Nor is it alone the levities of Europe which have encompassed with a
gaseous atmosphere of enthusiasm these idols of the day. We appeal to our
sober, plodding, painstaking brother Jonathan. We move for returns of the
sums he has expended on his beloved Fanny, and for notes of the honours
conferred upon her, not only on the boards of his theatres and in the
publicity of his causeways, but amid the august nationalities of his
senate! "Fanny Elssler in Congress" has become as historical as the name
of Washington! As if for the purpose of proving that extremes meet, the
democrats of the New World were demonstrating the wildest infatuation in
favour of one dancer, while the great autocrat of the Old was exhibiting a
similar fervour in honour of another. La Gitana became all but
presidentess of the Transatlantic republic; La Bayadère depolarized the
tyrant of the Poles! But, above all, the Empress of Russia--albeit, the
lightest of sovereigns and coldest of women--was carried so far by her
enthusiasm as to fasten a bracelet of gems on the fair arm of Taglioni;
while the Queen-Dowager of England conferred a similar honour on the
Neapolitan dancer Cerito!
Now, what queen or princess, we should like to know, has lavished necklace,
or bracelet, or one poor pitiful brooch, on Miss Edgeworth or Miss Aitkin,
Mrs Somerville or Joanna Baillie, or any other of the female illustrations
of the age, saving these aerial machines which have achieved such enviable
supremacy? Mrs Marcet, who has taught the young idea of our three kingdoms
how to shoot; Miss Martineau, who has engrafted new ones on our oldest
crab-stocks, might travel from Dan to Beersheba without having a fatted
calf or a fatted capon killed for them, at the public expense. But let
Taglioni take the road, and what clapping of hands--what gratulation--what
curiosity--what expansion of delight!
The only wonder of all this is, that we should wonder about the matter.
Dancing constitutes that desideratum of the learned of all ages--an
universal language. Music, which many esteem much, is nearly as
nationalized in its rhythm as dialect in its words; whereas the organs of
sight are cosmopolitan. The eye of man and the foot of the dancer include
between them all nations and languages. The poetry of motion is
interpreted by the lexicon of instinct; and the unimpregnable grace of a
Taglioni becomes omnipotent and catholic as that of
"The statue that enchants the world!"
Who can doubt that the names of these sorceresses of our time will reach
posterity, as those of the Aspasias and Lauras of antiquity have reached
our own--as having held philosophers by the beard, and trampled on the
necks of the conquerors of mankind--as being those for whom Solon
legislated, and to whom Pericles succumbed?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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