He was always the
snake in the grass; he showed the villain in all the scenes. He could
not resist the temptation of making polished and ornate effects.
Henry Irving's Othello was condemned almost as universally as his Iago
was praised. For once I find myself with the majority. He screamed and
ranted and raved--lost his voice, was slow where he should have been
swift, incoherent where he should have been strong. I could not bear to
see him in the part. It was painful to me. Yet night after night he
achieved in the speech to the Senate one of the most superb and
beautiful bits of acting of his life. It was _wonderful_. He spoke the
speech, beaming on Desdemona all the time. The gallantry of the thing is
indescribable.
I think his failure as Othello was one of the unspoken bitternesses of
Henry's life. When I say "failure" I am of course judging him by his own
standard, and using the word to describe what he was to himself, not
what he was to the public. On the last night, he rolled up the clothes
that he had worn as the Moor one by one, carefully laying one garment on
top of the other, and then, half-humorously and very deliberately said,
"_Never again_!" Then he stretched himself with his arms above his head
and gave a great sigh of relief.
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