St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-03-13
THE BALLET.
One who Sees No Harm in Beauti-
full Limbs.

One Who Sees No Harm in Beauti-
full Limbs.
To the Editor OF the Globe.
On your editorial page of the 9th you
recite the story of Emerson and Mar
garet Fuller having attended the opera
in Boston, and watching the ballet
with great interest" That their
minds, delicately trained to an apprecia-
ton of beauty and harmony and grace
of motion, were quickly enhanced by the
scene" And that Emerson turned to
his companion and said, WAS it not
beautiful" And she replied, Yes, it
was more than that; it was religion"
Then you call attention to the bill be-
fore our Legislature to prohibit ballet
dancing, and PROFOUND your first con-
nun0rum: docs this mean that we
are worse than the Sage of Concord, and
the men and women of his time?" And
after speaking of the eXpurgation of
the Shakespeare plays, you put your
second cOnnundrum: Are men and
women better now than they were in
the days of Elizabeth, or only greater
hypocrites?"
These are very important questions,
and ought to be approached with that
seriousness and delicacy which should
be used in all discussions relating to
morals. In order to do this we must
first lay aside all cant, prudery and
false mOdeSty. We must elevate our
selves above the vulgar crowd, and in
plain, chaste language treat these sub
JectS from an esthetical standpoint.
10 the pure all things are pure. This
is the plane which Emerson and Miss
Fuller occupied. Their enjoyment of
that performance in the Boston theater
was purely eSthetical; for the principal
elements of esthetics are grace, rhythm,
harmony and proportion. That gifted
woman, while entranced by the Scene,"
was experiencing the same pleasure
the Greeks felt when attending their
plays; and her friend might we'll be
called the modern Plato. There they
sat with minds exalted Imagination
Quickened and vision charmed, just as
the art-loving aud. imaginative Athen-
| lanS were when sitting i'll their thea
tiers, or looking upon the Olympic games,
or walking amid their sculptured mOnu-
ments.
Our people will never understand the
moral character of the Greeks until they
comprehend what was the essense of
their love for art. There was nothing
gross or immoral in their passion for
those objects of grace and symmetry.
1hOJ duUltu OCduly UCCduSO tllCS 1CAl
that 1t gave them glimpse of the pure
and good. for which they were earnestly
and constantly yearning. Their great
est god, after all, was the perfect human
form-Zeus, Apollo and other delties
were fashioned in the same mold. So
that any system or course of training
that would develop faultless human
figure was to them a school worthy the
conception OF the gods.
History tells us that the body was
held sacred by the Greeks. They would
not permit it to be laShed and torn, al
though they did torture their slaves to
make them tell the truth about their
masters in court. Another evidence of
their love for beauty was their dislike
of old men; their stopped and wrinkled
forms were an abhorrent sight. Even
the great Socrates, whose mind was
above earthly things, and who was him.
self very ugly. was attracted by youth
tuI beauty. This love of the beautiful
became with them cult. Maha1fy, in
his Social Greece" speaking of their
religion, says the term IS to be FUSED in
its subjective sense as state of mind,
not as a collection of dogmas." He
goes on, $50 far Greek religion is i'll
son, their conception was everywhere
clear and precise. The intimate asSo-
citation of art with religion i'll the
Identification of the beautiful-phyS-
ically beautiful-With the good; in offer
ing as the nOblest tribute to the blessed
gods, the purest and best products which
human genius could attain in art. Divine
service included the whole range of
human enjOyments; there were even in
the cult of AphrOdite allowances made
for the qualification of the animal ma
INV TI,, fNf,o ce-In CHI tr
plainly how the mystery of the origin
of life was not excluded from religious
services. But more generally, sport and
religion were not opposed by the Greeks,
but identified" To show how intensely
religious they were in all their enjoy
ments, he says, 1.-The Partisan goes to
the theater Sunday evening for relaxa-
ton; the old Greek went to the theater
to honor and serve his God; his praise
was offered up not before, but in the
performance" Margaret Fuller could
well understand how the Greeks Offered
up praise in the performance" Emerson
could not fail to see the intimate asso-
citation of art with religion in the iden-
LITIGATION of the beautiful-the physic-
ally beautiful-With the good
Grote informs us that 1.-The Grecian
religion entered into all the enjOyments
and sutferings, the hopes and fears, thea
affections and antipathies, OF the peo-
ple-nOt simply imposing restraints and
obligations, but protecting, multiplying
and diverSifying all the social pleasures
and all the decorations of existence.
Each city. and even each village, had
its peculiar religious festivals, wherein
the sacrifices to the gods were usually
followed by public recreations of one
kind or Other-by professional marches,
singing and dancing, or competition in
strong and active exercises. ReciprO-
cal Reorganization of religious festivals
was the standing evidence of friendship
and fraternity among cities not politi
cally united"
The Olympic, Pythian, Nemean and
1Sthmean festivals were religious insti-
buttons. And the boys who Wrestled
and ran foot races at these celebrations
were naked. There is a cut in an illus
trated work in our public library which
shows nude Spartan youths wrestling,
and bevy OF pretty girls looking on
with the same earneStnesS and interest
that some of our enthusiastic American
maidens might display in Witnessing
misunderstanding and iOint-enlarging
game of base ball. History does not re-
late that these exhibitions of nudity de-
mOraliZed the Grecian youth of either
sex.
Do artists, interpreting from models
day after day for years, become sensual,
They will tell you that they are com
pletely absorbed by their work-they
look upon the living, breathing figure
before them just as the Greeks did. 1t
becomes religion with them-they are
striving to attain the beautiful, and be-
lieving that nature unadorned is
adorned the most, they take it unclothed
as their mOdel-just as the Greeks pict-
ured their Gods after the most beauti-
full and graceful forms found in nature.
If we admire the nude in art, with all
its grace and symmetry, and look upon
the semi-nude on the stage i'll its rhyth
mic motion with the same esthetic feel
ing that possessed the Greeks and the
artists of all ages, then we are not
"worse than the Sage of Concord, and