Some idea of the character of his acting might be gained from the fact that the lady who played Desdemona in St. Petersburg, became very much alarmed at what appeared real passion on his part, in acting Othello; though he was never rough or indelicate in any of his acting with ladies, yet she was so frightened that she used to scream with real fear.
It is said that on another occasion in St. Petersburg, that in the midst of his acting in scene two, act five, when he was quoting these words,
"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul; Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars! It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then--put out the light! If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me: But once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature; I know not where is that Promethean heat, That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose, I cannot give it vital growth again; It needs must wither:--I'll smell it on the tree-- (_kissing her_) O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword:--One more, one more:-- Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after:--One more--and this the last: So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep. But they are cruel tears: This sorrow's heavenly: It strikes where it doth love."
the house was so carried away with the manner in which he rendered it, that a young man stood up and exclaimed with the greatest earnestness: "She is innocent, Othello, she is innocent," and yet so interested was he in the acting himself that he never moved a muscle but continued as if nothing had been said to embarrass him. The next day he learned, while dining with a Russian prince, that a young man who had been present had been so affected by the play that he had been seized with a sudden illness and died the next day.
Mr. Aldridge was a welcome guest in the ranks of the cultured and wealthy, and was often in the "salons" of the haughty aristocrats of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Titled ladies wove, knitted and stitched their pleasing emotions into various memorials of friendship. In his palatial residence at Sydenham, near London, were collected many presents of intrinsic value, rendered almost sacred by association. Prominent among these tokens of regard was an autographic letter from the King of Prussia, transmitting the first medal of art and sciences; the Cross of Leopold, from the Emperor of Russia, and a Maltese cross received at Berne.