In further justice to her efforts we should consider Isadora Duncan as much a prophet of a new movement, as a dancer of a new school. Her influence has been more far-reaching in Russia than anywhere else. She practically brought about a serious revolution among the Russian dancers, of whom we shall speak in another chapter. She influenced the art of dancing in Germany, France, Italy and England. She was the striking contrast to all the deteriorated stage dances of the early twentieth century in America. She has given a powerful impulse to all dance reforms by counteracting the academic and time-worn views. She is the indirect motive of the Diaghileff-Fokine break with the old Russian ballet and their striving for new rules and ideas in the art of dancing. To her is due the gradual increase of refined taste and higher respect for the stage dance. Personally we have found that her dances failed to tell the phonetic story of the music. Her selection of the compositions of Gluck, Schubert, Chopin and Beethoven has not been uniformly successful, since most of them were never meant by the composer to be danced. Compositions of this kind lack the necessary choreographic episodes and often even the plastic symbols. No genius, we believe, could visualize the slow cadences and solemn images of any symphonic music of those German classics, whose works have been the choice of Miss Duncan. With a few exceptions, such as the _Moments Musicals_ and some other pieces, we have never been able to grasp the meaning of the phonetoplastic images of Isadora Duncan’s dances. [Illustration: Duncan] II