e desire of comparing the new actor with his great
rival, Salvini. There was a sprinkling of Americans and a scanty
representation of the Parisian public.

When Othello came upon the stage the foreign actor received but a cool
and unenthusiastic greeting. His appearance was a disappointment
to those familiar with the majestic bearing and picturesque garb of
Salvini. His dress was unbecoming, and the dusky tint of his stage
complexion accorded ill with his blue eyes. Then, too, his conception
of the character jarred on the ideas of those who had seen the other
great Italian actor. It was hard to dethrone the majestic and princely
Moor, the stately general of Salvini's conception, to give place to
the frank, free-hearted soldier, intoxicated with the gladness of
successful wooing, that Rossi brings before us. Certain melodramatic
points, also, in the earlier acts, such as the "Ha!" wherewith Rossi
with upraised arms starts from Desdemona when Brabantio reminds him

"She has deceived her father, and may thee,"

seemed exaggerated and out of place. In the scenes with Iago he
equaled Salvini, yet did not in any one point surpass him. Nor did
he in any way imitate him. The fury of the two Othellos is widely
different. Salvini is the fiercer, for Rossi's rage has a background
of intensest suffering. One is an enraged tiger, the other a wounded
lion. Both are maddened--the one with wrath, the other with pain.
But in the last act, with the unutterable anguish of its closing
scenes--the swift remorse, the unavailing agony of that noble nature,
too late undeceived, the wild, pathetic tenderness wherewith Othello
clasped the dead Desdemona to his heart, smoothing back her loosened
tresses with an inarticulate cry of almost superhuman love and
woe--the horror of the catastrophe was all swallowed up in a sympathy
whose pain was wellnigh too great to be aroused by mimic despair. The
fall of the curtain was greeted with a tempest of applause. Men
sprang to their feet and wildly waved their hats in the air. Shouts of
"Bravo, Rossi!" and "Vive Rossi!" arose on all sides. Ladies stood
up in the boxes waving their handkerchiefs, and every hand and throat
joined in the universal uproar. Before noon the next day every seat in
the house was engaged for the second representation. The great actors
of the French stage came to study the acting of this new genius who
had so suddenly made his appearance in their midst. To this sudden
success s