o
remind the world that in dancing, as in eggs, freshness is even more
beautiful than decadence. Perhaps some of the performances of the
Russian ballet would come off limping from such a test. Opinions will
differ about that. In any case, one cannot help the logic of one's
belief. Each of us, no doubt, contains something of the preacher and
something of the dancer; and our enthusiasms depend upon which of the
two is dominant in us. Meanwhile, we are likely to go on preaching
against our dancing, and dancing against our preaching, till the end
of time. That merely proves the completeness of our humanity. It makes
for balance, like, as I have said, east and west in a map. That,
surely, is a conclusion which ought to satisfy everybody.

IV

THOUGHTS AT A TANGO TEA

It is not easy to decide what is the dullest feature in the Tango Teas
upon which Londoners are now wasting their afternoons and their
silver. The most disconcertingly tedious part of the whole
entertainment is, in my opinion, the Tango itself: it is mere
virtuoso-work in dancing--an eccentric caper, not after beauty, but
after variety. But the rest of the programme has no compensating
liveliness. The songs are sad affairs, even for a music-hall, and the
band, with its continual "selections" dropped into every available
hole in the afternoon's amusement, gets on the nerves like a tune
played over and over again. And then, to crown everything, comes the
parade of mannequins wearing the latest fashions in women's dress, or
what will be the latest fashions in another month or two. On the whole
I think this part of the show must be given the prize for inanity. The
Tango is bad, and the tea varies, but this milliner's business--it is
more than dull, it is an outrage on human intelligence.

Students of society cannot afford to leave unnoticed this new
development in the tastes of the upper and middle classes. It seems to
me to represent almost the extreme limit in the evolution of the
English theatre. The actor-managers have often in recent years turned
Shakespeare into a dress parade, but here is the dress parade with
Shakespeare left out. Musical comedies, hundreds of them, have been as
amazing as fireworks with their wonder of costumes, and here is the
wonder of costumes without any alloy of musical comedy. Nor are these
costumes flashed upon you with a chorussed insolence. Slowly and
separately each girl appears, sometimes from the back of the stalls,