orror, from
horror to despair, and then reascend from this lowest degree to the
point whence he had started.[277]

Of course his soul felt none of these emotions. "If you asked this
famous man, who by himself was as well worth a journey to England to
see, as all the wonders of Rome are worth a journey to Italy, if you
asked him, I say, for the scene of _The Little Baker's Boy_, he played
it; if you asked him the next minute for the scene from _Hamlet_, he
played that too for you, equally ready to sob over the fall of his pies,
and to follow the path of the dagger in the air."[278]

Apart from the central proposition, Diderot makes a number of excellent
observations which show his critical faculty at its best. As, for
example, in answering the question, what is the truth of the stage? Is
it to show things exactly as they are in nature? By no means. The true
in that sense would only be the common. The really true is the
conformity of action, speech, countenance, voice, movement, gesture,
with an ideal model imagined by the poet, and often exaggerated by the
player. And the marvel is that this model influences not only the tone,
but the whole carriage and gait. Again, what is the aim of multiplied
rehearsals? To establish a balance among the different talents of the
actors. The supreme excellence of one actor does not recompense you for
the mediocrity of the others, which is brought by that very superiority
into disagreeable prominence. Again, accent is easier to imitate than
movement, but movements are what strike us most violently. Hence a law
to which there is no exception, namely, under pain of being cold, to
make your denouement an action and not a narrative.[279]

One of the strongest satires on the reigning dramatic style, Diderot
found in the need that the actor had of the mirror. The fewer gestures,
he said, the better; frequent gesticulation impairs energy and destroys
nobleness. It is the countenance, the eyes, it is the whole body that
ought to move, and not the arms.[280] There is no maxim more forgotten
by poets than that which says that great passions are mute. It depends
on the player to produce a greater effect by silence than the poet can
produce by all his fine speeches.[281] Above all, the player is to study
tranquil scenes, for it is these that are the most truly difficult. He
commends a young actress to play every morning, by way of orisons, the
scene of Athalie with Joas; to say for evensong some s