As a good many persons know, LA GISELLE is a ballet whose hundred legs
are nightly displayed on the stage of the GRAND OPERA HOUSE.
The _Twelve Temptations_ have ceased to tempt, and the familiar legs of
LUPE no longer allure. But in their place we have KATHI LANNER, and
BERTHA LIND, and nearly a gross of assorted legs of the very best
quality.
Why do the women clamor for the ballot, when they have almost exclusive
possession of the ballet? The latter is much nicer and more useful than
the former. The average repeater can obtain only a dollar for his
ballot, but the average ballet will find any quantity of enthusiastic
admirers at one dollar and a half a head. Would any man pay KATHI LANNER
a dollar for the privilege of seeing her with a ballot in her hand?
On the other hand, lives there a man with eyes so dead that he would not
cheerfully pay twice that sum to see her in the mazes of the ballet?
But _La Giselle_? Certainly. I am coming to that in a moment. I have
often thought that nature must have intended me for a writer of sermons.
I have such a facility for beginning an article with a series of general
remarks that have nothing whatever to do with the subject.
Though how can any one be rationally expected to stick to anything in
this weather, except, perhaps, the newly varnished surface of his desk?
And how can even the firmest of resolutions be prevented from melting
and vanishing away, with the thermometer at more degrees than one likes
to mention? You remember the old proverb: "Man proposes, but his
mother-in-law finally disposes." The bearing of this observation lies in
its application.
By the bye, I don't know a better application, in the present weather,
than claret punch. Apply yourself continually to that cooling beverage,
and apply it continually to your lips, and the result is a sort of
reciprocity treat, whose results are much more certain than those of the
reciprocity treaty, of which Congress has latterly had so much to say.
To contemplate _La Giselle_ in all its bearings is a pleasure which is
peculiarly appropriate to the season. KATHI LANNER and her companions
may not be really cool, but they look as though they were. They remind
one of the East Indian country houses that are built on posts, so as to
allow a free circulation of air beneath the foundation. Anyhow, they
look as if they took things coolly.
(A joke might be made on the words coolly and Coolie. The reader may mix
to his own taste. It's too hot for any one to make jokes for other
people.)
But _La Giselle_? Yes! yes! I am just ready to speak of it. _La Giselle_
is a grand ballet in which an elaborate plot is developed by the toes of
some fifty young ladies. There is a young woman in it who loves a man,
and there is another woman who also loves him, and another man who loves
the first woman, and meddles and mars as though he were a professional
philanthropist.
The woman--the first woman, I mean--goes crazy down to the extremity of
her feet, and dies, and then there are more women,--no; these last are
disembodied spirits, with nothing but light skirts on,--who dance in
graveyards, and make young men dance with them till they fall down
exhausted, calling in vain for BROWN to take them home in carriages, and
pay for their torn gloves. The first young woman, and a young man--not
the other young man, you understand--does a good deal of--Well, in
fact, things are rather mixed before the ballet comes to an end, but I
know that it's a good thing, for FISK sits in his private box and
applauds it, which he wouldn't do if he didn't.
And now, having placed _La Giselle_ plainly before your mental vision, I
desire to rise to a personal explanation. For the ensuing four weeks,
the places, in PUNCHINELLO, which have heretofore known me, will
know me no more. I am going to a quiet country place on Long Island to
write war correspondence for the--well, I won't mention the name of the
paper. You see the editor of the _Na----_ of the paper in question, I
should say,--wants to have an independent and unprejudiced account of
the great struggle on the Rhine--something that shall be different from
any other account.--Down on Long Island, I shall be out of the reach of
either French or Prussian influence, and will be able to describe events
as they should be. I have made arrangements with the "Veteran Observer"
of the _Times_ to take charge of this column during my absence. If he
can only curb his natural tendency toward frivolity and jocoseness, I am
in hopes that he will be able to draw his salary as promptly and
efficiently as though he were a younger man. Remarking, therefore, in
the words of _Kathleen Mavourneen_, that my absence "may be four weeks,
and it may be longer," I bid my readers a warm (thermometer one hundred
and five degrees) farewell.