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HIS ART

which cannot be measured or referred to any standard of purely technical excellence. The word Genius, I believe, is rather out of fashion just now; but it has been used once or twice already in the course of this little book, and now it must be used again, if only because there is really no other word which at all expresses that peculiar element in Nijinsky's art which has here, somehow or other, to be explored.

Now, one of the principal marks of genius is the combination in one and the same person of talents, common enough in themselves, but rarely found together. Nijinsky's art is full of such combinations. One of them, for example, is that union of strength with lightness which is, perhaps, the most obvious feature of his style. Apart from the muscular development of hip and thigh, Nijinsky gives one the

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