She owed her success very largely to her immense capacity for taking pains. No detail was too small to demand her attention. She had miniature models of the stage constructed for her, with which she conducted her experiments. The complicated lighting apparatus was managed by her brothers, with whom she practised almost daily, inventing and elaborating new effects. She devised with equal care the design of her dresses. The secret of their shape was jealously guarded. On leaving the theatre, her mother, who always accompanied her, enveloped her in a huge black cloak. One silk gown was painted by artists in sections, and the artists themselves had no idea as to what their work was intended for. Loie Fuller herself is perfectly aware of the limitations of her dancing. She has made her genial apologia as follows:--“To-day everything is governed by laws and precedents, and as I obey no laws of the dancing schools and follow no precedents, I suppose, you know, that really I am not a dancer at all! I have never studied, and I don’t believe the ancient Greek dancers ever studied how to move their feet, but danced with their whole bodies--with their head and arms and trunk and feet. I believe that they studied more the _impression_ that they wished to convey by their dancing than the actual way of dancing.” The criticism that she ignored the obvious fact that no human being was really necessary in her performance at all, and that a small motor or gas-engine could have done the work with equal animation and less fatigue, is a little less than just. Latterly La Loie has come under the influence of Miss Isadora Duncan. In Paris she directs a school of young children, whom she instructs in the “natural” style of dancing. Her pupils appeared in London in 1908, when they performed Mozart’s ballet, _Les Petits Riens_. The performance was no less notable for its lighting than for its grace of movement, as each of the fourteen movements of the ballet was seen against a great open sky, changing with the history of the day from dawn to sunset. The influence of Loie Fuller upon the theatre will always be felt, particularly in the lighting of the scene and in the disposition of draperies. But she was never a great dancer. She was an apparition. CHAPTER VII THE HIGH KICKERS