In the North where the girls, wearing an adaptation of the Mussulman dress, are mostly of that faith and have no bond with any temple or religious institution, the dance or gesture-play is strictly subordinate to the song. The artist moves back and forward a few steps as she sings, the feet of course always beating the time, while her hands are raised or lowered and her fingers grouped in a few conventional poses, gracefully artificial or simply decorative, but with no present actuality and little stimulus to emotion. The pleasure of the spectator is in the main intellectual, the effect of reminiscence and association, while he interprets the meaning of which the movements are suggestive but abstract symbols. At the end of the verse the dancer floats softly round the circle of spectators, with coquetry in her eyes, extorting applause by a quick virtuosity of steps and pirouettes, which have little relation to any living and real passion. The Peninsular school, on the other hand, gives the dance in and by itself a far higher value and more extended field. It is far more than the mere visible decoration of a sung melody. It has a life of its own, often wild and passionate; and has its own instant appeal to independent emotions. Often the dance is in itself the pantomime of a whole story, the meeting and love of Krishna and Rádha, for instance, at the river’s side. The melody of the instruments is a suitable accompaniment and the voice does little more than supply a pleasing refrain. Sometimes it is a mere rhythmic and decorative reconstruction of everyday actions, the mimicry, harmonious and graceful, of a boy flying a kite or of a fluttering butterfly. The dancers move lightly and quickly over the floor, their steps diversified, their gestures free and natural. Upon their features play the lines of hope and joy, of sorrow and disdain. Then as the story closes, in a final burst of melody, their voices rise with the instruments that accompany in a last _forte_ repetition of the refrain or motive. Thus in the Peninsular or Tanjore school the art of dancing, though also, of course, dependent upon conventionalisms of gesture and movement, and significant of meanings which it suggests rather than imitates, has a more actual appeal to emotion and a less fettered freedom. It has a finer spontaneity, a freer flow of imagination. At its best, it is a splendid school of dancing, the only method perhaps worthy to be put beside, though below, the magnificent creations of the Russian ballet.