“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, Moliere 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 Desordre 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.”