‘Before long the public will learn to love this strange profile--so like a frightened bird’s--and criticism will have to reckon with this aspiring talent. She has not yet put forth all her strength. It was not until she appeared in the part of _Coppélia_ that she wholly revealed what was in her, and that the full extent of her grace and poetic feeling was unfolded to the public.’ One season later the expected virtuoso vanishes from the public eye and a new aspirant takes her place. Considering one after the other, one finds little crisp and spontaneous beauty in the steps and gestures of the _ballerinas_ of the last part of the past century. The umbrella-like stiff dress of the classic ballet has only a momentary semi-sensuous appeal. In the long run it becomes unæsthetic and unpractical, since it hides the natural lines of the human body. CHAPTER XIII THE BALLET IN SCANDINAVIA The Danish ballet and Bournoville’s reform; Lucile Grahn, Augusta Nielsen, etc.--Mrs. Elna Jörgen-Jensen; Adeline Genée; the mission of the Danish ballet. I The French ballet dominated civilized Europe for centuries, as did the French fashions, manners, language, art and social traditions. The high society of every country was outspokenly French, and so were its views and entertainments. How much even Germany was in the grip of French ideals can be seen best from the efforts of her eighteenth-century writers and reformers on behalf of their own national traditions. Lessing was most bitterly fighting the French influence in German life and art. It was only natural that semi-aristocratic Sweden and Denmark felt the French sway. Stockholm introduced the ballet during the last part of the eighteenth century, but used it for the most part as an accessory of the opera. Taglioni, the father of the celebrated _ballerina_, was employed as a ballet-master in Stockholm where, in addition to his actual stage work, he was training dancers for the ballet corps. He was succeeded by no one else than the great Didelot, who later became a director of the ballet and ballet school in Petrograd. But Sweden strictly followed the footsteps of France and Italy and never took another direction. The Swedish ballet of the nineteenth century was strictly French-Italian.