Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/63

watch them unobserved; for the other beings heed them not;—Cophetua-like, the King in his coronation robes is waltzing with a pretty Peasant Girl; and like Christina of Spain, the Queen is tête-à-tête with a soldier. The dancers give the impression of something aerial, ethereal, volatile,—something which rests and flies but walks not,—some species of splendid fly with wings half-open. The vulgar Idea of Sawdust vanishes before the reality of those slender and pliant limbs. They are preparing for the dance with a series of little exercises which provoke a number of charming images and call out all the supple graces of the figure; —it is Atalanta preparing to pursue Hippomenes; it is a butterfly shaking its wings; it is a white bird pluming itself with noiseless skill. But when the Terpsichorean flight is over, and the theatre shakes with applause; while the dancers shrink panting and exhausted into some shadowy hiding-place, breathing more hurriedly than a wrestler after a long bout,—thou wilt feel grateful to the humane spirits who break the applause with kindly hisses, and rebuke the ignorance which seeks only its own pleasure in cries of encore.