they do not expose a treasure-house in which are stored the recollections of the most envied times of their lives.
The little villino that I occupy is cared for by a couple whose only child is a little girl of eight. From my window I survey her activities and I have never yet seen her in play,
"Seen no little plan of chart or fragment
From her beam of human life
Shaped by herself with newly learned art."
When I look out in the morning she is likely to be sitting outside the gate as if awaiting something to transpire that would be worthy of observation, attention, or participation. When I return in the middle of the day and again in the evening and when Sundays or other times I am in my rooms for a protracted period, I see her ever busily engaged in doing nothing. The only imaginative or emotional activity that I have ever witnessed her display is that sometimes I find her humming and she always smiles and greets me most affably. At times I see other children make a visit to her, but it is obviously a ceremonious one, for there are no shrieks or yells, no tumbling or rolling, no scampering or chattering, none of that display of physical vitality and joy of living that lambs or colts or calves or even puppies or kittens make. They are like a miniature group of Giacondas, older than the rocks upon which they sit, who have tasted all the joys to satiety. The doll that I gave her has apparently been put away, not at all unlikely with a scapular or holy beads. At least, I have never seen her with it in her arms since the day she received it. There is no sign of miniature wheelbarrow or shovel or sandpile, no little wooden geegee, no bicycle or miniature locomotive, no blocks or other material from which to construct a castle or a kitchen, no indication whatsoever that she attempts to portray any of the vagrant thoughts or fleeting fancies that arise in her budding mind. When I go on a Sunday to the little villages in the Campagna or in the Castelli Romani to which the proletariat repair with their families in villeggiatura, I see hundreds of children, but never once have I seen any of them playing, nor are they noisy and boisterous. If they are clamorous and restless, it is for food or for appeasement of some other physical need. Even the little boys do not play in the streets. Their one source of amusement is for a number of them to gather around a pile of small stones used for repair of the road and to divert themselves by hurling them at one another when a carriage or an automobile is not passing, at which time they concentrate their efforts on attempts to slay the occupants of these vehicles with the deadly missiles at hand.
On the Janiculum where I live there is a paradise for children, a little park with the roaring, splashing fountain of St. Paolo at one end of it and the entrance to the broad, shaded driveway that traverses the Janiculum to St. Onofrio at the other. On either side of this drive are broad lawns interspersed with flowerbeds and shaded with most seductive trees, amongst which is Tasso's oak, now fallen into such a state of decrepitude that it has to have artificial support and braces. The place is often alive with children, painfully decorous and silent. They often remind me of Millet's "Man with the Hoe," bowed down with the weight of ages. Not infrequently I meet in the morning and in the evening whole troops of children going and returning from the accessible fields of Monte Verde, always lined up like soldiers, two abreast, and the only manifestation of externalized emotion I have ever seen in them is that occasionally their keepers—priest, nun, or sour-visaged guardian—permit them to break into song—patriotic anthem or lyric wail.
It is notorious that games play no such part in the diversion of the adult Italian as they do in the countries peopled by our own race. Golf, tennis, football, cricket, baseball are practically unknown except as they have been established by foreigners for their own use. Naturally they have attracted some Italians, but there is no general interest in them. Contests of endurance, such as bicycle races and rowing, they have, and horse-racing has a certain vogue, but chiefly because it facilitates taking chances on the winner. This is the more remarkable, for when they do go in for games they often excel, showing aptitude, endurance, and daring. There is no nationality that compares with them in their riding, for instance. It is not true to say that they do not play games. The Spanish game of ball known as pelota is played in some centres where the jeunesse dorée segregate, and another game of ball called pallone is played a little, but with no enthusiasm, and it arouses no considerable interest. In fact, nothing included under the head of sport plays a great rôle in Italy. Fortunately it is being encouraged, and within a generation we may confidently anticipate a decided change. It would, of course, be ridiculous to say that they do not shoot and fish. You often encounter in tramping through the country a man with a gun on his shoulder, but usually he is a pot-hunter, and now and then your rambles bring you face to face with a Nimrod, but in nine cases out of ten he likewise is animated by the desire for succulent food.
On superficial examination it seems extraordinary that this state of affairs should exist in a country which for many centuries seemed to have had its chief enjoyment in murder, sense-gratification, games, and contests of courage, strength, and endurance. No one can read the history of the days of Roman supremacy without being struck with the fact that the chief amusement of the populace of those days was play, display of strength, skill, dexterity, and inventiveness. Archæologists and others interested in unearthing and interpreting archaic remains tell us that the aphorism that there is nothing new under the sun is true so far as games are concerned, and I expect any day to hear that they have disinterred a golf course at Ostia, a diamond or a football field at Salerno. However, after reflection, it occurs to me that there are many reasons why the Italians, young and old, do not play spontaneously and intentionally, or as naturally and pleasurably as those of other nations. It is easy enough to understand why all play ceased in those days of intellectual apathy, artistic sterility, and emotional decay which, beginning with the fourth century A.D., continued for nearly a thousand years. I have never looked into the matter with sufficient care to be able to say whether or not there was a renaissance of the play instinct or any elaborate and wide-spread manifestation of it beginning with the fourteenth century, but my impression is that there was. We have records of tournaments and jousts and games of various kinds in certain cities of Italy, such as Salerno; there still exist the physical features or foundations of such play. Any one who has read Italian history until the successful movement of nationality of 1870 will not be astonished that play in any form did not have a great vogue during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The people were too busy devising plans to outwit their neighbors and to get possession of their lands and their treasures to have time for play.
The Italian nature or temperament is not favorable to development of the play instinct. The Italian likes to act, or to display histrionic possession, more than anything else; it has often been remarked that they are born actors, and not only do they produce more great actors and actresses than any other country but you see more finished and artistic acting in Italy than in any other country of the world. They are devoted to mimicry, adepts in pantomime, and their "marionettes" have reached a high degree of artistic development. As for the cinema, they go to it with the ardor of a lover to his mistress. The theatre and gambling is the Italian idea of diversion, relaxation, and amusement.
The display and satisfaction of the play instinct spell work, oftentimes most laborious work carefully planned and elaborately carried out. The successful pursuit of games of all sorts requires not only work but oftentimes protracted physical training and profound physical effort. The Italians do not take kindly to them. In the south of Italy there are six months of the year and often more when no one is keenly disposed to active physical effort and at no time in the year is there that atmospheric incitation to physical activity that exists in England or in our own country. It may well be that children of the South do not take kindly to play because of the great and protracted heat, during which they are taught to remain within doors several hours in the middle of the day, and children of the lower classes are often obliged to work during the cool hours.
Italian children mature very early, and the emotional disequilibrium that comes with the supremacy of a new internal secretion makes them self-conscious, bashful, retiring, and inimical to play. I am not inclined to lay much stress on any of these occurrences as an explanation for the apathy for play shown by Italian children. Jewish children, who live in countries quite as hot as Italy, and who certainly mature as early as Italian children, are naturally playful, and not only playful but inventive of games. If one reads the biographies of some of the literary Hebrews of America who have set forth in print their renunciations and their successes, it will be seen that despite their most unfavorable surroundings the play instinct in childhood—which, after all, is the imaginative faculty—is often very strong.