Читать книгу: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876», страница 17

A DINNER WITH ROSSI

"Come and dine with us next Thursday," said an American literary lady now residing in Paris to a friend or two recently. "We expect Rossi on that day, and I think you would like to meet him."

The company was but a small one, the intention of the hostess being not to show off her distinguished guest, but to bring together a few congenial spirits to pass a pleasant hour in his society. Punctual to the minute, the hero of the occasion entered, his superb physique and majestic presence showing to even greater advantage in the irreproachable evening garb of a finished gentleman than in the velvet and tinsel of his stage attire. As is the case with almost all really handsome actors or actresses, Rossi is finer-looking off the stage than on it. The simplicity and refinement of his manners, totally free from anything like affectation or posing for effect, are very noticeable. His head is noble, both in form and carriage, and he has a way, when eager in conversation, of pushing back the masses of his profuse chestnut hair which gives a sort of leonine look to the broad massive brow and intelligent features.

Once seated at table, the conversation naturally turned upon the dramatic art and upon Shakespeare. Every person present except the king of the feast was an American, and a Shakespeare fanatic as well. Rather to the surprise of even his most ardent admirers, the great tragedian proved to be a keen and intelligent Shakespearian scholar, not only of the roles that he has made his own, but also of the whole of the works of the world's greatest dramatist.

"I date my love for Shakespeare," said Rossi, "from the time that I was a little child. My grandfather possessed a set of his plays translated into Italian, and whenever I was restless and unable to go to sleep he would take me into his arms and lull me to rest with tales from these treasured volumes.

"It was I who first introduced Shakespeare in his veritable form on the Italian stage. Up to that time the classic form had been alone considered admissible for tragedy. The first play that I produced was Othello. When in the first scene Brabantio came to the window, the audience began to laugh. 'Is this a tragedy?' they cried—'a man talking out of a window!' They laughed all through the first acts. But," continued Rossi, looking round with a sudden flash from his expressive eyes, "when the scene with Iago came they ceased to laugh; and henceforward they laughed no more. At the present time Shakespeare is thoroughly appreciated in Italy. Our audiences would not endure the altered and garbled versions of the French stage. Rouvière once undertook to play in Italy the version of Hamlet constructed by the elder Dumas and M. V–. When, in the last act, the Ghost appeared to tell Hamlet Tu vivras, the audience rose en masse and fairly shouted and jeered the performers off the stage. It is in Germany, however, that Shakespeare is best known and understood. The very bootblacks in the street know all about him and his greatest works."

The fact now came out that Rossi is an accomplished linguist. He reads and understands both English and German, though he speaks neither language. French he speaks as fluently as he does Italian, and he is also versed in Spanish. He spoke rapturously of the German Shakespeare (Schlegel's translation), declaring that he considered it nearly equal to the original.

"Next to Shakespeare, but at a great distance below him, I would rank Moliere," said Rossi in answer to a query from one of the guests. "Moliere has given us real types of character and real humor. But he was the man of his epoch, not for all time. He has painted for us the men and manners of his day and generation: he did not take all humanity for a study. Therefore, his works appear old-fashioned on the modern stage, while those of Shakespeare will never seem faded or out of date."

"What a wonder, what a marvel was Shakespeare! He was an Englishman born and bred, yet he turns to Italy and paints for us a picture of Italian life and love such as no Italian hand has ever drawn. His heart throbs, his imagination glows, with all the fire and fervor of the South. He depicts for us a Moor, an African, and the sun of Africa scorches his brain and inflames his passions."

"And Hamlet," I remarked, "is thoroughly of the North—a German even, rather than Englishman."

"To me," answered Rossi, "Hamlet represents no nationality and no one type of character. He is the image of humanity. Hamlet is to me not a man, but Man. The sufferings, the doubts, the vague mysteries of life are incarnate in his person. He is ever checked by the Unknown. He is tortured by the phantasm of Doubt. Is the spectre indeed his father's shade? has it spoken truth? is it well to live? is it best to die?—such are the problems that perplex his brain."

"To be or not to be—that is the question; but it is only one of the questions that haunt his soul."

"A distinguished English actor who had come to Paris to see me act once asked me why, in the first scene with the Ghost, I betray no terror, while in the scene with the Queen I crouch in affright behind a chair, wild with alarm, the moment the phantom appears. I answered that in the first scene the Ghost comes before Hamlet as the image of a beloved and lamented parent, while in the second-named instance he appears as an embodiment of conscience. For Hamlet has disobeyed the mandate of the spectre: he has dared to threaten and upbraid his mother.

"The reason why the Ghost is visible to Marcellus, Bernardo and Horatio In the first act, and not to the Queen in the third, has always appeared to me very simple. The phantom appears only to those who loved and mourned the dead king. Not to his false wife, not to her who, if not cognizant of his murder, is yet wedded to his murderer, will the pale Shape appear.

"Hamlet, above all tragedies, is independent of the accessories of scenery and costume. With a slight change of surroundings the character might be performed in modern dress without injury to its marvelous individuality."

Rossi was much surprised when he learned that most of the stage-business in Hamlet which he had studied out for himself formed part and parcel of the traditions of the play on the American and English boards. Among the points that he specified as having been thus thought out was the reference to the two miniatures in the scene with the Queen—

 
Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
 

and he strongly deprecated the idea of two life-sized portraits hanging against the wall, as is sometimes the usage.

Mention was made of Bulwer's Richelieu by one of the guests as a part peculiarly fitted to the powers of the great tragedian, and he was asked if he knew the play.

"No," answered Rossi, "and I should scarcely care to add it to my repertoire, which is already rather an extensive one. I have personated in my time over four hundred characters, including all the prominent personages of Alfieri, Molière and Goldoni."

"Then you play comedy as well as tragedy? Have you ever appeared as Shakespeare's Benedick?"

"Never, but I may perhaps study the character for my approaching tour in the United States. My other Shakespearian characters, besides those in which I have already appeared in Paris, are Coriolanus, Shylock, and Timon of Athens. Once I began to study Richard III., but chancing to see Bogumil Dawison in that character, I was so delighted with his personation that I gave up all thoughts of performing the part myself."

At this juncture our host attempted to fill Rossi's glass with some peculiarly choice wine, but the tragedian stopped him with a smile. "I am very temperate in my habits," he said, "and drink nothing but light claret. I am not one of those that think that an actor can never play with proper fire unless he is half drunk, like Kean in Désordre et Genie. I may have very little genius—"

But here a universal outcry interrupted the speaker. That proposition was evidently wholly untenable, in that company at least.

"Well, then," added Rossi laughing, "whatever genius I may possess, I do not believe in disorder."

This little incident turned the conversation on the modern French drama, whereof Rossi spoke rather slightingly, stigmatizing it as mechanical, being composed of plays written to be performed and not to live. "In Victor Hugo's dramas," he remarked, "there are some fine lines and noble passages, but the characters are always Victor Hugo in a mask: they are never real personages. It is always the author who speaks—never a new individuality. As to the classic dramatists of France, they are intolerable. Corneille is perhaps a shade better than Racine, but both are stiff, pompous and unnatural: their characters are a set of wooden puppets that are pulled by wires and work in a certain fixed manner, from which they never deviate.

"It was Voltaire that taught the French to despise Shakespeare. He called him a barbarian, and the French believe that saying true to the present time. Yet he did not hesitate to steal Othello when he wanted to write Zaïre, or, rather, he went out on the boulevards, picked out the first good-looking barber he could find, dressed him up in Eastern garments, and then fancied that he had created a French Othello."

"I saw Mounet-Sully at one of the performances of your Othello" I remarked. "I wonder what he thought of his own personation of Orosmane when he witnessed the real tragedy?"

"Had Mounet-Sully been able to appreciate Othello" answered Rossi, "he never could have brought himself to personate Orosmane."

Some one then asked Rossi what he thought of the Comédie Frarçaise.

"The Comédie Française," said Rossi, "like every school of acting that is founded on art, and not on Nature, is falling into decadence. It is ruled by tradition, not by the realities of life and passion. One incident that I beheld at a rehearsal at that theatre in 1855 revealed the usual process by which their great performers study their art. I was then fulfilling an engagement in Paris with Ristori, and, though only twenty-two years of age, I was her leading man and stage-manager as well. The Italian troupe was requested to perform at the Comédie Française on the occasion of the benefit of which I have spoken, and we were to give one act of Maria Stuart, When we arrived at the theatre to commence our rehearsal the company was in the act of rehearsing a scene from Tartuffe which was to form part of the programme on the same occasion. M. Bressant was the Tartuffe, and Madeleine Brohan was to personate Elmire. They came to the point where Tartuffe lays his hand on the knee of Elmire. Thereupon, Mademoiselle Brohan turned to the stage-manager and asked, 'What am I to do now?' 'Well,' said that functionary, 'Madame X– used to bite her lips and look sideways at the offending hand; Madame Z– used to blush and frown, etc.' But neither of them said, What would a woman like Elmire—a virtuous woman—do if so insulted by a sneaking hypocrite? They took counsel of tradition, not of Nature. In fact, the French stage is given over to sensation dramas and the opéra bouffe, and such theatres as the Comédie Française and the Odéon have but a forced and artificial existence."

"Not a word against the opéra bouffe!" remarked one of the lady-guests, laughing. "Did I not see you enjoying yourself immensely at the second representation of La Boulangère a des Écus?"

Whereupon Rossi assumed an air of conscious guilt most comical to see.

Some one then asked him at what age and in what character he had made his début. His reply was: "I was just fourteen, and I played the soubrette characters in an amateur company—a line that I could hardly assume with any degree of vraisemblance now." And he put his head on one side, thrust his hands into a pair of imaginary apron-pockets and looked around with a pert, chambermaid-like air so absurdly unsuited to his noble features and intellectual brow—to say nothing of his stalwart physique—that all present shrieked with laughter.

The evening was now drawing to a close, and the guests began to take their departure. When Rossi came to say farewell his hostess asked him if he would do her the favor of writing his autograph in her copy of Shakespeare. He assented at once, and taking up the pen, he wrote in Italian these lines: "O Master! would that I could comprehend thee even as I love thee!" and then appended his name.

A peculiar brightness and geniality of temperament, a childlike simplicity of manner, united to a keen and cultivated intellect and to a thorough knowledge of social conventionalities,—such was the impression left by Signor Rossi on the minds of those present. There was a total absence of conceit or of self-assertion that was very remarkable in a member of his profession, and one, too, of such wide-spread celebrity. The general verdict of Europe is that he is as great an actor as Salvini, while his répertoire is far more important and varied: it remains to be seen whether the United States will endorse the verdict of Italy and of Paris.

L.H.H.

"FOUNDER'S DAY" AT RAINE'S HOSPITAL

MAY DAY in London would not seem at first sight to realize the traditionary associations connected with its name, but in a certain parish of the city a more solid interest attaches to this day, and young girls look forward to the ceremony which marks it with more anxiety than ever did village-lass to her expected royalty of a day. Twice a year (the Fifth of November being the other occasion) a wedding-portion of one hundred pounds is given by lot to one girl among the many whose antecedents, as prescribed by the founder's will, entitle them to become candidates. This endowment is connected with what is known as Raine's Asylum in the parish of St. George's-in-the-East, London. The parish is populous and unfashionable, and proportionately poor and interesting. Among its members in the last century was Henry Raine, a brewer, who in 1719 founded two schools for the free education of fifty girls and fifty boys, respectively. In 1736 he founded and endowed a new school, called the Asylum, for teaching, clothing and training forty girls to domestic service, the girls to be chosen from among the children of the lower school. In this latter school each girl stays four years, and the system has worked so well that the scholars are greatly sought after as servants. At the age of twenty-two any girl, educated there, who can produce good testimonials while in service, may become a candidate for a marriage-portion of one hundred pounds. Six girls draw for it on May Day, and six on the Fifth of November, the unsuccessful ones being entitled to draw again from time to time until they get it. The drawing is preceded by a special service in the parish church, the boys and girls from the lower schools being present, and going in procession from the school to the church arrayed in quaint, old-fashioned costume. The former wear a half-nautical costume, the neighborhood being in many ways connected with sea-pursuits: the latter are dressed in blue stuff gowns, a white apron and a handkerchief folded over the breast, and a small white cap bound round with a Blue ribbon. Every one, from the gorgeous beadle to the youngest child, has also a bouquet of flowers on this occasion. The beadle is an "institution" that has disappeared in America, but which still looms in awful official grandeur before the mind's eye of every London-bred child. On these occasions he is in all his glory: his military costume and silver-headed staff are the very embodiment of dignity, and to the less awed spectator of riper years he fills in a niche of old-time conventionality very picturesquely. The service is followed by the wedding of the successful candidate of the previous occasion, so that each of the two memorable days becomes a double festival. The bells strike a merry peal, and the procession forms once more and goes back to the Asylum, where, in a curious apartment, the walls of which are covered with the names of donors to the charity, the drawing takes place. The girls of the Asylum enter the room and begin by singing a short hymn, accompanied by an old-fashioned organ. The treasurer of the Asylum Fund, in exact compliance with the explicit directions of the founder's charter, takes a half sheet of white paper and writes the words "One Hundred Pounds" on it, then five other blank half sheets, and wraps each tight round a little roller of wood tied with a narrow green ribbon. The knot of each is then firmly sealed with red sealing-wax, and all the rolls formally deposited in a large canister placed on a small table in the middle of the room. There is nothing else on the table except a candle in a small candlestick, to be used in sealing the rolls. The treasurer stands by as each candidate draws, and when all the rolls are drawn the girls go up to the chairwoman (generally the rector's wife), at the upper end of the room. She then cuts the ribbon of each and returns the roll to its owner. It is not long before the fortunate one is recognized. The scene is full of interest even to a stranger, and was evidently one of great pleasure to the founder himself, as appears from the wording of his will, in which he exhorts his nephews to buy four thousand pounds of stock for the permanent provision of these portions. "I doubt not," he says, "but my nephews would cheerfully purchase the said stock if they had seen, as I have, six poor innocent maidens come trembling to draw the prize, and the fortunate maiden that got it burst into tears with excess of joy." It is likely that even before he had founded and endowed the Asylum, Henry Raine had often given away portions to deserving young girls. That drawn on May Day is not given until after the wedding on November 5, and that drawn in November is given in May. The dowry consists of gold pieces in an old-fashioned silk purse, and is formally presented to the young couple at the committee dinner which takes place after the drawing. Of course, the husband's character is quite as strictly inquired into as that of the bride, and unless this is perfectly satisfactory to the rector, treasurer and trustees the portion is withheld—a wise provision against fortune-hunting. A wedding-repast is also provided for the bridal party at the same time, but in a separate room, and to neither of these banquets are the public admitted: a few personal friends of the trustees are sometimes asked. The dinner is a pretty sight, the girls of the lower school waiting on the committee. The treasurer, the rector and a few others accompany the presentation of the portion with kind and congratulatory speeches, and the girls sing appropriate hymns in the intervals.

The building called Raine's Asylum (or sometimes Hospital) is a plain, ugly, square mass, as all specimens of the so-called Georgian "architecture" are apt to be. The London atmosphere has rather blackened than mellowed its crude tone of red brick and white stone till the whole is of the uniform color of India ink. Over the projecting portico stands the bust of the founder in wig and bands, looking more like a scholar or a divine than a brewer, and leaving the impression of a good, truthful, thoughtful face, with a long slender nose, thin mouth and broad and massive forehead. Behind the Asylum stretches a garden—not a small one for such a locality—and, though London gardens are not apt to be cheery places, this one has at least the merit of standing as evidence of the kind-hearted founder's intention to bestow as much fresh air as possible on his protégées.

B.M.

NOTES

TURKEY is the pièce de résistance of European politics. It has lasted through the sitting of a century. At intervals the assembled gourmands would simultaneously bend their eyes upon it; and an energetic sharpening of carving-knives and poising of forks would spring up with a synchronous shuffling of plates. Slashing would sometimes follow, and slices were served round with more or less impartiality and contentment. But the choice cuts remain, and never was the interest or anxiety of the guests more highly strung than at present. The excitement, pleasurable in itself, has become more so from habit. Were the dish to be finally cleared, how sadly it would be missed! "What shall we do with it?" would have lost its perplexities in favor of "What shall we do without it?" It may be well doubted if the latter question will soon become troublesome. Empires are, like the Merry Monarch, an unconsciously long time in dying. Atrophy appears to spin out their existence. The process lasted with the Turk's predecessor at Byzantium six or eight centuries. For barely two, if we date from Sobieski instead of Don John of Austria, has it been going on with him. He bids fair to live long enough to see a great deal of change disturb, if not prostrate, his physicians before it comes in its final shape to him.

This land of law, lawyers and lawmakers is badly in want of a jurist or two. Advocates, special pleaders, log-rollers, and codes that are recodified every twelvemonth are poor substitutes for a few men capable of perceiving the principles of equity, systematizing their expression and making them simple, uniform and absolute in practice. When a judge in one of the largest and most enlightened States of the Union grants a writ of error to a convict whom he has twice sentenced to be hanged, it is plain to the dullest unprofessional eye that something is radically and mischievously wrong with bench, bar, or legislature, or with all three. It makes the administration of justice, in its best aspect, a lottery; the goddess blindfolded, it may be, but only for drawing from the wheel. In the worst aspect it makes of it a hideous mockery. With the proverbial uncertainty of the law we have been long familiar. It is measurably curable. We are now confronted by its proverbial certainty to go wrong. Whether the cause lie in the mode of election and tenure of judges, a tendency of the bar to limit its responsibility by the title and the ethics of the attorney, or the endless tinkering of forty legislatures, or in all of these combined with other influences that might be suggested, it is evident that we are ripe for law reform, and that our Romilly cannot appear too soon.