as a dancer or an actor, and sharply define his limitations. His
other parts, Dakon in _Daphnis et Chloe_--Sadko, the Prince in _Thamar_,
Amoun in _Cleopatre_, the Slave in _Scheherazade_, and Pierrot in
_Papillons_, are only variations on the three afore-mentioned themes.
His friends often confuse his vitality and abundant energy with a sense
of characterization and a skill as a dancer which he does not possess.
For the most part he is content to express himself by stamping his heels
and gnashing his teeth, and when, as in _Cleopatre_, he attempts to
convey a more subtle meaning to his general gesture, he is not very
successful. Bolm is an interesting and useful member of the
organization, but he could not make or unmake a season; nor could
Gavrilow, who is really a fine dancer in his limited way, although he
is unfortunately lacking in magnetism and any power of characterization.

But it was on the distaff side of the cast that the Ballet seemed
pitifully undistinguished, even to those who did not remember the early
Paris seasons when the roster included the names of Anna Pavlowa, Tamara
Karsavina, Caterina Gheltzer, and Ida Rubinstein. The leading feminine
dancer of the troupe when it gave its first exhibitions in New York was
Xenia Maclezova, who had not, so far as my memory serves, danced in any
London or Paris season of the Ballet (except for one gala performance at
the Paris Opera which preceded the American tour), unless in some very
menial capacity. This dancer, like so many others, had the technique of
her art at her toes' ends. Sarah Bernhardt once told a reporter that the
acquirement of technique never did any harm to an artist, and if one
were not an artist it was not a bad thing to have. I have forgotten how
many times Mlle. Maclezova could pirouette without touching the toe in
the air to the floor, but it was some prodigious number. She was
past-mistress of the _entrechat_ and other mysteries of the ballet
academy. Here, however, her knowledge of her art seemed to end, in the
subjugation of its very mechanism. She was very nearly lacking in those
qualities of grace, poetry, and imagination with which great artists are
freely endowed, and although she could not actually have been a woman of
more than average weight, she often conveyed to the spectator an
impression of heaviness. In such a work as _The Firebird_ she really
offended the eye. Far from interpreting the ballet, she gave you an idea
of how it sho