f the press, have induced the
public to regard their performance as more important than the work which
it is their duty to represent. The last statement is becoming
inaccurate. It is hardly extravagant to say that when a play is written
at the dictation of an actor the acting will be more important than the
piece, for but little good work comes out of drama concocted under such
circumstances.

The dancers are really dancing on the ruins of their art. They have
lessened their skirts and their popularity at the same time. Old
pictures show (and I believe that old measurements are preserved to
indicate the fact) that in the days of the famous _pas de quatre_--not,
of course, the one at the Gaiety--skirts were worn far longer than the
modern _tutu_.

The costume of the prima ballerina assoluta in our grandfather's days
was something like an umbrella and a pair of braces: the umbrella shrank
to the _en-tout-cas_, and the _en-tout-cas_ to the open parasol; unless
the movement is arrested, in the course of time a lampshade will be
reached, and ultimately, say, fifty years hence, the Genee of the period
will have nothing more of skirt and petticoat than some kind of fringe
round the waist, indicating, like our coccygeal vertebrae, or the
rudimentary limbs of the whale, a mere useless atrophied apparatus.

It was once possible for the poses and movements of the dancer to be
graceful--the phrase "the poetry of motion" had a meaning. With the
stiff _tutu_ sticking out almost at right angles, elegance is quite
impossible. The present "star" resembles in outline one of the
grotesques used by Hogarth to illustrate his theories in his "Analysis
of Beauty," and one is inclined to laugh at her awkwardness when she
walks; nor is it easy to admire when she whirls round like a dancing
dervish, the _tutu_ mounting higher and becoming more and more
rectangular the faster she goes.

Mlle. Genee, delicious and graceful, in some flowing character-costume,
and then ridiculous in the _tutu_ that she adores, proved this more than
any amount of written explanation. She was such a great performer, so
perfect in mechanism, so harmonious from little foot to dainty head, so
brilliant in her miming, that one was forced to say sorrowfully "_Et
tu-tu_, Genee." Unfortunately the virtuoso mania is irresistible, and,
so far as graceful dancing is concerned, there is no hope that we may
see such a _pas de quatre_ as won fame in the palmy days of the balle