home; just so the single voices
issue from and fall again into the general volume; just so do the
performers separate and crowd together, brandish the raised hand, and
roll the eye to heaven--or the gallery. Already this is beyond the
Thespian model; the art of this people is already past the embryo; song,
dance, drums, quartette and solo--it is the drama full developed
although still in miniature. Of all so-called dancing in the South Seas,
that which I saw in Butaritari stands easily the first. The _hula_, as
it may be viewed by the speedy globe-trotter in Honolulu, is surely the
most dull of man's inventions, and the spectator yawns under its length
as at a college lecture or a parliamentary debate. But the Gilbert
Island dance leads on the mind; it thrills, rouses, subjugates; it has
the essence of all art, an unexplored imminent significance. Where so
many are engaged, and where all must make (at a given moment) the same
swift, elaborate, and often arbitrary movement, the toil of rehearsal is
of course extreme. But they begin as children. A child and a man may
often be seen together in a maniap'; the man sings and gesticulates, the
child stands before him with streaming tears and tremulously copies him
in act and sound; it is the Gilbert Island artist learning (as all
artists must) his art in sorrow.

I may seem to praise too much; here is a passage from my wife's diary,
which proves that I was not alone in being moved, and completes the
picture:--"The conductor gave the cue, and all the dancers, waving their
arms, swaying their bodies, and clapping their breasts in perfect time,
opened with an introductory. The performers remained seated, except two,
and once three, and twice a single soloist. These stood in the group,
making a slight movement with the feet and rhythmical quiver of the body
as they sang. There was a pause after the introductory, and then the
real business of the opera--for it was no less--began; an opera where
every singer was an accomplished actor. The leading man, in an
impassioned ecstasy which possessed him from head to foot, seemed
transfigured; once it was as though a strong wind had swept over the
stage--their arms, their feathered fingers thrilling with an emotion
that shook my nerves as well: heads and bodies followed like a field of
grain before a gust. My blood came hot and cold, tears pricked my eyes,
my head whirled, I felt an almost irresistible impulse to join the
dancers. One dram