The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
"Between the acts the curtain rose for a _divertisement_, in which the
incomparable Taglioni made her appearance. She was greeted with the
loudest demonstrations of popularity from her numerous patrons, which
she acknowledged by several graceful courtesies. 'Behold!' said
Mephistopheles, directing my attention to the evolutions of the
dancer, 'the progress of civilization. If all this were not so
graceful it would be indecent, and that such an exhibition has a moral
tendency is more than doubtful. Look at that young girl in the pit.
She has seen sufficient to crimson her face, neck, and shoulders with
a blush of shame, and she hides her head from a sight which has
shocked her sense of decency. There is no affectation there. She is an
innocent girl fresh from the country who never saw a ballet in her
life. Yet all the rest, man, woman and child, gaze on delighted. Every
glass is raised the more closely to watch the motions of the
figurante. Look!--she makes a succession of vaults, and her scanty
drapery flying above her hips discloses to her enraptured admirers the
beauty of her limbs. A thousand hands beat each other in approbation.
Now she pirouettes, and observe the tumult of applause which follows.
She stands on her left foot, on the point of her great toe nail,
extending her right leg until the top of her foot is in a parallel
line with the crown of her head. In this position she bends with an
appearance of the greatest ease, till her body nearly touches the
ground, and then gradually rises with the same infinite grace amid
enthusiastic bravos and ecstatic applause. Now on her tip-toe, her
right leg still extended, she moves slowly round, liberally extending
to all her patrons within sight the most favorable opportunity of
scrutinizing the graces of her figure, while the whole house testify
their infinite gratification at the sight by every species of
applause. Again she comes from the back of the stage, turning round
and round with the speed of a tetotum but with an indescribable and
fascinating grace that seems to turn the head of every young man in
the theatre. During the storm of approbation which ensues she stands
near the footlights, smiling, courtseying, and looking as modest as an
angel. Then comes Perrot, who is as much the idol of the ladies as
Taglioni is the goddess of the gentlemen. He leaps about as if his
feet were made of India rubber, and spins around as if he intended to
bore a hole with his toe in the floor of the stage. Then a little
pantomime love business takes place between the danseur and the
danseuse, and they twirl away, and glide along, and hold eloquent
discourse with their pliant limbs; and the affair ends by the
gentleman clasping the lady round the waist, while he, bending his
body in the most graceful attitude, so that his head shall come under
her left arm, looks up in apparent ecstacy into her smiling face as
the lady raised high above him on the extreme point of her left foot,
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