(_By our Ballet Expert._)
_The Daily Graphic_ announces that Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT has "fallen a willing
victim to the latest fashionable dances," and is having lessons in them "in
the privacy of his Hanover Square home." A thousand entrancing
possibilities are opened up by this bald announcement. We are content to
supplement it by a few authentic details.
Mr. BENNETT, who does nothing by halves, has mapped out a programme which
will occupy his energies for at least two years. First comes the period of
pupilship, which will last for six months. Then a year on the stage; then
six months devoted to the composition of three novels and three plays, each
with a Terpsichorean motive. Already, while engaged on his daily exercises,
Mr. BENNETT has found time to revise the titles of some of his earlier
works in keeping with his present aims, and two of these have now been
appropriately rechristened _Anna Pavlova of the Five Towns_ and _Helen of
the High Kick_.
In the actual technique of his adopted art Mr. BENNETT has already shown
extraordinary progress. The other day, while a wedding party was just about
to leave St. George's, Hanover Square, Mr. BENNETT, who happened to be
passing by, took a flying caracole clean over the Rolls-Royce which
contained the happy pair. Those who witnessed the feat say that it eclipsed
NIJINSKY in his most elastic mood. But Mr. BENNETT is not satisfied, and
declined an invitation to appear at the Devonshire House Ball last week on
the ground that his achievement does not yet square with his ambition.
Moreover he has decided not to dance in public under his real name, but is
not yet quite certain whether to choose the artistic pseudonym of Ben
Netsky or Cinquecittà--probably the latter.
Above all he is firmly resolved to preserve in his dancing the sympathetic
and humanistic tone of his presentation of life in his books. It will be a
message of hope. He is determined by his gestural artistry and resilient
thistle-downiness to "sanction and fortify the natural human passion for
believing that life can somehow, behind all the miseries and the mysteries,
mean something profoundly worth while." To render justice to his mental and
physical agility is beyond our powers.
We have been driven to culling this memorable sentence from the latest and
most preternaturally precious of his American admirers.
It is only fair to say that as a dancing fictionist Mr. BENNETT will not be
allowed to have it entirely his own way. Rumours are already afloat of the
appearance on the boards of Messrs. CHESTERTON and BELLOC, under the
impressive aliases of Campoborgo and Bellocchio, "the Terrible
Tarantulators." This may be only a wild surmise. There is however strong _a
priori_ evidence in support of the statements that Mr. MASEFIELD is taking
lessons in the Fox Trot at Boar's Hill, and that Lord Northsquith is
bringing back with him from Morocco a powerful troupe of Dancing Dervishes,
with the intention of installing them ultimately in Downing Street.
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