SIR ROGER AT THE RUSSIAN BALLET
No. 1000. Wednesday, October 29th, 19—.
Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ.Sallust.
Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ.Sallust.
Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ.
Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ.
Sallust.
Sallust.
My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the Muscovite dancers with me, assuring me at the same time that he had not been at a playhouse these twenty years. When he learnt from me that these dancers were to be sought in Leicester Fields, he asked me if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. “However,” says the knight, “if Captain Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, I will have my own coach in readiness to attend you; for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended.” Thinking to smoak him, I whispered, “You must have a care, for all the streets in the West are now up,” but he was not to be daunted, saying he minded well when all the West Country was up with Monmouth; and the Captain bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk.
When we had convoyed him in safety to LeicesterFields, and he had descended from his coach at the door, he straightway engaged in a conference with the door-keeper, who is a notable prating gossip, and stroak’d the page-boy upon the head, bidding him be a good child and mind his book. As soon as we were in our places my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. He seemed to be no less pleased with the gay silks and satins and sarsenets and brocades of the ladies, but pish’d at the strange sight of their bare backs. “Not so bare, neither,” I whispered to him, “for if you look at them through your spy-glass you will see they wear a little coat of paint, which particularity has gained them the name of Picts.” “I warrant you,” he answered, with a more than ordinary vehemence, “these naked ones are widows—widows, Sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.” Thinking to humour him, I said most like they were war widows, whereon the good knight lifted his hat to our brave fellows who fought in the Low Countries, and offered several reflections on the greatness of the British land and sea forces, with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.
Luckily, the Muscovites then began dancing and posturing in their pantomime which they callPetrouchkaand the old gentleman was wonderfullyattentive to the antics of the three livefantoccini. When the black fellow, as he called the Moor, clove the head of his rival with the scimitar, the knight said he had never looked for such barbarity from a fellow who, but a moment ago, was innocently playing a game of ball, like a child. What strange disorders, he added, are bred in the minds of men whose passions are not regulated by virtue, and disciplined by reason. “But pray, you that are a critic, is this in accordance with your rules, as you call them? Did your Aristotle allow pity and terror to be moved by such means as dancing?” I answered that the Greek philosopher had never seen the Muscovites and that, in any case, we had the authority of Shakespeare for expecting murder from any jealous Moor. “Moreover, these Muscovites dance murder as they dance everything. I love to shelter myself under the examples of great men, and let me put you in mind of Hesiod, who says, ‘The gods have bestowed fortitude on some men, and on others a disposition for dancing.’ Fortunately the Muscovites have the more amiable gift.” The knight, with the proper respect of a country gentleman for classick authority, was struck dumb by Hesiod.
He remained silent during the earlier part ofSchéhérazadeuntil Karsavina, as the favourite of the Sultan’s harem, persuaded the Chief Eunuch to release her orange-tawny favourite, Monsieur Massine, at which the knight exclaimed, “On my word,a notable young baggage!” I refrained from telling my innocent friend that in the old Arabian tale these tawny creatures were apes. He mightily liked the Sultan’s long beard. “When I am walking in my gallery in the country,” says he, “and see the beards of my ancestors, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many old patriarchs, and myself as an idle smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams and Isaacs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry with beards below their girdles. I suppose this fellow, with all these wives, must be Solomon.” And, his thoughts running upon that King, he said he kept his Book of Wisdom by his bedside in the country and found it, though Apocryphal, more conducive to virtue than the writings of Monsieur La Rochefoucauld or, indeed, of Socrates himself, whose life he had read at the end of the Dictionary. Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoak the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that lasted until the Sultan returned to the harem and put the ladies and their tawny companions to the sword. The favourite’s plunging the dagger into her heart moved him to tears, but he dried them hastily on bethinking him she was a Mahometan, and asked of us, on our way home, whether there was no playhouse in London where they danced true Church of England pantomimes.