FIFTEEN YEARS OF A DANCER’S LIFE WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HER DISTINGUISHED FRIENDS BY LOIE FULLER WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANATOLE FRANCE [Decorative Illustration] “SHE OUGHT TO WRITE OUT HER MEMORIES AND HER IMPRESSIONS.”--_Alexandre Dumas_ HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED ARUNDEL PLACE, HAYMARKET LONDON, S.W. [Decorative Illustration] MCMXIII [Illustration: LOIE FULLER _Photo_ _Langfier_] ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FRENCH. LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH INTRODUCTION I had seen her only as she had been seen by multitudes from every corner of the globe, on the stage, waving her draperies in the first light, or transformed into a great resplendent lily, revealing to us a new and dignified type of beauty. I had the honour of being presented to her at a luncheon of the _tour du monde_ at Boulogne. I saw an American lady with small features, with blue eyes, like water in which a pale sky is reflected, rather plump, quiet, smiling, refined. I heard her talk. The difficulty with which she speaks French adds to her power of expression without injuring her vivacity. It obliges her to rely on the rare and the exquisite, at each moment to create the requisite expression, the quickest and best turn of speech. Her words gush forth, the unaccustomed linguistic form shapes itself. As assistance she employs neither gestures nor motions, but only the expression of her eyes, which changes like the landscapes that are disclosed along a beautiful highway. And the basis of her conversation, now smiling and now serious, is one of charm and delightfulness. This brilliant artist is revealed as a woman of just and delicate sensibility, endowed with a marvellous perception of spiritual values. She is one who is able to grasp the profound significance of things that seem insignificant, and to see the splendour hidden in simple lives. Gleefully she depicts, with keen and brilliant stroke, the humble folk in whom she finds some ennobling and magnifying beauty. Not that she is especially devoted to the lowly, the poor in spirit. On the contrary she enters easily into the lives of artists and scholars. I have heard her say the most delicate, the subtlest things about Curie, Mme. Curie, Auguste Rodin and other geniuses. She has formulated, without desiring to do so, and perhaps without knowing it, a considerable theory of human knowledge and philosophy of art.