CECILE SOREL SAYS THAT AMERICANS FEEL DEEPLY

"The simpler people who sit in the gallery of the theatre are more expressive than the elegant class which sits below," said Cecile Sorel, star of the Comedie Francaise, who appears this week at the Boston Opera House in the historical play "Maitresse de Roi", to a CRIMSON reporter last night in her suite at the Copley-Plaza. "It is to these people that the soul of the artist goes out. We need more simple people. Th American people understand with their hearts. They understand everything, because they feel so strongly.

Theatre Artists Temple

"It is art which is the ideal that binds peoples together," continued the great emotional actress. "It is a faith to which all is sacrificed. As at church, the artist, whose temple is the theatre, lays her soul bare..

"The artist is not one woman ... she is everywoman ..... she is woman. Her role is to console, to embellish life, to contribute to the intellectual and artistic development of humanity. I played to all classes of people in New York, and they were all appreciative. Americans have an understanding of art."

Speaks Little English

Cecile Sorel, who off the stage is the Madame la Countess de Segur, speaks very little English and the conversation was carried on through the medium of her secretary.

"There is more liberty for youth here than in France," declared Madame when asked to compare the American boy and girl with French youth. "And it develops character quicker. The young girl in France is kept in seclusion until her marriage. If I had a daughter, I would raise her in the American fashion. All but smoking--it is wrong for girls. As for night clubs, I think that the modern boy and girl should be crusted. There must be confidence in one's blood.

"I visited the English universities," said the Countess, "but I have had no opportunity of coming in contact with the American college boy. In France we know Boston as a big University town and a historical ground. As I came into Boston tonight. I saw the Bunker Hill monument all aglow, and I remembered my ancestor Lafayette who helped lay its corner stone. I am very glad to be here."

"Yes," said the Countess, "my bathtub in Paris is an ancient Greek sarcophagus. It has high relief sculpture and the inside is overlaid with gold. It is an original work which I prize very much. I purchased it in Greece."

Cecile Sorel said she thought Florence Reed and Ethel Barrymore were two of America's greatest actresses, that Gloria Swanson was a great artist, and Charlie Chaplin a genius. "America has the greatest cinema in the world," she stated. "My one regret is that the art of the great Duse is not perpetuated by the films."