(’The Harp-Girl’).  The actors all said the last act was so stupid that we should make a fiasco.  I at last hit upon an idea.  We had, however, only a few hours to execute it in.  I changed the story:  instead of the play ending happily, I made the father kill his daughter accidentally, and then die of grief.  All the dialogue had to be improvised by the leading actress and myself.  I played the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter.  Such was the success of our invention that the piece was played eight nights in succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the triumph achieved by The Harp-Girl, bought from the author for a handsome sum the privilege of acting it in certain districts which were not included in my purchase of the drama.  Not being aware of the alterations we had made, and performing it according to the letter of the text, he made un fiasco solenne—­a dead failure.”

After the first performance of Zaire I took the liberty of observing to Salvini that a superb piece of “business” which marks his acting in the last act was not to be found in the text.  “Oh,” he replied, “I will tell you the origin of it.  I was playing at Naples, and one night, when I threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in the last act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like a tail.  I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to believe the clinging drapery was the wounded Zaire grasping me behind.  I appeared to dread even to look round, lest I should encounter her pallid face.  I hesitated, I trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last grasped the burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage to ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the white heap it made upon the floor.  Finally, just as I thought public curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow weary, I stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it from me with contempt, showing by the gesture that I had discovered what it was, and felt anger that such a trifle should thus alarm a bold man who had committed murder.”  This pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York Academy of Music one of his greatest ovations.

When asked why he did not learn English, “Ah!” he replied, “I am too old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control my knowledge of it.  When excited I should be lapsing into Italian, which would be very absurd.  You asked me the other day why I do not play Orestes.  I should make a queer young Greek with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days!  The time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked to play it.  I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger men.”  Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, “The best method is obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness.  If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you say, they will pardon many shortcomings.  And, above all, study, study, study!  All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student.  It has taken me years to master a single part.”