In the Tragic performance the fierceness of the Barbarians delights in dreadful murders, plots, assassinations; in things which tear and lacerate human feelings, and bring despair and death!
The Comic is as coarse in loose buffoonery [Kro-sen-to-se] as the tragic is for an extreme of agony, based upon crime and baseness.
But the most astonishing of all the representations upon the Stage is the Ballet. I should not dare nor desire to refer to this, were it not to illustrate a point in the Barbarian character, only too prominent; and to give further cause to the people of our Flowery Land to be thankful to the Sovereign Lord, that He has not permitted such mark of degeneracy to stain us.
The Ballet is supervised by a very High-Caste Lord. It is composed of a band of young women, selected for beauty of form and of limb. They appear in public nearly naked, or so clothed in tightest hose [ki-i-e] and draped in thinnest diaphanous fabric, that what is concealed is half disclosed and more piquant than if left uncovered. Troops of these appear—dazzling in white or pink—upon the stage-floor. Before they show themselves to the public, however, they parade, one by one (as I was truly informed), before the High-Caste Supervisor of the Ballet, who, with his assistants, duly examines the legs, arms, busts, and drapery, to see if all be in due order. The drapery is carefully measured to see if it be of the required length, and, if too short, must be extended to the knees. Not to cover anything, but to satisfy a pretence. For these transparent fabrics, aside from that quality, are so contrived that they float off from the body and limbs with every movement—and the motions studied are those which produce this effect—twirling around rapidly being a chief feat. When the High-Caste is satisfied that there be nothing to offend the most delicate, and that all the demands of a pure Christ-god morality are satisfied, he sends the young girls to the stage, and they appear in the Ballet.
This is a dance—why should I say more. But consider this dance is before the highest and best—in an immense and brilliantly lighted, lofty house. There are vast crowds, seated upon a level with, or just below the stage—in rows, one row above another, forming a grand half-circle, from the floor to the dome; so high, that the faces cannot be distinguished. Then the rich and glittering decorations; the paintings, the sculptures, the music!
The music of innumerable instruments strikes up. In come the troops of half-naked girls; their busts, their legs exposed. In they come, leaping, dancing, twirling, whirling, flying! They twirl around on the toes like tops. They spin on a single toe, sticking out the other leg—and, in this attitude, revolve about! They retreat, advance, stoop, go backward, forward; twisting, twirling, throwing themselves, their arms, and particularly their legs, into all possible positions; whirling about on one leg and extending the other, being the most admired feat! This is (very faint) the Ballet!
Mothers, wives, husbands, daughters, sons, lovers, maidens, look upon this spectacle—and pray for the benighted Heathen!
Englishmen often remarked to me, jocosely, "Ah-Chin—no like the Ballet—why, the Theatre nowadays stands on Legs!"
It is a fact that, in those times which the Barbarians call dark, when ignorance and brutality marked the whole aspect of common life, the instinct of decency prevented women from appearing on the Stage at all. It is quite a modern invention.