The costume of the prima ballerina assoluta in our grandfather's days was something like an umbrella and a pair of braces: the umbrella shrank to the _en-tout-cas_, and the _en-tout-cas_ to the open parasol; unless the movement is arrested, in the course of time a lampshade will be reached, and ultimately, say, fifty years hence, the Genée of the period will have nothing more of skirt and petticoat than some kind of fringe round the waist, indicating, like our coccygeal vertebrae, or the rudimentary limbs of the whale, a mere useless atrophied apparatus. It was once possible for the poses and movements of the dancer to be graceful--the phrase "the poetry of motion" had a meaning. With the stiff _tutu_ sticking out almost at right angles, elegance is quite impossible. The present "star" resembles in outline one of the grotesques used by Hogarth to illustrate his theories in his "Analysis of Beauty," and one is inclined to laugh at her awkwardness when she walks; nor is it easy to admire when she whirls round like a dancing dervish, the _tutu_ mounting higher and becoming more and more rectangular the faster she goes. Mlle. Genée, delicious and graceful, in some flowing character-costume, and then ridiculous in the _tutu_ that she adores, proved this more than any amount of written explanation. She was such a great performer, so perfect in mechanism, so harmonious from little foot to dainty head, so brilliant in her miming, that one was forced to say sorrowfully "_Et tu-tu_, Genée." Unfortunately the virtuoso mania is irresistible, and, so far as graceful dancing is concerned, there is no hope that we may see such a _pas de quatre_ as won fame in the palmy days of the ballet; we have reached the reign of the _pas du tutu_, and, almost wish we had arrived at the _pas du tout_. During the last few years there has been a great stir in the dancing world. Some time ago Isadora Duncan gave a private exhibition at the New Gallery of certain dances in a style intended to be a revival of old Greek dancing. A little later Miss Ruth St Denis presented in public some strange, quite beautiful, performances consisting of dancing, miming and posturing supposed to suggest ideas of Indian life, and her finely restrained, truly artistic work deeply impressed both the critics and audiences. Afterwards came Miss Maud Allan, alleged--no matter with what degree of truth--to be an imitator of Isadora Duncan, and she made a great "hit," her most popular performance being a "Salome" dance, which was considered by some people to be indecent. Certainly of her costume the French phrase "_qui commence trop tard et finit trop tôt_" might justly be used, for she carried nudity on the stage to a startling degree. In a good many other dances her work was rather pretty and quite unobjectionable, but vastly inferior to the art of Isadora Duncan or Ruth St Denis. Isadora Duncan