Loie Fuller was born in Chicago. It is said that she made her first bow before the public at the immature age of two, and at eleven the elocutionary powers which she displayed in her little temperance lectures had given her fame throughout the state of Illinois as the “Western Temperance Prodigy.” The only lessons that she ever received in dancing were given her by a friend who tried to teach her the Highland Fling, but she introduced so many variations of her own that the friend had to abandon the attempt. At Chicago a professional musician was so favourably impressed with her singing that he offered to give her free tuition for two years. As Loie Fuller was gifted with an excellent memory, assiduous in mastering the details of whatever work she was engaged in, always willing to take any part, big or little, that was offered her, it is not surprising that she should early have won for herself a considerable reputation. She travelled with a touring company, playing in both comedy and tragedy. She first appeared in New York in _Jack Sheppard_, in which her salary was seventy-five dollars a week. Shortly afterwards she was in the cast of _Caprice_ in London. She returned to America to take part in _Quack M.D._ at the Harlem Opera House. It was while rehearsing for this piece that she received from a young Indian officer, whom she had met in London, a present which was to change her whole career. One morning a box was delivered at the hotel where she was staying, and on opening it she found that it contained an Eastern robe of fine white silk, the sort that passes through a ring uncreased. The difficulty--not infrequently incidental to presents--was to know what to do with it. To cut it up would have been a desecration. The quality of the texture was so rare that the piece was fine enough for a museum. Yet its excessive length rendered it useless as a dress without mutilation. But no woman, certainly no American woman, could receive such a present without endeavouring to exhaust all its possibilities as wearing apparel. Taking a piece of string, Loie Fuller fastened the material loosely about her. While playfully waving the soft folds of silk in the air she caught sight of herself in a mirror facing the window. At that moment the sun’s rays transfigured the dress into a mass of shimmering light. The beams dancing among the transparent folds of the Eastern material gave it an indescribable delicacy. So strange and beautiful was the effect that the dancer stood for hours before the mirror lost in admiration. She tried innumerable variations of pose, and all were delightful. Suddenly while gazing at the floating clouds of sunlit drapery there came a sound of distant music. The melody was one that the dancer knew well, and in step to the music she danced round the room, tossing the light billowy material about her. At that moment the Serpentine Dance was born.