nation 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 t