The answer depends mainly, one feels, on the extent of the possibilities to which the art of Ballet could be realised by those who lead in the artistic expression of the national spirit. The poet, the artist, the musician, the Master of Dance, and the dancers--men and women--realising the possibilities of the composite art of Ballet, might foreshadow possibilities greater than any we have seen. Yet greater possibilities might be foreshadowed of one who was all these things; and could combine (as Mr. Gordon Craig would have the master of the Art of the Theatre combine) _all_ the arts of the theatre. It would seem that now and then, through lack of technical efficiency in one or other of the arts which go to the making of ballet, that ballet itself has not always attained its highest possible level in England. But without that basic technical efficiency in the living material which he manipulates, how can the creator of the ballet express himself? A standard of technique at least should exist. That given, what might not yet be done with this art, which history shows has always been so plastic in the hands of the master-artist, so responsive to the artistic or national moods of the people among whom it has been found. It has the value and significance of painting, together with the vital and impressive effect of drama. It is not the art of depicting reality; but the art of pictorial suggestion, giving life and form to poetic ideas. At the Royal or Ducal Courts of earlier days the compliment to monarch or to minister would be conveyed by means of a courtly ballet, the story of which dealt outwardly perhaps only with the doings of some mythic hero of the classic past. But the art of Ballet always had greater possibilities than courtly compliment, in that it is always a plastic vehicle for the expression of all ideas; and, given the standard of efficiency which makes production possible at all, it only becomes a question of what theme shall be treated by this means rather than by the arts of painting, or of music, or drama, or of literature. On these two points--the standard of technical efficiency attained by those associated in the production of ballet, and on the choice of theme and manner of treatment by the artist-mind ultimately responsible for the production, depends the whole future of the art of Ballet. The spirit of the artist and his means of expression; there lies the future. What shall be the technique of ballet, and to what extent shall it be influenced by that of the dance?