Nothing more exquisite than their dancing has ever been seen on the American stage. Theirs is the dancing which is graceful--which, indeed, is grace itself. Here is the art at its utmost possibility, purged of all its dross. When they are floating effortless thru space we cannot help recalling the possibly apocryphal anecdote which records the visit of Emerson and Margaret Fuller to the theater to see Fanny Elssler. They gazed with increasing delight, until at last Margaret Fuller could not contain her enthusiasm. She turned and said: "Ralph, this is poetry!" To which the philosopher is said to have responded: "Margaret, this is religion!" Perfection is always rare, and there is now only one Mlle. Genée, and only one Mlle. Pavlova, as there was only one Rosita Mauri a quarter of a century ago. It is a pity that the Danish dancer has had to appear here in an ordinary musical show and not in a framework more worthy of her and of her art, and better fitted to display it. She has revealed herself only in two or three _entrées de ballet_, as the French term them--incidental dances; and she has not yet been seen here in a _ballet d'action_, a complete story told in pantomime. It was the poet, François Coppée, who devised the plot of the 'Korrigane' for Rosita Mauri; and he had had Théophile Gautier as a predecessor in the preparation of a ballet-libretto. All those who are interested in every manifestation of the art of the drama, must find pleasure in the _ballet d'action_, with its adroit commingling of dance and pantomime; it gives a delight possible to no other form of the drama; and at its best it is more closely akin to pure poetry. Being her own manager, Mlle. Pavlova has been seen in a series of ballets more appropriate to her extraordinary gifts than those in which Mlle. Genée has been permitted to appear. III There was one scene of the 'Source,' a ballet popular at the Opéra in Paris during the exhibition of 1867, which must linger in the memory of all who had the good fortune to behold it--a scene so beautiful that it was borrowed for the 'White Fawn,' which was the successor of the 'Black Crook' here in the United States. It represented a silvery glade in the lone forest, with a mysterious lake, on the surface of which the spirits of the springtime came forth to disport themselves. It was a vision of airy grace and of haunting legend; and it is only one example of the poetic possibilities of the contribution of dance and pantomime in a coherent story. It may be well to recall the fact that the plots of these _ballets d'action_ are often strong enough to enable them to serve as the basis of a libretto for an opera. It was a ballet of Scribe's, for example, which was taken for the book of the 'Somnambula'; and the book of the favorite opera 'Martha' began its existence as a libretto for a ballet.