use of her hands_. All the others have some important business for
them. She none. She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or
bridle, or what you will, with her right hand, her left on her side.

Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how,
being essentially _un_able to talk, they try to make lips of their
fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and
fist at their antagonists--dumb essentially, all the while, if they
knew it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branches
in the wind.

You will at first think her figure ungainly and stiff. It is so,
partly, the dress being more coarsely repainted than in any other of
the series. But she is meant to be both stout and strong. What she has
to say is indeed to persuade you, if possible; but assuredly to
overpower you. And _she_ has not the Florentine girdle, for she
does not want to move. She has her girdle broad at the waist--of all
the sciences, you would at first have thought, the one that most needed
breath! No, says Simon Memmi. You want breath to run, or dance, or
fight with. But to speak!--If you know _how_, you can do your work
with few words; very little of this pure Florentine air will be enough,
if you shape it rightly.

Note, also, that calm setting of her hand against her side. You think
Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No, says Simon Memmi.
Above all things,--_cool_.

And now let us read what is written on her scroll:--Mulceo, dum loquor,
varios induta colores.