THE BALLET.
Not being at this present writing in love with any opera dancer, we can see with "eyes unprejudiced," that the performances to which we allude (ballets) are in the highest possible degree objectionable as referring to taste, and disgusting as relating to decency.
First, then, as to taste—nobody upon earth, we should think, can be bold enough to assert that the horizontal elevation of the female leg, and the rapid twisting of the body—the subsequent attitude and expansion of the arms—are graceful—we mean merely as to dancing. No man certainly, except those whose intellects and appetites are more debased than those of men in general, can feel either amusement or gratification in such an exhibition.
Woman is so charming, so fascinating, so winning, and so ruling by the attractions which properly belong to her—by her delicacy—her gentleness—and her modesty—that we honestly confess, whenever we see a lovely girl doing that which degrades her, which must lower her even in her own estimation, we feel a pang of regret, and lament to find conduct applauded to the very echo which reduces the beautiful creatures before us to a mere animal in a state of exhibition.
But if there really be men who take delight in the "Ionici motus" of the Italian Opera, surely our own women should be spared the sight of such indelicacies: nothing which the Roman satirist mentions as tending to destroy the delicate feelings of the female sex could possibly be worse than those which week after week may be seen in the Haymarket.
We have strenuously attacked, for its unnatural indecency, the custom of dressing actresses in men's attire upon the English stage, but a lady in small clothes is better on a public theatre than a lady with no clothes at all.
We are quite ready to admit, without in the smallest degree lamenting, the superiority of foreigners over the natives of England in the art and mystery of cutting capers, and if the ladies and gentlemen annually imported jumped as high as the volteurs in Potier's "Danaides" at the Porte St. Martin, neither would our envy nor our grief be excited; but we certainly do eye with mistrust and jealousy the avidity with which "foreign manners," "foreign customs," and "foreign morality," are received into our dear and much-loved country.
While custom sanctions the nightly commission of waltzing in our best society, it perhaps is only matter of consolation to the matrons who permit their daughters to be operated upon in the mysteries of that dance, to see that women can be found to commit grosser indelicacies even on a public stage.
A correspondent of the Spectator, in the 67th Number, Vol. I., describes accurately under another name the mechanical part of the foreign waltz of these days, and says:—"I suppose this diversion was first invented to keep up a good understanding between young men and women; but I am sure, had you been here, you would have seen great matter for speculation."
We say so now; but the waltz has proved a bad speculation to the very dowagers who allow it to be committed; for, as can be proved by reference to fashionable parish registers, there have been fewer marriages in good society by one half, annually upon the average, since the introduction of this irritating indecency into England.
If, therefore, the public dances at the King's Theatre are looked at, merely as authorities for the conduct of private balls, the matter is still worse; but we have too high an opinion of our countrywomen in general to think this of them, and we are sure that we are speaking the sentiment of the most amiable and the most charming when we raise the voice of rebuke against the dress and deportment of the Italian Corps de Ballet.
One advocate we are certain to have in the person of an old gentlewoman next to whom we sat last Saturday se'nnight, who clearly had never been at the Opera during the whole course of her long and doubtlessly respectable life, till that very evening.
When the ballet commenced, she appeared delighted; but when one of the principal females began to elevate her leg beyond the horizontal, she began evidently to fidget, and make a sort of see-saw motion with her head and body, in pure agitation; at every lofty jump I heard her ejaculate a little "Oh!" at a somewhat lengthened pirouette she exclaimed, sotte voce, "Ah!" with a sigh; but at length, when a tremendous whirl had divested the greater part of the performer's figure of drapery—the band ceasing at the moment to give time to the twirl—the poor old lady screamed out, "Oh, la!"—which was heard all over the house, and caused a shout of laughter at the expense of a poor, sober-minded Englishwoman, whose nerves had not been screwed up to a sufficiently fashionable pitch to witness what she saw was a perfect, but thought must have been an accidental exposure, of more of a woman's person than is usually given to the gaze of the million.
Whitlings and whipsters, dandies, demireps, and dancers may rank us with our fat friend in the tabby silk, to whom we have just referred, if they please; but we will always run the risk of being counted unfashionable rather than immoral.
So few people moving in the world take the trouble of thinking for themselves, that it is necessary to open their eyes to their own improprieties; the natural answer to a question, "How can you suffer your daughters to witness such exhibitions?" is, "Why, everybody else goes, why should not they?" And then, the numerous avocations of an Opera-house evening divert the attention from the stage. True; but there is a class of women differently situated, who are subject to the nuisance, merely because those who do not care about it are indifferent to its correction; we mean the daughters and wives of respectable aldermen and drysalters, and tradesmen of a superior class, who are rattled and shaken to the Opera once or twice in the season, in a hackney-coach, and come into the pit all over finery, with long straws abstracted from "their carriage," sticking in their flounces.
Who is there that does not know that the Lady Patronesses of Almack's have interdicted pantaloons, tight or loose, at their assemblies? We have seen a MS. instruction (which, alas! never was printed) from this mighty conclave, announcing their fiat in these words: "Gentlemen will not be admitted without breeches and stockings!"
No sooner was this mandate, in whatever terms the published one was couched, fulminated from King Street, than the "lean and slippered pantaloon" was exterminated, and, as the Directresses directed, "short hose" were the order of the day.
If the same lovely and honourable ladies were to take the Opera House under their purifying control, and issue, in the same spirit at least, an order that "Ladies will not be permitted to appear without ——" (whatever may be the proper names for the drapery of females) we are quite convinced that they would render a great service to society, and extricate the national character from a reproach which the tacit endurance of such grossnesses has, in the minds of all moderate people, unfortunately cast upon it at present.—John Bull, 1823.