Salvini's relations with his son were charming, though it sounded a bit
odd to hear the stalwart young man calling him "papa." Alessandro had
dark eyes and black hair, so naturally admired the opposite colouring,
and I never heard him speak of his father's English second wife without
some reference to her fairness. It would be "my blond mamma," "my little
fair mamma," "my father's pretty English wife," or "before my little
blond mamma died." He felt the "mamma" and "papa" jarred on American
ears, and often corrected himself; but when Signor Salvini himself once
told me a story of his father, he referred to him constantly as "my
papa," just as he does in this book of his that makes him seem so
egotistical and so determined to find at all costs the vulnerable spot,
the weak joint in the armour, of all other actors.

Certainly he could not have been an egotist in the bosom of his family.
A friend in London went to call upon his young wife, his "white lily."
She was showing the house to her visitor, when, pausing suddenly before
a large portrait of her famous husband, she became silent, her uplifted
eyes filled, her lips smiled tremulously, she gave a little gasp, and
whispered, "Oh, he's almost like God to me!"

The friend, startled, even shocked, was about to reprove her, but a
glance into the innocent face showed no sacrilege had been meant, only
she had never been honoured, protected, happy, before--and some women
worship where they love. Could an egotist win and keep such affection
and gratitude as that?

Among those who complain of his opinionated book I am amused to find one
who fairly exhausted himself in praise, not to say flattery, of this
same Salvini. It is very diverting to the mere looker-on, when the world
first proclaims some man a god, bowing down and worshipping him, and