In how far the Russian ballet differs from her sister institutions outside is best to be seen in such old-fashioned ballets as _Les Sylphides_, which was danced by Taglioni, and is danced by the artists of the French-Italian schools and figures in the repertoires of the Russian ballet. Another work of similar nature is the _Coppélia_. Not only are these two time-worn ballets wholly changed in their thematic and musical sense but in the very form of conception. The Russian _Sylphides_ and _Coppélia_ are old scenes in modern light, the French-Italian _Sylphides_ and _Coppélia_ are pitiable museum shows. Where a French-Italian _ballerina_ would leap and whirl, a Russian acts and poses. Like the art of an actress that of a Russian _ballerina_ is in the first place a personification of the character in whose rôle she is dancing. Pavlova as she depicts the incomparable fury of Glazounoff’s _L’Autômne Bacchanale_, could not by any means be a Cleopatra as personified by Astafieva. Karsavina with all her dramatic thrill and _arabesques_ is a mediocrity in the rôles in which Pavlova excels. The dramatic issue is the foremost question in the Russian ballet, often to such an extent that it minimizes the musical significance. The most talented of the foreign ballet dancers do not begin to go into the dramatic details of a dance as the Russians do. To get an idea of the Russian ballet with all its true atmosphere one must go to Russia. The performances of the Diaghileff company which foreign audiences have seen, belong to the revolutionary school, but not to the typical classic dance of Russia, which we shall discuss later. The Russian ballet dancer is free from all the stiffness, decadent artificiality, preconceived emotions, and fossilized formalities of the French-Italian ballet dancers. This freedom he owes, in the first place, to the thorough training in the school; second, to the distinctly racial traditions of the Russian drama and art; and third, to the serious critical attitude of the audiences. To say that the Russian ballet has not travelled in ideals far from those of Milan in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, as a foreign dance critic has said, is untrue. The difference between these two schools is just as real as that between the Catholic and the Protestant church: the one believes in the form, the other in the spirit. II