with character. The mimetic action concerns the varying luck of la morra, that game that consists in guessing at the number of fingers open on the opponent’s suddenly revealed hand; perhaps the only gambling game for which every one is born with full equipment of implements. To a votary, every glance at his own five fingers must seem a temptation to seek a game. For whatever reason, it seems to be a necessary element in the life of the Italian labourer. The moment of the Tarantella given over to la morra is, as it were, an acknowledgment of its place among the people’s recreations.
As castanets are to the dances of Spain, the tambourine is to those of Italy. Like castanets, the tambourine produces an amazing variety of tones when handled by an expert. The effect its jovial emphasis of tempo has on the enthusiasm of dancer and spectator need not be dwelt upon; again sobriety succumbs before rhythm’s twofold attack on eye and ear together. Vivacity is insistent, too, in the colours of the Neapolitan costume. The tambourine is dressed in ribbons, characteristically the national red, white, and stinging green. Stripes as brilliant as caprice may suggest adorn the girl’s head-dress, apron and skirt. Nor must her more substantial finery be forgotten; until a responsible age is attained by children of her own, she is guardian of an accumulating collection of necklaces and earrings, bracelets and rings that are as a family symbol of respectability. Just as in other nations the inherited table silver is brought out to grace occasions of rejoicing, the Neapolitan young woman on like occasion exhibits gold, silver and gay red coral in adornment of her person—adding much to the sparkle of the Tarantella.
The boy (in these and the pictures of la Ciociara represented by Mlle. La Gai) has a necktie as red as dyes will yield, and a long fisherman’s cap of the same colour. It is Italian stage tradition, by the way, that the Neapolitan fisher boy’s trouser-legs should be rolled up to slightly different heights.
The dance itself is full of pretty groups, well spiced with moods. The steps are happily varied and well composed. There are many turns, the boy frequently assisting with the familiar spiral twist of the girl’s upraised hands—a device that, with any execution back of it, always produces a pleasant effect. The turns also are highly enhanced in value when, as they frequently do, they terminate so as to bring the dancers into an effective embrace. Preparation for a pirouette by both dancers is utilised, at one point, as a pretext for some delightfully grotesque poses.
It is a dance worthy of study and performance by artists, and of the enthusiasm of appreciators of good work. In Corinne occurs a passage reflecting its impression on Madame de Staël. The following selections seem most suggestive of the effect produced: “ ... beating the air with her tambourine—in all her movements showing a grace, a lissomeness, a blending of modesty and abandon, which gave the spectator some idea of the power exercised over the imagination by the Indian dancing-girls, when they are, so to speak, poets in the dance, expressing varied feelings by characteristic steps and picturesque attitudes. Corinne was so well acquainted with the different attitudes which painters and sculptors have depicted, that by a slight movement of her arms, holding the tambourine sometimes above her head, sometimes in front of her, while the other hand ran over the