ties of these different kinds of
dances, all center in the propriety or truth of nature. Looks,
movements, attitudes, gestures, should in the dancer, all
have an appropriate meaning; so plainly expressed as to be
instantaneously understood by the spectator, without giving him
the trouble of unriddling them: otherwise, it is like talking to
them in a foreign language for which an interpretor is needed.

But to give a sentiment, a man must have it first: where a
pathetic sentiment is well possessed of the mind, the expression
of it is diffused over the whole body.

The theatre shows to advantage a well proportioned dancer.
A tall person appears the more majestic on it; but those of a
middling stature are more generally fit for every character;
and may make up in gracefulness what they want in size. The
remarkably tall commonly want the graces to be seen in those of
the more general standard.

A young dancer who displays a dawn of genius, cannot be too much
exhorted to deliver himself up to the power of nature; so that
acquiring a particular manner of his own, he may himself proceed
on original. If he would hope to arrive at any eminence in the
art, he must break the shackles of a servile imitation, and
preserve nothing but the principles and grounds of his art,
which will be so far from fettering him, that they will assist
his soaring upon the wings of his own genius.

Where a dancer undertakes to represent a subject on the theatre,
he must ground his plan of performance on the selecting all the
most proper situations for furnishing the most strikingly
pictures, prospects, and consequently, producing the greatest
effect.

This was doubtless the great secret of Pilades, the founder, at
least in Rome, of the pantomime art. It was on this choice of
situations, that the understanding whole pieces, both tragic and
comic, executed in dances, entirely depends.

And here, upon mentioning the pantomime art, be it allowed me
to defend it against the objections made to it, by those who
consider it only under a partial or vulgar point of view.

If any one should pretend that the pantomime art is superior to
the actor's power of representation in tragedy or comedy, or
that such an entertainment of dumb show ought to exclude that of
speaking characters; nothing could be more ridiculous or absurd
than such a proposition.

That indeed would be rejecting one of the most noble
improvements of nature, in favor of an art rather