
THE FRENCHMAN—Oh, they free them
selves from it quite easily.
ANNA HELD—Don’t you believe it. The
French woman Is oppressed, imprisoned by
ancestral customs and manias. Morally she
still wears the crinoline.
THE FRENCHMAN—Pardon, you exaggerate.
ANNA HELD—She does not walk through
life by the side of man, but under his protec
tion. That Is outrageous.
THE FRENCHMAN—You think so? It ap
pears to me quite natural.
ANNA HELD—For twenty centuries you have
kept woman under your domination. You are
hideous, odious, frightful!
THE FRENCHMAN—Oh, say those words of
love again.
ANNA HELD—I do not libel the French tr n.
I paint him as he is. Under the pretence of id
and protection he distorts al! the natural in
stincts of woman. He bends them to his will,
to his tyranny. He has formed her into a very
attractive creature, made up of submission
charm, dissimulation, a feline who has all t\
seductions, all the graces of the cat family, btf-
all the tricks and cruelty also.
THE FRENCHMAN—That is not very flatter
ing to the woman we have formed, but 1 catch
the likeness. She is like a cat, now curling her
self up prettily, now moving with graceful sinu
osities, playful, her claws ready to scratch, but
she is also quick to lay her head on our shoul
der with a purring of tender words. Naturally
American girls are not like that. They are
courageous, intrepid "persons. They wear the
breeches from the cradle. Oh, they do not jest
with life, still less with man. They clench
their fists and as they know how to use them,
they do not hesitate to fight with destiny or
their husbands. She would have been a man
if the Creator had had the patience to finish
the work.
THE FRENCHMAN—Well, aren’t American
girls like that?
ANNA HELD—No, they are true women. But
they have grown up In a new country where
space is greater, traditions less numerous, mas
culine domination less fixed than In Europe.
They have been able to develop an independent
character. They were born free and they have
remained so voluntarily, resolutely, obstinately.
THE FRENCHMAN—Those three adverbs
sound well. They sound like the clash of arms.
They mean that the American woman will die,
but never surrender, like our Old Guard. You
paint a terrible picture bf her. To hear you
the American women enter life armed and
belmeted like the goddess of war, and yet they
are women. Women like you, perhaps?
ANNA HELD—Yes, like me.
THE FRENCHMAN—You, you are the female
fortress that fears nothing, that never falls. Oh,
The Frenchman’s Idea of the Money-Making
American Man’s Home Life.
how unfortunate you are to be so insensible. A
woman of wood! Let me close my eyes upon
the horrible vision.
And yet how it pleases me to look at you now.
Look into my eyes like that, yes, quite straight,
into them and give me your hands, your pretty
hands, with the tapering fingers and the- pink
nails. Give me a smile, one of those adorable
smiles that seem to have caught a ray from
the sun.
You have such an exquisite smile and such
pretty little teeth that know how to bite (he
drops one of her hands). And to think that all
that belongs to a women of wood!
ANNA HELD—How foolish you are. I never
said that.
THE FRENCHMAN—Then quick, tell me it
is not so. Tell me that the American woman
is like other women, neither stronger, nor
weaker, that she is the same sensitive, delicate,
foolish little creature that women always are
when they have hearts, imagination and when
they feel the passion of love stealing over them.
ANNA HELD—How sentimental you are!
THE FRENCHMAN—I must remember that I
am a man, an oppressor. Are Frenchmen so
terrible after all?
ANNA HELD—You are funny.
THE FRENCHMAN—I don’t like that.
ANNA HELD—Why?
THE FRENCHMAN—It is as if you said that
1 was not a man. Funny men are the last re
serves of the army of cupid. They are the last
to be called to the colors.
ANNA HELD—I have discouraged you.
THE FRENCHMAN—Not at all. Go on talk
ing about American girls. You say dreadful
things with a candor and simplicity that delight
me. The American girls have "chic,” haven't
they?
ANNA HELD—Yes, indeed, a great deal.
THE FRENCHMAN—As much as the suf-
ragettes ?
ANNA HELD—Oh, they are not women.
THE FRENCHMAN—What are they?
ANNA HELD—Politicians (she sings her
"Votes for Women” song).
THE FRENCHMAN—But tell ajiout this
American “chic.”
ANNA HELD—It Is special, personal, dis-
“American Women Are Money Mad,*
Said the Frenchman. “Life with Thei
Is a Perpetual 'Stand and Deliver’!'*
tinctive. It is sober and discreet. It has rich
ness and elegance. When your eye is a little
trained you recognize the American girl easily
by her walk, her outline, her dignified self-
possession, and yet she lacks neither grace nor
charm. You have seen men whose figures and
features are manly, but who have in their move
ments something of feminine grace. American
women create a similar Impression with cer
tains conditions reversed. They are women
and yet there is something virile in their bear
ing. You feel it and yet you cannot pick out
any feature that gives this air. it is not only
in tall women that you see it. That would not
be surprising, but quite little women show it
also. They have a certain energy in their walk
that you find in all their actions, even the most
feminine.
THE FRENCHMAN—Oh, please show me
that. Walk up and down here, as if you were
in a cage. Do, yes, like that. Go, turn round,
come back (Anna Held walks). It is mar
vellous! How can you take such long steps
when you have such little legs?
ANNA HELD—Just practice.
THE FRENCHMAN—You can never have
worn hobble skirts, those skirts which grip the
tinkles and make a woman look like a tied up
lettuce.
ANNA HELD—The American women are too
practical to do anything to destroy the freedom
of their limbs. They accept no bonds, not even
those of the dressmaker. It is not that they
despise fashion, but they show discernment.
They do not accept with eyes shut whatever Is
brought to them. They try it and adapt it’ to
their needs. They have not generally adopted
the hobble skirt, hut they have, on the other
hand, invented the ankle length walking skirt.
THE FRENCHMAN—Ah, I know it. I appre
ciate it very much. I owe it many rare joys.
ANNA HELD—You are joking.
THE FRENCHMAN—Not at all. I am re
calling the ankles, the prettiest little ankles,
which the walker amiably revealed at each
step. Yes, I have followed the ankles.
ANNA HELD—Ah, you follow them?
THE FRENCHMAN—Sometimes—when it
rains.
ANNA HELD—Why when it rains?
THE FRENCHMAN—One Beds the ankles
better.
ANNA HELD—You have a low ideal, Mon
sieur.
THE FRENCHMAN—Are all American
women as quick at repartee as that?
ANNA HELD—They have quick, keen minds,
Monsieur.
THE FRENCHMAN—You delight me. Shall
I fall in love with you now.
ANNA HELD—You are silly.
THE FRENCHMAN—Go on, please. When a
woman says to a man, “You are silly,” she is
grateful to him for the slightest spark of in
telligence, for the least effort to pay a compli
ment. He is on the road to her heart. Take a
glass of wine. I feel that 1 am going to say
foolish things to you. I want you to be a little
gay, so that you will hear me sympathetically.
ANNA HELD—Oh, you must not make me
drink.
THE FRENCHMAN—Yes, take another glass.
ANNA HELD—Oh, I feel so funny. (She
sings a tipsy song.)
THE FRENCHMAN (coming very close to
her)—Now that you are feeling so happy, with
your lips full of laughter and your eyes full of
joy, confess to me that the American woman,
with all her decided airs, her virility, her
masculine appearance that you praise so much,
is only a fragile and delicate little creature.
ANNA HELD (struggling nd laughing)—
Let me go, let me go. I believe I am tipsy.
THE FRENCHMAN—Tell me that she is
weak like other women, that she has a heart
and that she is nothing in the arms of a man but
the creature of love she should be. Tell me
that there are hours when she forgets her in
dependence, when she thinks no longer of
liberty, when she displays all her “chic” in sur
rendering herself.
ANNA HELD (laughing very much and try
ing to recover her dignity)—I will tell you any
thing you like, but leave me alone now. I am
tipsy and besides I am not American, I am
French.
What the Stars Predict for Next Month
T HE astral promises for May are rather gratify
ing than otherwise, with Mercury and Venus
in the Oriental quarter, and the conjoined lumi-
nurie. supported by Jupiter. The new moon on the
sixth is a solar eclipse, and occurring in this point of
Taurus, according to Proclus, will affect crops further
along in the year, especially corn and wheat, inducing
to barrenness and scarcity by reason of drought.
International amity is promised, and a generally tran
quil sentiment in diplomatic circles, hut the illness of
a Cabinet minister is threatened. A brisk influence per
meates the public mind, with prevailing optimism, des
pite a railroad strike. May fetes and marked social
activity are foreshown by the position of Venus.
Mars afflicts hospitals, charitable institutions, and
places of detention.
In New York, the .District Attorney's activities will
bear whoiesome fruit, and two or more members of
the constabulary will be introduced to closer quarters
in the northward direction. The interests of the suf
fragists meet with some pleasant recognition, with
Venus rising in the sign of Mars.
Some of the incidents foreshadowed are as follows:
May 2—Danger to a public building: a social an
nouncement attracts attention: pleasant developments
in speculative marts.
May 4—Illness of a prominent financier. Disturbances
in public gatherings.
May 8—A diplomatic transaction satisfactorily con
summated. Mon#y centres are benefitted at this time,
and some act of the President meets with special ap
proval. Financial and postal legislation accomplished.
May 12—Much excitement in Congress and Eastern
Legislatures. A temporary crisis in the Cabinet, and
hot unlikely the recall of an ambassador. The 19th,
similar, with probable illness in the President’s of
ficial family.
May 17—A public social function. Army appropri
ations due at this time; special legislative activity.
May 23-24—Failure of a financial house: money cen
tres disturbed. Some peculiar suicides between this
and the 28th, with incendiarism rampant.
May 29—Probable death of a church dignitary, as
well as one prominent in literary or scientific circles.
The sun, in conjunction with -Saturn, on this day
brings a critical financial situatwn, and building casu
alties may be looked for.
The market presents a conflicting outlook. Reform
legislation and tariff tinkering will affect sentiment,
and while up to about the 18th is normally bullish,
the steel horoscope Is sadly afflicted in this period,
and this leader as a market factor must be noted.
The first eight days bring advances, particularly
around the 1st, 5th and 7-8th: market sags at the
close on the 7th, with pronounced recovery on the 8th.
The 12th is restless and erratic. Manipulation and
professionalism much in evidence on the 15-16th. Cop
per advances between the 15th and 17th. The 19-20th
rather depressed, with renewed confidence on the 21st,
bringing activity and advance in the general list. The
23d, reactionary and very fluctuative between then and
the 29th. with materially lower points on the 29th.
Wide ranges on the 31st. Saturn has now entered
Gemini, the ruling sign of the United States, signifi
cant of marked depreciation in speculative values in
the year ahead. His last transit of this sign brought
the Grant-Ward failure.
The application of the luminaries to Jupiter pre
sages fine weather up to about the 18th, very season
able for crops, with occasional rains, but withal a
germinative atmosphere and temperature.
Jupiter will prove a benevolent factor this month in
the lives of those born near the 8-10th of January,
March, May, September or November of any year. Good
health, fortunate prospects, and favors may be looked
for, and advancement of interests confidently sought.;
the 6th, 8th, 14th, 19th, 23d, 24th and 28th are fortunate
days for them.
Not so optimistic for those born in the last week of
February, May, August or November. The sinister Sa
turn will bear heavily upon their efforts, affecting health,
material interests, cause mental depression, and bring
obstruction and duplicity into the surroundings. Our
Secretary of War comes under this transit. The 7th,
14th. 20th and the 27th to 29th are tedious days for
them, to be especially noted.
Those born in the third week of April will receive
presents and be socially popular; similar in lesser
measure if born in the third week of February. June
or December.
Erratic and reactionary influences affect those born
near the 28-29th of January, April, or immediate close
of July and October; changes, journeys and investments
must be avoided, and the affectional and domestic in
terests if of the fair sex.
The first eight days as natal anniversaries promise
a pleasant year ahead: likewise the 10th, 17th. 21st
jud 31st. The 16th, 19th, 23d and 27th to 29th. present
worries and difficulties: those born on the 27th or 28th
may expect bereavement.
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