. Shakespeare on the stage. erformers; butthe American community, as a whole, naturallyregards as an impertinence the top-lofty attitudeof foreign visitors to the American Stage who assumeto dispense instruction as to the function of dramaticart and the meaning of English dramatic should be remarked, furthermore, that the writ-ings of those peripatetic players are, in general, notonly impertinent but ridiculous. Some of the viewspromulgated by foreign actors and some of the per-formances exhibited by them would speedily exile anyEnglish-speaking actor to the obscurity of the back
. Shakespeare on the stage. erformers; butthe American community, as a whole, naturallyregards as an impertinence the top-lofty attitudeof foreign visitors to the American Stage who assumeto dispense instruction as to the function of dramaticart and the meaning of English dramatic should be remarked, furthermore, that the writ-ings of those peripatetic players are, in general, notonly impertinent but ridiculous. Some of the viewspromulgated by foreign actors and some of the per-formances exhibited by them would speedily exile anyEnglish-speaking actor to the obscurity of the back-woods. AN OFFENSIVE THEORY. The tragedy of Othello has not escaped indignityin print. One peculiarly offensive view of the subject,and one that is not less absurd than it is offensive,was set forth in a treatise on The System of Shake-speares Dramas, by D. J. Snider, and, strange tosay, it has not only been tolerated but sometimeseven approved. That view maintains that jealousybetween Othello and Desdemona must necessarily. From a photograph ERMETE NOVELLI AS OTHELLO OTHELLO 307 occur because of the racial difference between them(which is to look at the subject through the eyes oflago), and furthermore that Othello, in the poetsscheme, must be assumed to have committed adulteiywith Emilia, the wife of lago, and for that reason,being aware of the possible fact of infidelity in themarried state, is the more credulous of lagos insinua-tions and affirmations relative to unchastity on thepart of Desdemona. No extravagance of misunder-standing could be more monstrous. Desdemona isnever jealous. The last words that fall from herlips as she dies,—words spoken in order to shieldOthello,—ascribe her death to her own hand,and express absolute fidelity of love to her hus-band: Commend me to my kind lord. Othellosjealousy is no ethnological consequence but a passionartfully inspired by the hellish ingenuity of an intel-lectual monster. What except folly could supposethat Othello, if he
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