TERPSICHORE

The Present Rage for Rhythmic Dancing and Blurred Art

Frederick Lewis Allen

EVER since our marriage Margetta and I have been addicted to amateur photography.

As I look back on our career, it divides itself into four periods. Of the first, the Bull's-Eye epoch, there remain only a few faded yellow specimens: sordid landscapes taken from the family buggy—with only a trace of a horse's ear in the foreground, and silly portraits of Margetta, who evidently dressed in a very dowdy manner in those days. The second period, that of our mania for lightning photography, is represented by several swift tennis pictures—consisting of a large player in the foreground, a distant net, and a diminutive opponent apparently a good quarter of a mile beyond it.

In the third period, we concentrated on blurry pictures of the "Photo-Era" school, scorning detail, willfully mismanaging the focus of our kodak, and striving to express the inner meaning of the subjects before us, and so to turn out things which people would squint at, at arms's length, and call "very decorative." The only trouble was that we always disagreed about the "inner meaning" of our photographs; we finally decided that it was easiest to decide this question after the prints were finished. For instance, my view of the Jones farm-house was taken looking toward the sun (this is practically necessary if you want to get a really fuzzy effect), and Margetta held up my hat in front of the camera to keep the light out of the lens. The print came out all foggy, with a dark blur at the top, which was really my hat, but passed very well, I thought, as a thunder cloud. The result of our examination of the picture was that we decided it gave a pictorial expression to nature in her unfriendly moods, and naming it "The Old Farm in the Grip of the Storm," hung it over the parlor book-case. And Tad—Margetta's brother—remarked, when we explained what it was, that every cloud was silver-lined, and that he could read "John B. Stetson" on the lining of this one. The remark merely shows Tad's lack of taste.

It is with difficulty that I speak of the fourth and last period of our artistic evolution. Here again we got our inspiration from a magazine; for we were not—I say it humbly—among the first to take the camera to the dizzy heights of Parnassus.

IT appears that some man of vision, getting the notion that the one-step, even as capitalized by the Vernon Castles, was not wholly satisfactory from the standpoint of esthetics, had amused himself by experimenting with some new steps each morning while his bath was running; and, there being no mirrors in the bathroom, had decided that Nature expressed herself beautifully by means of rhythm. Pan and Apollo, he claimed, must have continually sought emotional outlet by means of the dance—if only to keep warm when the east winds came in from the Aegean —and the photographer could achieve Art only by representing Pallas Athene out for her morning scamper.

It was a great idea. The models said they liked it; it was so easy to put on a costume made out of old sheets and to have a good fling on the warm sand of a beach! The photographers liked it, too; people rushed to buy the photographs, and there was a perceptible falling off in the number of people who remarked: "How nice it must be to have these nice pictures to remember your good times with!" And if you got the things blurry enough you could make Art out of anything.

ONE day I brought home a magazine full of these pictures, and Margetta and I looked it over. 1 fell for the idea like a shot; I liked particularly a view of a pupil of the "School of Rhythm, Hygiene, Physical Culture, and Correlated Arts," prancing among the sand dunes. Margetta was inclined to scofl for a while; her first comment was, "Athens goes license by large majority." But she showed rising enthusiasm over the other pictures; she liked particularly a stunning view of Minerva, somewhat distorted, swimming under water in the pool of Helicon.

There was no doubt about it; we must emulate the Greeks and take up the Photography of Rhythm. There was one obstacle, to be sure. We were spending the summer at a boarding house at Cliff Head, which, combining as it does the functions of suburb and summer resort, is thickly settled with cottages. And the prosaic cottagers, we knew, had no notion that Rhythm was the Handmaid of Art and we its disciples; the only Rhythm they knew was the handmaid of Mr. and Mrs. Castle, and its disciples the nightly onesteppers at the Yacht Club. But Margetta hit on a way out of the difficulty,

"THERE are people about the crannies of Cliff Head all day," she said, "except in the early morning. Let us rise with the sun, go down to the cliff rocks—to that cove where we'd be out of sight of any houses—and give ourselves up to rhythm until seven o'clock. I shall photograph you as you flit from jag to jag, and you will just make the house in time to gobble your eggs and get the 7.58."

We had a momentary difference of ooinion as to who should first do the flitting, but Margetta could not deny that my figure was more Roman than Athenean, and she finally came around to my way of thinking. The costume, one of those white, flowing, gauzy things, came very easy; Margetta made it in no time out of an old—well, as I say, it came very easy.

So it was that a bright July morning found us up with the milkman and off for the Cliff Head rocks with our camera. The conditions were ideal. The grass was silvery with dew, the sky clear, and the eastern water all aglitter with sunshine. As we left the houses behind us and and stepped out on the lonely rocks, I drew a long breath of rapture.

"By Jove," I cried, "I am getting to feel more Greek every minute! What a morning! How clearly we can see that lobster man's boat put-putting out there on the bay!"

Margetta was disappointing. "Yes," she cried, "and how clearly that lobster man will be able to see me, making a fool of myself on the shore!"

My momentary fears that Margetta would rebel were, however, soon allayed. I reproved her somewhat severely, telling her that if she thought dancing was foolish, it just showed how far she had drifted from a spontaneous life.

Margetta retired into a crevice, and presently emerged, in the sunshine, in her white costume. A moment later she began, with a sickly grin, a few sinuous contortions on a shelving piece" of rock close to the water's edge, while I arranged the camera.

Suddenly Margetta yelped with pain. "I can't really let myself out," she said. "There are barnacles all over the lower part of this ledge."

"Well," I replied, "dance higher up then. Only steer clear of that seaweed; it's slippery. Come ahead, Margetta, lash yourself about! Express the beauty of the morning in terms of rhythm!" I was hugely excited.

MARGETTA measured the available space carefully with her eye, and made another spasmodic effort, but it was no use. It appears that the soles of sea-nymphs' feet must have been considerably tougher than Margetta's. She was driven to give up her prancing for some plain poses. So, in a moment we were off on a new track; Margetta crouched down by a little pool in the rocks and posed for a picture to be entitled "Andromeda Unbound." After that she crouched again in practically the same position, this picture to be called, "Narcissus: A Study." Here we stuck a bit. But, after a period of thought, during which Margetta kept complaining of the cold and telling me to hurry up and decide on something, for goodness' sake, I hit on an idea which I knew was Art itself.

"This little study," I informed Margetta, "is to be called, 'Aphrodite surprised at the Bath.' You are to assume a worried expression, glance over your shoulder like a startled faun, and-"

"Never!" Margetta was firm. "Aphrodite and I have different ideas about what is worn on these little suburban occasions. Besides, it's awfully cold."

"My dear," I replied, "you misunderstand me entirely. On this occasion Aphrodite had just time to put on her 'je-ne-sais-quoi' before the photographer arrived."

"I see. 'Snatching up her sponge-bag, the well-known goddess cast only the fleetest glance—in which were mingled timidity, maidenly modesty, and other appropriate sentiments—at the representative of the press, and beat it.'"

"Expressed rather lightly, that is just what I want," I told Margetta. " Now, would you mind stepping to that little smooth place between those two patches of barnacles, and crouching in terror . . . That's about it . . . Now, look up to the left, as though the intruder were coming down over those rocks .

I SQUEEZED the bulb, and just as I did so, the look of dismay came over Margetta's face with a suddenness and a genuineness which surpassed my wildest hopes. Without warning, she turned and ducked out of sight around the corner of the cliff. Instinctively I, too, glanced up over the rocks and I cursed our luck. Down over the ledges ambled Tad, dressed coolly and immaculately in flannels and a tweed coat; and he grinned at me. Tad, as I may have intimated before, is an utter Philistine, even if he has the odd good fortune to be Margetta's brother.

"Well, you arc the darned fools," he said. "I've been watching you for ten minutes— standing up there behind that jag of rock trying to guess what you were up to. I say, where's Margetta? " He looked all about with a vague smile. "Proserpine, you're wanted . . . Here, boy, page Proserpine . . . Come out, Minerva, it's only Apollo!"

Rather sheepishly Margetta returned. I faced Tad with some annoyance. "That's really all screamingly funny," I said with a sneer, "but you don't understand what we're doing, and really, you might just as well go up to the house. I'm afraid you aren't in sympathy with the Hellenic idea."

Margetta came to my assistance; I say it to her credit. "Do run along, Taddy," she implored. "Please."

But Tad was unmoved. He only sat quietly down and settled himself as if for a theatrical performance. "I can learn, perhaps," he begged plausibly. "Let me sit at your feet as you dance and sing, and perhaps, rude barbarian that I am, I may nevertheless absorb something of the lyric spirit. Dance on. I shall remain here quietly, and mayhap sing anon, or play sweet melodies of Sappho upon the harmonica and other Arcadian instruments. Fire ahead."

"Tad," said Margetta, "please go."

"You simply will have to stop this silly nonsense," I protested in my turn, " or we shall be forced to give up our whole morning's plan. I don't like to have to send you away, but-"

"Well, then, you needn't," he returned, with a manner of offensive levity. "Now snap things right along. Are you ready, Minerva? Are you ready, Eastman? . . Play ball . . . Our first picture this morning, ladies and gentlemen, will represent a goddess with a toothbrush. Title, 'Ariadne in Kolynos.' Ariadne will please moisten her lips and assume a pleasant, though natural, smile. Excellent . . . Now still . . . One moment, please. Will the soft-shelled crab in the next to the last row kindly turn the lower edges of his glasses in? Thank you . . . Now still, Ariadne ... All over. Proofs will be ready Friday at 5 P. M."

MARGETTA and I exchanged glances of dismay. Tad was impossible. In fact, there is no telling how long he might have run on this way had not a force more compelling than either Margetta or myself interrupted him. A fair-sized wave poured itself, without warning, about Margetta's bare ankles. Margetta, who had been little by little succumbing to physical and spiritual gooseflesh, squealed aloud. And this proof of the rising tide reminded us simultaneously of two disquieting facts. Margetta thought of her clothes; I of the passing time. Margetta, with as much speed as the barnacles would permit, made for her improvised dressing-room. I pulled out my watch. "Good Lord, Margetta!" I cried, "it's quarter to eight! I have just thirteen minutes to catch my train." I leaped to my feet. "Come along! Hurry up!"

Margetta's voice came hollowly from a crevice in the rocks, which she was gingerly climbing down. "I can't come in these things," she complained; "the place will be simply full of motors going to the train. Oh, don't leave me! Wait till I get my clothes!"

ALREADY I was climbing the rocks; but I paused for a moment beside Tad. "Your train?" he admonished me. "What are trains to the Greek Spirit? Cannot Apollo's winged O'Sullivans outstrip the fleetest express? Why will you not tarry with Father Neptune and the birds and fishes? Besides, Margetta may not want to come home just now. Father Neptune has her dress."

Casually Tad pointed at the little waves which leaped about the rocks below him. I followed the line of his finger, and there floated Margetta's gown. The sea had indeed been rising . . .

I suppose our morning's work cannot be considered entirely successful, especially as, through Margetta's stupidity, the camera had been set all along for time exposures, and only "Aphrodite at the Bath" came out at all.