"My poor child, what else under the sun should they be? Isn't their whole art the affectation par excellence? The public won't stand that to-day, so one hears it said. If that be true it simply means that the theatre, as I care for it, that is as a personal art, is at an end."
"Never, never, never!" the girl cried in a voice that made a dozen people look round.
"I sometimes think it—that the personal art is at an end and that henceforth we shall have only the arts, capable no doubt of immense development in their way—indeed they've already reached it—of the stage-carpenter and the costumer. In London the drama is already smothered in scenery; the interpretation scrambles off as it can. To get the old personal impression, which used to be everything, you must go to the poor countries, and most of all to Italy."
"Oh I've had it; it's very personal!" said Miriam knowingly.
"You've seen the nudity of the stage, the poor, painted, tattered screen behind, and before that void the histrionic figure, doing everything it knows how, in complete possession. The personality isn't our English personality and it may not always carry us with it; but the direction's right, and it has the superiority that it's a human exhibition, not a mechanical one."
"I can act just like an Italian," Miriam eagerly proclaimed.
"I'd rather you acted like an Englishwoman if an Englishwoman would only act."
"Oh, I'll show you!"
"But you're not English," said Peter sociably, his arms on the table.
"I beg your pardon. You should hear mamma about our 'race.'"