Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/62

Rh "It has the worst fault of all, it is unnatural."

"Yes; it is very curious, but the French will have so much vice in the drama, and the English must have so much virtue, that a natural or possible play is an impossibility now upon either stage."

"You looked more interested in the Majolica this morning"

"How, did you see me?"

"I was passing through the tower of the Podestà on business. Is it not wonderful our old pottery? It is intensely to be regretted that Ginori and Carocci imitate it so closely; it vulgarises a thing whose chief beauty after all is association and age."

"Yes; what charm there is in a marriage plate of Maestro Giorgio's, or a sweetmeat dish of your Orazio Fontana's! But there is very scanty pleasure in reproductions of them, however clever these may be, such as Pietro Gay sends out to Paris and Vienna Exhibitions."

"You mean, there can be no mind in an imitation?"

"Of course; I would rather have the crudest