went on steadily, and then, just as you have seen a field of wheat surged in one wave by the wind, I saw the closely packed people in that wide parquet sway forward in a great gust of laughter. With quick, experienced eye I scanned first Othello's garb from top to toe, and finding no unseemly rent or flaw of any kind to provoke laughter, I next swept the stage. Coming to the close-drawn curtains I saw-heavens! No wonder the people laughed. The murdered Desdemona had risen was evidently sitting on the side of the bed-for beneath the curtains her dangling feet alone were plainly seen, kicking cheerfully back and forth. Such utterly unconscious feet they were, that I think the audience would not have laughed again had they kept still; but all at once they began a "heeland-toe step," and people rocked back and forth, trying to suppress their merriment. And then-oh, Piamonti!-swiftly the toe of the right foot went to the back of the left ankle and scratched vigorously. Restraint was ended, every one let go and laughed and laughed. From the box I saw in the entrance the outspread fingers, the hoisted shoulders, the despairingly shaken heads of the Italian actors, who could find no cause for the uproar. Salvini behaved perfectly, in that, disturbed, distressed, he showed no sign of anger, but maintained his dignity through all, even when in withdrawing the curtains and disclosing Desdemona dead once more the incomprehensible laughter again broke out. But late as it was and short the time left him, he got the house in hand again, again wove his charm and sent the people away sick and shuddering over his too real self-murder.

As I was leaving the box I met one connected with the management of the theater, who, furious over the faux pas, was roughly denouncing the actress, whom he blamed entirely, and I took it upon myself to suggest that he pour a vial or two of his wrath upon the heads of his own property-man and the stage-manager, who had grossly neglected their duty in failing to provide curtains of the proper length. And I chuckled with satisfaction as I saw him plunge behind the scenes, calling angrily upon some invisible Jim to come forth. I had acted as a sort of lightning-rod for a sister actress.

Salvini's relations with his son were charming, though it sounded a bit odd to hear the stalwart young man calling him "papa." Alessandro had dark eyes and black hair, so naturally admired the opposite coloring, and I never heard him speak of his father's Eng

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lish second wife without some reference to her fairness. It would be " my blond mamma," "my little fair mamma,' my father's pretty English wife," or "before my little blond mamma died." He felt the " mamma" and "papa" jarred on American ears, and often corrected himself; but when Signor Salvini himself once told me a story of his father, he referred to him constantly as "my papa," just as he does in this book of his that makes him seem so egotistical and so determined to find at all costs the vulnerable spot, the weak joint, in the armor of all other actors.

Certainly he could not have been an egotist in the bosom of his family. A friend in London went to call upon his young wife, his "white lily." She was showing the house to her visitor, when, pausing suddenly before a large portrait of her famous husband, she became silent, her uplifted eyes filled, her lips smiled tremulously, she gave a little gasp, and whispered, "Oh, he's almost like God to me!"

The friend, startled, even shocked, was about to reprove her, but a glance into the innocent face showed no sacrilege had been meant, only she had never been honored, protected, happy before-and some women worship where they love. Could an egotist win and keep such affection and gratitude as that?

Among those who complain of his opinionated book I am amused to find one who fairly exhausted himself in praise, not to say flattery, of this same Salvini. It is very diverting to the mere looker-on, when the world first proclaims some man a god, bowing down and worshiping him, and then anathematizes him if he ventures to proclaim his own godship. I have my quarrel with the book, I confess it. I am sorry he does not show how he did his tremendous work, show the nature of those sacrifices he made. How one would enjoy a word picture of the place where he obtained his humble meals in those earliest days of struggle; who shared them, and in what spirit they were discussed, grave or gay? Italian life is apt to be picturesque, and these minor circumstances mean much when one tries to get at the daily life of a man. But Salvini has given us merely splendid results, without showing us how he obtained them. Yet what a lesson the telling would have been for some of our indolent actors! Why, even at the zenith of his career Salvini attended personally to duties most actors leave to their dressers. He used to be in his dressing-room hours be

fore the overture was on, and in an ancient gown he would polish his armor, his precious weapons or ornaments, arrange his wigs, examine every article of dress he would require that night, and consequently he never had mishaps. He used to say, "The man there? Oh, yes, he can pack and lock and strap and check, but only an actor can understand the care of these artistic things. What I do myself is well done; this work is part of my profession; there is no shame in doing it. And all the time I work, I think I think of the part-till I have all forgot all but just that part's self."

And yet, oh, dear, these are the things he does not put in his book. When he was all dressed and ready for the performance, Salvini would go into a dark place and walk and walk and walk; sometimes droopingly, sometimes with martial tread. Once, I said, "You walk far, signor?"

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"Si, signorina," he made answer, then eagerly, "I walk me into him!" And while the great man was "walking into the character," the actors who supported him smoked cigarettes at the stage-door until the dash for dressing-room and costume.

Some women scold because he has not given pictures of the great people whom he met. "Why," they ask, "did he not describe Crown Princess Victoria (the late Empress Frederick) at least-how she looked, what she wore? Such portraits would be interesting." But Salvini was not painting portraits, not even his own-truly. He was giving a list of his triumphs, and if he has shown self-appreciation, he was at least perfectly honest. There is no hypocrisy about him. If he knew Uriah Heep, he did

not imitate him; for in no chapter has he proclaimed himself "'umble." If one will read Signor Salvini's book, remembering that the pæans of a world have been sung in his honor, and that he really had no superior in his artistic life, I think the I's and my's will seem simply natural.

However he may have been admired in other characters, I do truly believe that only those who have seen him in "Othello and-" Morte Civile" can fully appreciate the marvelous art of the actor. I carry in my mind two pictures of him-Othello, the perfect animal man, in his splendid prime, where in a very frenzy of conscious strength he dashes Iago to the earth, man and soldier lost in the ferocity of a jungle male beast, jealously mad an awful picture of raging passion. The other, Conrad, after the escape from prison; a strong man broken in spirit, wasted with disease, a great shell of a man; one who is legally dead, with the prison pallor, the shambling walk, the cringing manner, the furtive eyes. But oh, that piteous salute at that point when the priest dismisses him, and the wrecked giant, timid as a child, humbly, deprecatingly touches the priest's hand with his finger tips and then kisses them devoutly! I see that picture yet, through tears, just as I saw for the first time that illustration of supreme humility and veneration.

Oh, never mind a little extravagance with personal pronouns! A beloved father, a very thorough gentleman, but above all else the greatest actor of his day. There is but the one Salvini, and how can he help knowing it? So to book and author-ready! Viva Salvini!