Let us pass on to another observation. This time,
not to the advantage of the Italian, so far as acting is
concerned. They are, generally speaking, men of thought
and intellectual discussion, rather than of action. Most
Englishmen, who have been to a public school, would
be more ashamed, or would more easily admit to being
ashamed, of not being able to swim or throw a cricket-
ball than of not being able to discourse on political
economy, or to quote Ben Jonson. With the Italians,
the reverse is the case. They like to be thinking or
expressing their thoughts, be these profound or trivial ;
but doing things is not a delight to them. Now this



250 PLAYS AND PLAYERS IN MODERN ITALY

absence of action, this very repose that we have been
praising so, lately, comes at certain points to be a draw-
back upon the stage. That each actor in turn should
speak his speech with all the fluency of gesture, expression,
and voice, and then fall into statuesque rigidity, is not
conceivable ; nor is it tolerable that the often numerous
personages on the scene should be entirely devoid of
movement. In English real life, the supernumerary
figures might be occupied in some easy and noiseless
way : in Italy they would either be talking or in repose.
