Virtuosity had always been the danger of the Italian school. The rapid degeneration of the ballet was due to the insistence upon a merely technical accomplishment at the expense of grace and spontaneity. Admiration was centred exclusively in the difficulty of the execution of the steps. The most elaborate gestures and evolutions of the old school were laboured and exaggerated. In particular the _pointes_ or dance upon the tips of the toes came to be regarded as the highest form of accomplishment. This step when it is abused becomes the curse of ballet-dancing. There are moments when it completes an attitude, giving a suggestion of ethereal lightness, the poise of a winged god alighting for an instant upon the earth. In one brief passage across the stage, the tips of the toes scarcely brushing the dust off the boards, the dancer may capture something of the grace of a bird’s flight. But the step in itself is unnatural, and naturalness is above all things essential in the dance. When the part which it plays in the ballet is no longer incidental--the emphasis given to a moment’s pose or the suggestion of intriguing daintiness added to a brief passage--but becomes the basis of all the dancer’s movements, it results in producing a sense of utter weariness on the part of the spectator. The effect of fairy lightness for which it was originally introduced is lost in the ugliness of the effort. In the music-hall it is not infrequently applauded as though it were the climax of the performance, but the dancer should remember that the same applause has probably a few minutes before been given to a dog walking on its hind-legs. In all arts, and in none more than in dancing, it is always the _tour de force_ rather than the nuance of beauty that creates the delight of the crowd. It was this step which began to take a disproportionate place in the ballet when it entered upon its period of decline. It was a feat which Taglioni could do extremely well, but she never once sacrificed gracefulness to obtain her effect. Her followers on the other hand threw all gracefulness to the winds. They pirouetted, they walked, they tottered on one toe until the shape of their legs became positively disfigured. The popular caricature of the ballet-dancer of the day represented her with her calves standing out like the biceps of a blacksmith. It was a performance which had nothing to recommend it but its painfulness. Little wonder that the public wearied of this meaningless dexterity and came to regard the ballet as but a little above the display of the contortionist.