|WE must not belittle him by merely admiring him for his miraculously
agile leaps and jumps. As I said at the start, dancing is not only
_sauterie_. There was probably no _sauterie_ at all in the dancing of
the ancients. I am told that Nijinsky was much affected by the dancing
of Isadora Duncan when, some years ago, she appeared in St. Petersburg,
and I can well believe it, for there was manifested in her at her best
what was probably the supreme object of religious dancing---and all
ancient dancing was religious--the training of the body to the point of
making it docile to the rhythm of the soul. There are many young men in
the Russian ballet who dance excellently with their bodies, even if they
cannot leap as high as Nijinsky, but what really separates him from them
is the fact that he dances not only with his body, but with his soul.
Unfortunately this expression is often used lightly to mean merely "with
enthusiasm." But it can be used in a graver sense, and it is in that
sense that I use it.
[Illustration: 0036]