_CHAPTER XIX

SALVINI AS MAN AND ACTOR_


It is not often, I fancy, that one defends one's hero or friend from
himself. Yet that about describes what I am doing now for the famous
Salvini. An acquaintance of mine, a man self-contained and dignified,
who was reading the other day, startled me by muttering aloud, "Oh, that
mine enemy would write a book!" and a moment later, flinging the volume
from him, he cried: "Where were his friends? Why did they permit him to
write of himself?"

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed in bewilderment, "where were whose friends?
Of whom are you speaking, and why are you so excited?"

"Oh," he answered impatiently, "it's the disappointment! I judged the
man by his splendid work; but look at that book--the personal pronoun
forms one solid third of it. I know it does!" and he handed me the
volume in question.

"Well," I said, as I glanced at the title,--"Autobiography of Tommaso
Salvini,"--"no matter what the book may say, Tommaso Salvini is a mighty
actor." And then I began to read. At first I was a bit taken aback. I
had thought Mr. Macready considered himself pretty favourably, had made
a heavy demand on the I's and my's in his book; but the bouquets he